Intimate Secretary
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Broken Boy Soldiers
Studio album by The Raconteurs
Released	May 16, 2006
Recorded	2005
Genre	Hard rock, Indie rock, blues rock, folk rock[1]
Length	33:42
Label	Third Man Records/ V2 Records
Producer	Jack White III and Brendan Benson
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Cluas (7/10) link Drowned in Sound (8/10) link entertainment.ie 5/19/2006 Entertainment Weekly (B-) 5/12/2006 NME (6/10) link Pitchfork (7.3/10) 5/15/2006 Popmatters (6/10) 5/12/2006 Rolling Stone link
The Raconteurs chronology
Broken Boy Soldiers (2006) Consolers of the Lonely (2008)
Australian Cover
Released under the name 'The Saboteurs' in Australia

Broken Boy Soldiers is the debut album of The Raconteurs, released on May 15, 2006 in the United Kingdom and May 16, 2006 in the United States. The album was generally favored among critics and spawned the hit single "Steady, As She Goes".

Recording history

The songs were written by Benson and White. "Steady, As She Goes" was the first song the pair worked on, followed by "Broken Boy Soldier". After the completion of these two songs and their demos, they called in Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler to work on the songs.

In an interview with Uncut magazine White said that "Store Bought Bones" originated from an outtake of The White Stripes album, Get Behind Me Satan. In the same interview, Benson also said that "Call It a Day" and "Together" were both songs he was working on for his next solo album. "Yellow Sun" was recorded live, according to an interview with the band on AOL Interface.^{citation needed}

Benson said in an interview with Mojo magazine that the album feels like a demo because of how the band plays the songs live now. "Hands" features a "Back in Black" style outro, "Call It a Day" has been sped up (found on the Zane Lowe EP), "Store Bought Bones" has been merged with B-side "The Bane Rendition", and many other changes.

The cover was photographed by Autumn de Wilde and designed by Patrick Keeler and Aleksey Shirokov.

Reception

Critics were generally favorable towards Broken Boy Soldiers. Rolling Stone said of the album "Expectations were sky-high, but the Raconteurs exceed them all."¹ People magazine gave the album three-and-a-half stars, making the album the Critic's Choice of the week; they commented "Broken Boy Soldiers incorporates just enough weirdness to show that he (White) hasn't completely changed his stripes."² More conservatively, Billboard remarked "No one is breaking any ground here, and White fanatics looking for a new White Stripes record should temper their expectations. But as far as side projects go, this is as good as it gets."³

The album ranked No. 28 on Rolling Stone's year-end critic's list and No. 19 on Spin Magazine's year-end Top 40 albums. It entered the UK charts at #2 and managed to reach #7 in the U.S. Since its release, it has sold approximately 425,000 copies in the U.S.⁴ In December 2006, Britain's Mojo magazine made it their Album of the Year. The lead single "Steady, As She Goes" became the band's first Top 10 hit in the UK.

Track listing

All songs by Brendan Benson and Jack White.

1. "Steady, As She Goes" – 3:35
2. "Hands" – 4:01
3. "Broken Boy Soldiers" – 3:02
4. "Intimate Secretary" – 3:30
5. "Together" – 3:58
6. "Level" – 2:21
7. "Store Bought Bones" – 2:25
8. "Yellow Sun" – 3:20
9. "Call It a Day" – 3:36
10. "Blue Veins" – 3:52

Personnel

• Jack White - vocals, guitars, keyboards
• Jack Lawrence - bass guitar
• Patrick Keeler - drums
• Brendan Benson - vocals, guitars, keyboards

Sources

[2]

References