Just a quick post about a quick video that hit me like a ton of bricks when I saw it over the weekend. No… a ton of bricks seems way too slow. This video for Jack White’s new song “Sixteen Saltines,” which features a terrifying hellscape where kids are left to their own (apparently) depraved and destructive devices, is more like the audiovisual equivalent of speeding down a residential street at 70 mph and blasting every single mailbox along the way to tiny bits with a baseball bat. The song itself clocks in at just 2:36 — good news, because I don’t know if I could have stood one more moment of this video. Not because it’s gory or scary in a conventional sense, but because it traffics in a special kind of anxiety that may very well have been extracted, Monster’s, Inc.-style, directly from the brains of worried parents whose children are out past curfew. But as hard as it is to watch, and as little interest as I have in watching it again, this is definitely one of the best, most complementary videos I’ve seen in a long, long time. These disturbing, impossible-to-forget images are the perfect face for the song’s aggressive tone and instantaneously catchy “who’s jealous who’s jealous who’s jealous who’s jealous of who” melody. Seriously — listen below or watch above and try to get that puppy out of your head in 5 minutes or less. Ain’tgonnahappen. Look for “Sixteen Saltines” on Jack White’s very first solo album, entitled Blunderbuss, out April 24 (you can pre-order it here).

Jack White — “Sixteen Saltines” [Spotify/iTunes]