White Stripes on TV, Film and Video

The White Stripes is an American rock duo, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. The group consists of songwriter Jack White (vocals, guitar, piano, and once bass) and Meg White (drums and occasional vocals).

After releasing several singles and three albums within the Detroit independent music underground, The White Stripes rose to prominence in 2002, as part of the garage rock revival scene. Their successful albums White Blood Cells and Elephant drew them attention from a large variety of media outlets in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The White Stripes use a low-fidelity, do-it-yourself approach to writing and recording. Their music features a melding of punk and blues influences and a raw simplicity of composition, arrangement, and performance. The duo is also noted for their fashion and design aesthetic which features a simple color scheme of red, white, and black.

The White Stripes' discography consists of six studio albums, two extended plays (EP), one concert film, 26 singles and fourteen music videos. The band has sold approximately 12 million albums worldwide,[1][2] two million in the US alone,[3] and their latest three albums have each won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.[4]

Career

Early history

Jack White first played as a professional musician in the early 1990s, as a drummer for the Detroit cowpunk band Goober & the Peas.[5] This led to work with various other bands, such as the garage punk band The Go (on their 1999 album Whatcha Doin'), for whom White played lead guitar, and Two-Star Tabernacle.[6] Also, neighbor Brian Muldoon (later of The Muldoons) played drums with Jack White – still known then as Jack Gillis – and the duo informally called themselves Two Part Resin.[7] Their post-breakup 7-inch single Makers of High Grade Suites, released in 2000 on Sympathy for the Record Industry, is credited to The Upholsterers.

Gillis married local bartender Megan Martha White on September 21, 1996.[8][9] In unorthodox fashion, he took Meg White's surname.[10] While the newly-christened Jack White continued to play in multiple bands, Meg White first began to learn to play the drums in 1997. In Jack White's words, "When she started to play drums with me, just on a lark, it felt liberating and refreshing. There was something in it that opened me up".[11] The duo then became a band, calling themselves The White Stripes. They first performed publicly on July 14, 1997 at the Gold Dollar in Detroit.[12]

The White Stripes began their career as part of the Michigan underground garage rock scene, playing with local bands such as Bantam Rooster, The Dirtbombs, The Paybacks, Rocket 455, and The Hentchmen. The White Stripes were signed to Italy Records, a small and independent Detroit-based garage punk label, in 1998 by Dave Buick.[13] Buick approached them at a bar and asked if they would like to record a single for the label. Jack White initially declined, but eventually reconsidered.[14] Their debut single "Let's Shake Hands" was released in February 1998.[15] Its first pressing was 1,000 copies on vinyl only. This was followed in October 1998 by the "Lafayette Blues" single. Again, 1,000 copies were released on vinyl only.[16] A third single, "The Big Three Killed My Baby" on Sympathy for the Record Industry followed in March 1999.

During the early phase of their career, Jack and Meg White provided various descriptions of their relationship. In many early interviews Jack claimed that he and Meg were siblings, [17] a claim which was widely believed and repeated despite rumors that they were, or had been, husband and wife. [18] [19] In 2001, proof of their 1996 marriage emerged, [20] [21] yet they continued to insist publicly that they were brother and sister. The couple were divorced in March of 2000 just before the band gained widespread attention.[22]

In a 2005 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Jack White claimed that this open secret was intended to keep the focus on the music rather than the couple's relationship:

When you see a band that is two pieces, husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, you think, "Oh, I see . . ." When they're brother and sister, you go, "Oh, that's interesting." You care more about the music, not the relationship -- whether they're trying to save their relationship by being in a band. [23]

The White Stripes (1999)

The White Stripes' debut album, The White Stripes, was released on June 15, 1999 on the independent label Sympathy for the Record Industry.[24]

The self-titled debut was produced by Jack White and engineered by Jim Diamond at his Ghetto Recorders studio in Detroit.[25] The album was dedicated to the seminal, Detroit-area Delta blues musician, Son House—an artist who greatly influenced Jack White.[26][27] The track "Cannon" from The White Stripes contains part of an a cappella version, as performed by House, of the traditional American gospel blues song "John the Revelator". The White Stripes also covered House's song "Death Letter" on their follow-up album De Stijl.

Looking back on their debut during a 2003 interview with Guitar Player, Jack White said, "I still feel we've never topped our first album. It's the most raw, the most powerful, and the most Detroit-sounding record we've made."[28]

Allmusic said of the album:[24]

"Jack White's voice is a singular, evocative combination of punk, metal, blues, and backwoods while his guitar work is grand and banging with just enough lyrical touches of slide and subtle solo work... Meg White balances out the fretwork and the fretting with methodical, spare, and booming cymbal, bass drum, and snare... All D.I.Y. punk-country-blues-metal singer/songwriting duos should sound this good."

At the end of 1999, The White Stripes released "Hand Springs" as a 7" split single with fellow Detroit band The Dirtbombs on the B-side. 2,000 copies came free with the pinball fanzine Multiball. The record is currently—like the majority of vinyl records by The White Stripes—out of print and difficult to find.

De Stijl (2000)

The White Stripes' second album, De Stijl (Dutch for "The Style"), was released on the Sympathy for the Record Industry label on June 20, 2000.[29] Considered a cult classic[30] and self-recorded on an 8-track analog tape in Jack White's living room,[31][32] De Stijl displays the simplicity of the band's blues and punk fusion prior to their breakthrough success.

The album title derives from the Dutch art movement of the same name; common elements of the De Stijl aesthetic are demonstrated on the album cover, which sets the band members against an abstract background of rectangles and lines in red, black and white. The White Stripes have cited the minimalist and deconstructionist aspects of De Stijl design as a source of inspiration for their own musical image and presentation.[33] The album was dedicated to furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld of the De Stijl movement, as well as to the influential Georgia bluesman Blind Willie McTell.[34]

Party of Special Things to Do was released as a 7" on Sub-Pop in December 2000.[35] It comprised three songs originally performed by Captain Beefheart, an experimental blues-rock musician.

De Stijl eventually reached #38 on Billboard Magazine's Independent Albums chart in 2002 when The White Stripes' popularity began establishing itself.

White Blood Cells (2001)

The White Stripes' third album, White Blood Cells, was released on July 3, 2001 on Sympathy for the Record Industry.[36] The band enjoyed its first significant success the following year with the major label re-release of the album on V2 Records.[37] Its stripped-down garage rock sound drew critical acclaim in the UK, and in the US soon afterward, making The White Stripes one of the most acclaimed bands of 2002.[37][38]

Several outlets praised their "back to basics" approach,[39][40] with Daily Mirror calling them "the greatest band since The Sex Pistols."[41] In 2002, Q magazine named The White Stripes as one of "50 Bands to See Before You Die".[42] White Blood Cells peaked at number 61 on the Billboard 200, going Gold and selling over 500,000 units. The album reached number 55 in the United Kingdom, being bolstered in both territories by the "Fell in Love with a Girl" single and its Lego-animation music video directed by Michel Gondry. The video won in three awards at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards: Breakthrough Video, Best Special Effects, and Best Editing. It was also nominated for Video of the Year, but did not win.[43] Stylus Magazine later rated White Blood Cells the fourteenth greatest album of 2000–2005 [44], while Pitchfork Media ranked it eighth on their list of the top 100 albums from 2000–2004.[45]

Elephant (2003)

The White Stripes' fourth album, Elephant, was released in 2003 on V2.[46] It marked the band's major label debut and was their first UK chart-topping album, as well as their first US Top 10 album. The album eventually reached double platinum certification in Britain,[47] and platinum certification in the United States.[48]

Elephant was recorded in 2002 over the span of two weeks with British recording engineer Liam Watson at his Toe Rag Studios in London. Jack White self-produced the album with antiquated equipment, including a duct-taped 8-track tape machine and pre-1960s recording gear.[49]

Elephant garnered much critical acclaim upon its release.[38] It received a perfect 5 out of 5 star rating from Rolling Stone magazine, and enjoys a near-unanimous 92% positive rating on Metacritic.[50][51] Despite the band's increased fame, Allmusic believed the album "sounds even more pissed-off, paranoid, and stunning than its predecessor... Darker and more ...   More