A Deep Dive into The White Stripes: Part 1

My [music listening] goal for last month was to finally finish The White Stripes discography front to back. I did, and all I can really say is: Holy Shit. 

I’ve always been familiar with the band, and knew about 75% of their music, but I had never sat down and did a full listen through of everything they had to offer. It’s been at least three years of me hailing Jack White as the coolest guy fucking ever [take him SAVING THE PUBLIC from a Morgan Wallen performance on SNL in 2020, doing an absolutely phenomenal song with Beyonce on her masterpiece Lemonade, or him swooping in and saving the Soundside Music Festival in 2024 with less a weeks notice - as I said, coolest guy fucking ever], and I’ve always adored Meg White and her drumming style. It was their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year - maybe the only one I was truly excited about of who got in - that made me finally go through their catalog. And they truly are one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time. 

What I find so interesting about he band has always been a sort of social experiment, a litmus test to a public that has become too involved in their entertainers lives. Why did they match all the time? Were they married or siblings? Why do they make such old school music with little to no modern twist? Why did they only utilize a guitar and drums? The White Stripes aimed to answer none of those questions. All you were given was their music. I’ve always sort of loved that about the duo, that there were always so many questions and no answer to any of them - it was all about the music. Rock music became overtaken by images and characters, but none quite like The White Stripes, whose characters were all you had, with no explanation only performance. Jack has stated that the band’s messaging was to convey an innocence that was often lost as people got older. The color scheme and matching outfits like uniforms, the childlike understanding portrayed through their early songs. Like I said, they were characters in this world, confusing and unable to be understood simply or quickly. Their music was simple but was clearly thought out and orchestrated, their songs tackled adult ideas with a childlike philosophy. 

“We wanted things to be as childish as possible, but with no sense of humor, because that’s how children think. Children also fib, conflating truth and fiction, real and fake, for the mere fun of it." - Jack White to Spin Magazine, 2002

I am dying to talk about their work, so I have dedicated my next two weeks to them. This post will be their first three albums, and next week their last three. I hope you enjoy a very passionate exploration into one of my new favorite rock bands, though do keep mind to the fact I am leaving my objectivity at the door.

The White Stripes (1999): From the moment you enter their world you are quite literally enthralled in any and everything they are doing. Heavy, shaking drums and fast-paced

riffs are the first things you hear, before Jack’s distorted vocal comes in about thirty seconds in. This is your introduction to the band. It sounds like they were recording in a tin-can, every sound sticks together as the songs trudge on. On the first track Jimmy the Explorer, as they slow down towards the middle, you can barely hear Jack’s refrain of green apples under the sticky crashing of instruments. The second track is a cover of Robert Johnson’s classic Stop Breaking Down, bringing out the blues flavor that made them so unique at the time. Through the 80s and 90s, rock music became bigger than it ever had, everything about spectacle or pushing the envelope. The roots of rock music - the blues - were being upheld in earnest by The Rolling Stones and

about no one else. Yeah, The Black Crowes were

popular for a year or two and you could make arguments for Aerosmith, but blues rock was a dying breed. The White Stripes brought it back. There's a fasinating interview with Jack from 2005 where he bemoans the state of current music, asking why nobody want's to sound like the past anymore. For decades, artists innovations came from building upon what others had done by doing exactly what was already done and twisting it into a new, unique thing. By the late 1990s, it wasn't cool to sound like someone else anymore. It was considered lazy, uninspired, pointless. The White Stipes burst on the scene covering songs that had been old when the Stones did them twenty years previously, but it didn't sound old or lazy. Hearing their brand of the blues, it wasn't just regurgitated, note for note reenactments of already great songs. You heard these songs infused with a certain Detroit flavor, taking from the new while upholding the old. There was a quality to their work that had been gone for so long, they were simple but unique. It could look like just about anyone could do what they did but it’s deeply untrue. They were tight, making larger-than-life sounds that filled out each song with just the two of them. At points you listen through their first album and you see so much promise, it’s so obvious they’ll only get better. I think it’s a good debut, but probably their weakest output. Highlights are Astro, for that insane drum and riff mix over Jack’s vocal, their Dylan cover of the supremely underrated One More Cup of Coffee that keeps to the original while fitting it into their style, and the albums hands-down stand out: St. James Infirmary Blues. Amazing on every front, highly recommended even if you don’t listen to anything else on the album. A sign of the superb things to come. 

The White Stripes performing St. James Infirmary Blues in 2005

De Stilj (2000): I liked their first album, but while listening through De Stijl I found myself

questioning multiple times if this was in fact one of the greatest albums I’d ever heard. It takes everything from the first album and heightens it - they’re louder, the songs are longer, there is never a let up from the gas pedal. That’s something you learn as you go through, they only get better after never once needing to really improve. Starting with You’re Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl), the song is just so fun. It’s catchier than anything on their debut, it plays like a second-tier British Invasion single with updated lyrics. The vocals are turned up into the mix, no longer caught under the instrument tracks. The riffs are great on this album specifically, I’d argue out of all their albums this may be the best for Jack. On nearly every album, it's hard to deny that Meg steals the show with her insane rhythmic timing and precision, but De Stijl really is Jack's crowning achievement. His vocals sound fresh and clear, at points it’s like a different person sings each song the way he changes his style from track to track. His guitar playing begins to really shine here as well, becoming a focal point of a bulk of the tracks. I personally hate flashy players, I tend to veer towards those underrated and unassuming players whose genius only really strikes in quiet moments: Mike Campbell, Mick Taylor, Jeff Beck, Prince. Jack fits into

this group as well,  he’s phenomenal at making the

guitar sound like a percussive instrument as opposed to the star of the show, he plays it in the way most bands would utilize a bass. His orgin as a drummer who just happens to play guitar comes into play, each lick he plays sounds like it could fall apart at any moment if he put any more agression into it. Listen to Apple Blossom for the mixture of his acoustic playing and then his electric bridge, or Jumble, Jumble where the repetitive, alarm-like riff steals the show. My favorite track on the album is hand’s down A Boy’s Best Friend. It starts off almost feeling like it’s been slowed down, Meg’s drum beats are few and far between and the guitar seems like it’s been plucked through molasses. Jack’s vocals are mixed further back than the rest of the album, he’s singing in this weirdly distant yet emotional vocal. The instrumental break towards the middle breaks into this disjointed mess of sounds: an out of time tambourine, the guitar goes rouge, the inter-spliced drum beats. It comes across like children playing with their toy instruments than the high caliber musicians that are present through the rest of the song, making it even more jarring when the vocals come back and you hear Jack’s mature vocal saying My dogs come sit next to me, a pack of dogs and cigarettes / My only friends speak no words to me, but they look at me and they don’t forget / That a boy’s best friend is his mother or whatever has become his pet. It harkens back to him saying the band is to sound like children without any humor seeping through, how the reasoning present on the song is unflinchingly honest but childish in practice. It's an utter tragedy this has never been performed live, by the way.

The White Stripes performing You're Pretty Good Looking (For A Girl) in 2003

White Blood Cells (2001): Another one where each track makes you question if you’re listening to the greatest album ever recorded. If the first two albums were finding their

footing, White Blood Cells is going to the only logical ending of where they were starting. I would argue the band’s career can be sliced perfectly in half with their blues trilogy (self-titled through White Blood Cells) and their experimental trilogy (Elephant through Icky Thump). White Blood Cells is the beginning of this pivot, leaving behind the strong blues rock sounds of the first two albums and becoming the garage rock heroes their legacy is shaded by. It introduced them to the wider world as well, being a commerical break-through after the cult-like success of their early years. Dead Leaves and Dirty Ground opens the album, throwing you right into the new, power-steam sounds of the band. Hotel Yorba is another standout, Meg's specular drumming and backing vocals elevate it to the Gods. Also another great lyric, It might sound silly for me to think childish thoughts like these, But I'm so tired of acting tough and I'm gonna do what I please. Of course you have one of the best rock songs of the 2000s as well, Fell In Love With A Girl, a song so good it was responsible for the garage rock revival of the decade. Rolling Stone magazine even listed it as one of the most important songs in rock and roll just six years after it came out. I Smell a Rat, Aluminium, I Can Learn - every song on the album is a masterclass in every sense of the word. This is The White Stripes

the world came to love, for good reason too. But there is one song that stands above the rest, maybe even the rest of their discography. Over every perfect forte into the blues, every expertly crafted note, and perfectly unpolished sound, there's a simple song that I truly believe is a standard tucked away in this rough and rowdy catalog. At any given moment, I could cry when I hear We’re Going to Be Friends. It’s always done that to me, this song may as well have been my introduction to the band back when I was no more than a toddler. Featured on the Curious George soundtrack before being utilized as a PBS commercial bumper. It’s unlike anything else they’ve ever released, an ode to kindergarten as opposed to high school drop-outs. It’s simple, it’s soft, it’s sweet. It’s sung with a tenderness that most adults could never harbour, Jack’s vocal comes across sweeter here than anywhere else. It still sounds undeniably like him - the certain inflictions in his voice stay as he reverts back to this childhood memory. To be quite honest I think it’s one of the greatest songs ever written, written simply enough it can appeal to the children whose story it tells and to the adults who can fall back into that time in their lives with each strum of the acoustic guitar. It’s bigger than The White Stripes in many ways - a staple for every person lucky enough to hear it. Tonight I'll dream, while I'm in bed, when silly thoughts go through my head about bugs and alphabet / And when I wake tomorrow, I'll bet that you and I will walk together again.

The White Stripes performing We're Going to Be Friends on Saturday Night Live in 2001

Everything about White Blood Cells was a commentary on the world Jack and Meg White now found themselves in. Jack said of the title and cover photo in 2001: "When does music become a business and why do we have to be suckered into it? [..] The name for the album was chosen as "this idea of bacteria coming at us, or just foreign things coming at us, or media, or attention on the band.” The idea behind the band was to convey this childlike innocence and simplicity that often gets lost too early. Their monochromatic looks, their simplistic yet tight playing, the songs that seem to come from the mind and feelings of a child as opposed to adults. While Jack and Meg were a married couple during the late 90s, they chose to pose publicly as siblings to construct this idea even more. Saying they were the youngest of ten, letting their work be viewed separate from their relationship so constant questions about it wouldn’t become standard. The choice to bring back the blues, a style that relies on emotions as opposed to technicality, everything about the band during their early years was a study on the listener. Those who were able to get past the fact they couldn’t understand were treated royally to some of the best musicians to ever grace the genre. Everyone else? Well, they liked it too even if they didn’t want to admit it.

A pretty stellar performance of Hotel Yorba on Later with Jools Holland: