The White Stripes
The White Stripes were an American rock duo formed in Detroit, Michigan, in 1997. The group consisted of Jack White and Meg White. They were a leading group of the 2000s indie and garage rock revivals.
Beginning in the late 1990s, the White Stripes sought success within the Detroit music scene, releasing six singles and two albums. They first found commercial success with their acclaimed third album, White Blood Cells, which propelled the band to the forefront of the garage rock movement. Their fourth album, Elephant, drew further success, winning the band their first Grammy Awards. It produced the single "Seven Nation Army", which became a sports anthem and the band's signature song. They experimented extensively on their fifth album, Get Behind Me Satan. They returned to their blues roots with their sixth and final album, Icky Thump, which was praised like the band's earlier albums. By the end of the 2000s, the White Stripes accumulated three entries on the US Billboard Hot 100, eleven entries on the US Alternative Airplay chart, and thirteen entries on the UK singles chart. After a lengthy hiatus from performing and recording, the band dissolved in 2011.
The White Stripes used a low-fidelity approach to writing and recording. Their music featured a melding of garage rock and blues influences and a raw simplicity of composition, arrangement, and performance. The duo were noted for their mysterious public image, their fashion and design aesthetic which featured a simple color scheme of red, white, and black—which was used on every album and single cover they released—and their fascination with the number three. They made selective media appearances, including Jim Jarmusch's anthology film Coffee and Cigarettes and the documentary Under Great White Northern Lights.
The White Stripes released six studio albums, two live albums, and one compilation album. They received numerous accolades, including a Brit Award from six nominations and six Grammys from eleven nominations. White Blood Cells appears on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "200 Definitive Albums", while both that album and Elephant appear on Rolling Stone
History
1997–1999: Early years, formation and ''The White Stripes''
In high school, Jack Gillis met Meg White at the Memphis Smoke—the restaurant where she worked and where he would read his poetry at open mic nights. The two started dating and began frequenting the coffee shops, local music venues, and record stores of the area. Gillis was an established drummer during this period, performing with his upholstery apprenticeship mentor, Brian Muldoon, the Detroit cowpunk band Goober & the Peas, the garage punk band the Go, the Hentchmen, and Two-Star Tabernacle.Gillis and White were married in 1996. Contrary to convention, he took his wife's surname. On Bastille Day 1997, the White Stripes played their first concert, 2 months after Meg started learning to play the drums. In Jack'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." The couple then became a band and, while they considered calling themselves Bazooka and Soda Powder, they settled on the White Stripes.
The White Stripes had their first live performance on August 14, 1997, at the Gold Dollar bar in Detroit. They began their career as part of the Michigan underground garage rock scene, playing with local bands such as the Hentchmen, the Dirtbombs, the Gories, and Rocket 455. In 1998, Dave Buick—owner of an independent, Detroit-based, garage-punk label called Italy Records—approached the band at a bar and asked if they would like to record a single. Jack initially declined, believing it would be too expensive, but he eventually reconsidered when he realized that Buick was offering to pay for it. Their debut single, "Let's Shake Hands", was released on vinyl in February 1998 with an initial pressing of 1,000 copies. This was followed in October 1998 by the single "Lafayette Blues" which, again, was only released on vinyl with copies.
In 1999, the White Stripes signed with the California-based label Sympathy for the Record Industry. In March 1999, they released the single "The Big Three Killed My Baby", followed by their debut album, The White Stripes, on June 15, 1999. The self-titled debut was produced by Jack and engineered by American music producer Jim Diamond at his Ghetto Recorders studio in Detroit. The album was dedicated to the seminal Mississippi Delta blues musician Son House, an artist who influenced Jack. 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 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." AllMusic said of the album: "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."
2000–2002: ''De Stijl'' and ''White Blood Cells''
The White Stripes released "Hand Springs" as a 7" split single with fellow Detroit band the Dirtbombs on the B-side in 2000; it was recorded in late 1999. Several copies came free with the pinball fanzine Multiball. Jack and Meg divorced in March of that same year. The White Stripes were scheduled to perform at a local music lounge soon after they separated. Jack assumed the band was over and asked Buick and nephew Ben Blackwell to perform with him in the slot that had been booked for the White Stripes. However, the day they were supposed to perform, Meg convinced Jack that the White Stripes should continue and the band reunited.The White Stripes' second album, De Stijl, was released on the Sympathy for the Record Industry label on June 20, 2000. The songs were recorded on an 8-track analog tape in Jack's living room, De Stijl displays the simplicity of the band's blues and "scuzzy garage rock" 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 album was dedicated to furniture designer and architect Gerrit Rietveld of the De Stijl movement, as well as to the influential Georgia bluesman Blind Willie McTell. De Stijl eventually reached number 38 on Billboard Magazine's Independent Albums chart in 2002, around the time the White Stripes' popularity began establishing itself. One New York Times critic at the time said that the Stripes typified "what many hip rock fans consider real music."
Party of Special Things to Do was released as a 7" on Sub Pop in December 2000. It comprised three songs originally performed by Captain Beefheart, an experimental blues rock musician.
The White Stripes' third album, White Blood Cells, was released on July 3, 2001, on Sympathy for the Record Industry. The band enjoyed its first significant success the following year with the major label re-release of the album on V2 Records. 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. Several outlets praised their "back to basics" approach. After their first appearance on network TV, Joe Hagan of The New York Times declared, "They have made rock rock again by returning to its origins as a simple, primitive sound full of unfettered zeal."
White Blood Cells peaked at number 61 on the Billboard 200, reaching Gold record status by selling over 500,000 albums. It reached number 55 in the United Kingdom, being bolstered in both countries by the single "Fell in Love with a Girl" and its accompanying Lego-animation music video directed by Michel Gondry. The video won three awards at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards: Breakthrough Video, Best Special Effects, and Best Editing, and the band played the song live at the event. It was also nominated for Video of the Year, but fell short of winning. It also spawned the acclaimed singles "Hotel Yorba", "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground", and "We're Going to Be Friends". Stylus Magazine rated White Blood Cells as the fourteenth greatest album of 2000–2005, while Pitchfork ranked it eighth on their list of the top 100 albums from 2000 to 2004.
In 2002, George Roca produced and directed a concert film about the band titled Nobody Knows How to Talk to Children. It chronicles the White Stripes' four-night stand at New York City's Bowery Ballroom in 2002, and contains live performances and behind-the-scenes footage. Its 2004 release was suppressed by the band's management, however, after they discovered that Roca had been showing it at the Seattle Film Festival without permission. According to the band, the film was "not up to the standards our fans have come to expect"; even so, it remains a highly prized bootleg. Also in 2002, they appeared as musical guests on Saturday Night Live.