RETRO REVIEW / WHITE STRIPES - WHITE BLOOD CELLS

Stuart Green
Jul 3
2 min read

Today marks 25 years since the release of certainly not their first, maybe not even their most well known, but definitely the breakthrough album by The White Stripes. White blood cells.

When brother and sister (ex married couple) Jack and Meg White burst into the forefront of the early 2000s indie rock scene, they already had a respectable following, a fascinating look and two bluesy, psychedelic garage rock albums behind them. But when the two piece dropped ‘Hotel Yorba’, a cute, folky, acoustic first single, which instantly took over music television, we all sat up and took notice of The White Stripes.

Who could ever predict that they’d follow up with the fast paced, confident and dominating sound of ‘Fell in love with a girl’. A complete and utter contrast to the lead single from the album, this showed newcomers a whole new side to the duo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=RDfTH71AAxXmM&v=fTH71AAxXmM

It didn’t stop there either as blues inspired ‘Dead leaves & the dirty ground’ used squealing guitars and Son House inspired lyrics to round off a trio of singles from what would become a legendary album. By early 2002 the White Stripes were a fully recognised part of the elite when it came to new music.

The beautiful thing is, that the singles are fantastic but the album on a whole is wonderful from start to finish with standout album tracks like ‘Boy you’ve always known’, ‘Offend in every way’ and ‘I can tell that we are gonna be friends’’. After a quarter of a century, the whole album basically sounds like a greatest hits record as the vast majority of the track listing makes out most of mine, and many peoples, favourite White Stripes tracks.

This album set the White Stripes on fire and got them prepped for their 2003 release, ‘Seven nation army’…. Which you may, or may not have heard…. before they parted ways in 2011 and Jack White would go on to develop his solo career. The band are revered and Jack White stands as an icon in music history, but throughout his solo material, his Raconteurs or Dead Weather work, amongst several other projects, this album remains one of his finest creations, and I'm sure it will for yet another 25 years.