White Blood Cells is the third studio album by American rock duo the White Stripes, independently released by the Sympathy for the Record Industry on July 3, 2001. Recording took place in Memphis, Tennessee at Easley-McCain Recording over three days, and was produced by guitarist and lead vocalist Jack White. Production was rushed in order to capture a "real tense feeling" and the band's energy, and was their first album to be mastered in a studio.
| White Blood Cells | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | July 3, 2001 | |||
| Recorded | February 2001 | |||
| Studio | Easley-McCain (Memphis, Tennessee) | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 40:25 | |||
| Label | Sympathy for the Record Industry | |||
| Producer | Jack White | |||
| The White Stripes chronology | ||||
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| Singles from White Blood Cells | ||||
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Following their success within the Detroit music scene, the White Stripes began to shift from their blues-inspired roots. Musically, White Blood Cells is a garage rock record featuring lyrics about love, hope, betrayal, and paranoia. For promotion, the band performed the album across a trio of shows in Detroit. The tracks "Hotel Yorba", "Fell in Love with a Girl", and "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" were also released as singles; "We're Going to Be Friends" was issued to rock radio, but did not receive a commercial single release.
White Blood Cells received widespread acclaim from music critics, and brought the band to the forefront of the 2000s garage rock revival. It peaked at number 61 on the Billboard 200 and became their first album to sell over a million copies, earning platinum certifications from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It is considered one of the greatest albums of the 21st century and of all-time, and has been included on several all-time lists.
Background and recording
The White Stripes previously sought success in the Detroit music scene, releasing two albums between 1999 and 2000. In the interim, bandmates Jack and Meg White divorced,[4] however Meg insisted that they continue working together.[5] They then began calling themselves siblings.[6] After rehearsing for a week,[7] The White Stripes recorded White Blood Cells over three days in February 2001, at Easley-McCain Recording in Memphis, Tennessee.[8][9][10] Meg was initially hesitant about rushing the recording process, believing the songs were "too new" and required more practice.[11] Rushing the record, however, was done in order to keep the album "as unorganized as possible" and get "a real tense" feeling.[12][13]
It was the band's first time recording, mixing and mastering their music in a 24-track recording studio, and Jack asked recording engineer Stuart Sikes more than once "not to make it sound too good."[11][14] According to Stuart Sikes, in order to save money, the first 12 tracks of the tape were used for one song, while on the remaining 12 tracks, another song would be recorded.[15]
The cover art of White Blood Cells depicts Jack and Meg surrounded by people wielding television and video cameras, which was intended to both comment and satirize on the music industry.[13] Jack said in a 2001 interview: "When does music become a business and why do we have to be suckered into it? Why do we have to buy a cell phone, you know what I mean? A lot of that stuff upsets me. It gets annoying."[7] 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, it just seems to us that there are so many bands from the same time or before we started that were playing and are still playing that didn't get this kind of attention that we're getting. Is the attention good or bad? When you open the CD, it's a picture of us with these cameras. Wondering if it's good or bad."[14]
White Blood Cells was dedicated to Loretta Lynn, creating a friendship between Lynn, Jack and Meg; Jack later produced Lynn's 2004 album Van Lear Rose.[16]
Music and lyrics
Continuing the stripped-down garage rock nature of the duo, White Blood Cells features less of the band's blues rock influences, instead displaying a more raw, basic, and primitive rock and roll sound.[18] Shortly before the release of White Blood Cells, Jack asserted that "There's no blues on the new record. We're taking a break from that. There's no slide work, bass, guitar solos, or cover songs. It's just me and Meg, guitar, drums and piano."[7][14] All material on White Blood Cells is original, and is one of two White Stripes albums to not feature any covers.[7]
The lyrics featured in White Blood Cells explore love, hope, betrayal, and paranoia, brought on by the increasing media attention the duo began receiving.[18][19] Some of the songs were written in the band's early years. "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" was written by Jack before the duo released their debut album The White Stripes in 1999; it is speculated to be based on the end of Jack and Meg's marriage, though neither have commented on the matter.[20] Some material for White Blood Cells was also inspired by other side-projects of Jack.[21] Jack said being able to utilize his older works was "cool because a lot of things had been sitting around for a long time, stuff I had written on piano that had been just sitting around not doing anything. And it was good to put them all together at once, put them all in the same box and see what happened."[14]
"Little Room" is "homily", written in response to White's favorite song, "Grinnin' in Your Face" by Son House.[22] "The Union Forever" contains allusions to Citizen Kane (1941), Jack's favorite film, and nearly every line in the song comes from the movie;[17] Warner Bros. was once rumored to be suing the band over copyright infringement for Citizen Kane.[23] "Hotel Yorba" is based on the former hotel of the same name, which was a couple of blocks from Jack's childhood home.[7] Two consecutive tracks described by Stylus Magazine's Andrew Unterberger as engaging filler, "I Think I Smell a Rat" features lines that rhyme with "rat", while "Aluminum" is a heavy metal instrumental that features Jack and Meg screaming wordlessly over a sludgey guitar riff akin to early Nirvana.[24]
Release and promotion
White Blood Cells was released by the Sympathy for the Record Industry label on July 3, 2001.[25] Three weeks before its release, the White Stripes performed three well-received shows in Detroit at the Gold Dollar, the Magic Bag, and the Magic Stick.[14][26][27] It then received a major label re-release by V2 Records in 2002.[28][29]
White Blood Cells continues to be reissued.[30] In April 2021, on the album's 20th anniversary, Third Man Records released White Blood Cells XX, a companion album that includes home demos, early studio mixes, alternate takes, and a live show from September 6, 2001 at Headliner's in Louisville, Kentucky.[31]
Reception
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 86/100[32] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |  [33] |
| Alternative Press | 8/10[34] |
| Los Angeles Times |  [35] |
| NME | 8/10[36] |
| Pitchfork | 9.0/10[37] |
| Q |  [38] |
| Rolling Stone | [39] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [40] |
| Uncut | [41] |
| The Village Voice | A[42] |
White Blood Cells received widespread acclaim. Review aggregating website Metacritic reports a normalized score of 86 out of 100 based on 16 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[43] This makes White Blood Cells the White Stripes' second highest-scoring album on the website as of 2024. It drew praise in the United Kingdom on its initial release, and after its reissue by V2, was acclaimed in the United States;[44][45] outlets of both territories praised the band's "back to basics" approach.[46][47][48]
AllMusic editor Heather Phares wrote: "Jack and Meg White's third effort for Sympathy for the Record Industry wraps their powerful, deceptively simple style around meditations on fame, love, and betrayal… it's precisely this mix of strength and sweetness, among other contrasts, that makes the White Stripes so intriguing. Likewise, White Blood Cells' ability to surprise old fans and win over new ones makes it one of the Stripes' finest albums."[25] Dan Killan and Ryan Schreiber of Pitchfork said that "Jack and Meg White summon the Holy Spirit and channel it through 16 perfectly concise songs of longing, with dirty, distorted electric guitar cranked to maximum amplification, crashing, bruised drums, and little else. They don't innovate rock; they embody it."[49] Rolling Stone said that, on White Blood Cells, "Jack's Delta-roadhouse fantasies, Detroit-garage-rock razzle and busted-love lyricism, as well as Meg's toy-thunder drumming all peaked at once."[50] Joe Hagan of The New York Times declared that the White Stripes "have made rock rock again by returning to its origins as a simple, primitive sound full of unfettered zeal."[51]
White Blood Cells earned platinum certifications from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI)[52] and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA),[53] and gold certifications from the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA)[54] and Music Canada (MC).[32] The album was bolstered by the "Fell in Love with a Girl" single and its Lego-animation music video,[55][56] which also earned a gold certification from the BPI.[52] It peaked at number 61 on the Billboard 200[57] and number 55 on the UK Albums Chart,[58] and became their first work to sell over 1 million copies in the United States.[59]
Accolades and legacy
White Blood Cells propelled the band to the forefront of the 2000s garage rock revival,[60] and is considered a defining album of the period.[61][62] It also earned the band their first accolades, including three awards at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards[63] and nominations at the 2002 MTV Europe Music Awards,[64] the 2002 MuchMusic Video Awards,[65] and the 2002 Shockwaves NME Awards.[66] Retrospectively, it has been cited one of the band's best albums and of all time.[67][68] Jon Lusk of BBC believed the album solidified their success thanks to "the crunching, insistent simplicity of Meg White’s drumming, which sticks like glue to Jack White’s intense, rhythmic, blues-based riffing; a broad, knowing sense of pop history, and of course their by now well-established red/white branding imagery."[69] Paul Travers of Louder called it "one of the first great albums of the 21st century" and their best album.[70]
White Blood Cells was included on many "best of 2001" year-end lists, including Blender,[71] Rolling Stone,[72] Mojo,[73][74] and Kerrang!'s top 20,[75] and NME,[76] Pitchfork,[77] and The Village Voice's top 10.[78] By the end of the 2000s, it was ranked as the best album of the decade by The A.V. Club and Uncut.[79][80] Billboard,[81][82] Rolling Stone,[83] NME[84] and Pitchfork[85] featured the album within the top 20 of their respective lists, and Consequence of Sound,[86] The Daily Californian, Glide, and Under the Radar featured the album within the top 30 of their respective lists.[87] It also appeared on Spin's lists of the "Top 100 Albums of the Last 20 Years" and the "125 Best Albums of the Past 25 Years" in 2005 and 2010, respectively.[88][89] It appeared on The Guardian's "1000 Albums To Hear Before You Die" list and ranked it number 178 on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "200 Definitive Albums" list, both in 2007.[90][91] Uncut ranked it first on their list of "The 150 Greatest Albums Of The 21st Century So Far" in 2009.[92] Slant Magazine ranked it number 68 on their list of the "Top 250 Albums of the 2000s" in 2010.[93] Rolling Stone ranked it number 497 on their "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list in 2012.[50] NME ranked it number 77 on their list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" in 2013.[94][a]
Redd Kross bassist Steven Shane McDonald created an online-only art project, titled Redd Blood Cells, in which he added a bass track to the otherwise bass-less album. The White Stripes arranged with Steven to take the files down after more than 60,000 downloads.[95] British choreographer Wayne McGregor used the track "Aluminum"—among other of the band's songs—for his production Chroma, a piece he created for the Royal Ballet in London, England.[96][97] It was played to the band as a surprise in Cincinnati Music Hall, Ohio in 2006,[98][99] and won the 2007 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production.[100] In addition, the song "We're Going to Be Friends" has appeared in the films Napoleon Dynamite,[101] Wonder,[102] and Mr. Harrigan's Phone,[103] and "Fell in Love with a Girl" was featured in the Oscar-winning film Silver Linings Playbook.[104] In 2018, English rock band Arctic Monkeys performed "The Union Forever" at a Detroit concert.[105][106]
Track listing
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" | 3:04 |
| 2. | "Hotel Yorba" | 2:10 |
| 3. | "I'm Finding It Harder to Be a Gentleman" | 2:54 |
| 4. | "Fell in Love with a Girl" | 1:50 |
| 5. | "Expecting" | 2:03 |
| 6. | "Little Room" | 0:50 |
| 7. | "The Union Forever" | 3:26 |
| 8. | "The Same Boy You've Always Known" | 3:09 |
| 9. | "We're Going to Be Friends" | 2:22 |
| 10. | "Offend in Every Way" | 3:06 |
| 11. | "I Think I Smell a Rat" | 2:04 |
| 12. | "Aluminum" | 2:19 |
| 13. | "I Can't Wait" | 3:38 |
| 14. | "Now Mary" | 1:47 |
| 15. | "I Can Learn" | 3:31 |
| 16. | "This Protector" | 2:12 |
| Total length: | 40:31 | |
All lyrics are written by Jack White; all music is composed by Jack and Meg White
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 17. | "Jolene" | 3:09 |
| 18. | "Hand Springs" | 2:57 |
Personnel
Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.[108]
The White Stripes
- Jack White – vocals, guitar, piano, production, mixing
- Meg White – drums, backing vocals
Production
- Stewart Sikes – engineering, mixing
- Fred Kevorkian – mastering
Artwork
- "The Third Man" – layout and design
- Patrick Pantano – photography
Charts
Weekly charts
|
Year-end charts
|
Certifications
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Australia (ARIA)[122] | Gold | 35,000^ |
| Canada (Music Canada)[123] | Gold | 50,000^ |
| Netherlands (NVPI)[124] | Gold | 40,000^ |
| United Kingdom (BPI)[125] | Platinum | 300,000* |
| United States (RIAA)[126] | Platinum | 1,114,000[127] |
|
* Sales figures based on certification alone. | ||
See also
Notes
References
External links
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