White Stripes

”Elephant” is the fourth album by the American alternative rock band The White Stripes. The album debuted at number one in the United Kingdom and reached number six on the Billboard 200 in the US. The album won Grammys for Best Alternative Album and Best Rock Song ("Seven Nation Army"). In 2003, the album was ranked number 390 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Recently, Rolling Stone called Elephant the 5th best album of the decade, and Seven Nation Army the 6th best song of the decade.

The self-titled 1999 debut by the Michigan based debut, The White Stripes was at once a nod back to the American blues from the century about to end and a preview of the minimalist arrangements trend of the century to come. With great economy, the husband and wife duo of vocalist/guitarist Jack White and drummer Meg White deliver a loud, raunchy, unique blend of blues, punk, country and metal among this generous collection of both originals and covers.

According to Jack White, Get Behind Me Satan deals with "characters and the ideal of truth," but in truth, the album is just as much about what people expect from the White Stripes and what they themselves want to deliver. Advance publicity for the album stated that it was written on piano, marimba, and acoustic guitar, suggesting that it was going to be a quiet retreat to the band's little room after the big sound, and bigger success, of Elephant. Then "Blue Orchid," Get Behind Me Satan's lead single, arrived. A devilish slice of disco-metal with heavily processed, nearly robotic riffs, the song was thrilling, but also oddly perfunctory; it felt almost like a caricature of their stripped-down but hard-hitting rock.

The third album by this infamous proto-rocker duo from Detroit finds them on the cusp of greatness. All the elements that made the subsequent Elephant such a titanic success are firmly in place: 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.

In Under Great White Northern Lights Emmett Malloy has captured and crafted a magical, compelling, and perfectly musical document. Having never played extensively in Canada, in 2007 in support of their album Icky Thump, The White Stripes embarked on a tour designed to hit "every province and territory" in the country. And so they did. In addition to more conventional concerts they also played a series of "side shows," often concocted on the fly, and Malloy's camera finds them playing in bowling alleys, pool halls, tiny town squares, a fishing boat and, at one point, what appears to be a day-care center. The Stripes cover Canada like a red, white, and black blanket"

Band of the moment, the saviours of rock'n'roll… something to write about in an age of musical mediocrity?
The White Stripes can be seen as all of the above. The hype around the release of this fourth album has gone on and on, the critics' saliva abundant. Finally it's here. Can it really change the course of mankind as we know it? Let's see.