The White Stripes
Greatest Hits
scum stats: too crazy to even parse here...or anywhere
So the day is finally upon us where the White Stripes Greatest Hits is unleashed on the entire world...at least in digital form.
For all you die-hards here, the inside scoop is that the demand for the vinyl was so much more than we had initially anticipated that we could not press up copies fast enough to supply anywhere outside of the United States. Hence the delayed release date for the rest of the world.
Even then, we had to enlist the help of an additional SEVEN different pressing plants to be able to tackle this quantity. The etchings in the run-out grooves of the album, with all sorts of recuts and retests and Roman numerals as prefixes and suffixes are just a DOOZY and I'm pretty confident that no one will ever properly decipher it all...if only because *I* haven't even been able to keep track of it all. I am hard-pressed to name any other new release in the past THIRTY years that would have been on the machines across eight different manufacturers.
And in some weird way, I can think of no better metaphor to encapsulate the feeling of a White Stripes Greatest Hits record. Does anyone outside a couple dozen people in Detroit TRULY understand how weird, how outsider, how unpromising of a band this was considered upon their debut back in 1997? For something so unique, so beautiful, so true to actually cut through and emerge and succeed in the mainstream...from my experience, this almost NEVER happens.
Yet here we are, coordinating with the fine folks at Sony/Columbia and their gargantuan worldwide reach and influence and truly hitting new heights of saturation for the band. And as we're just at the start of that relationship, I'm excited to tease that we've got MUCH more coming.
All of this reminds me of something Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney once said about the White Stripes. I'm paraphrasing, but it was along the lines of "The White Stripes are like the Simpsons. It's SO good you feel like it SHOULD be an underground, unknown, cult-like thing. The fact that it actually became wildly popular across the globe is just that fortunate twist of the cosmos."
The idea of a two-piece band from Southwest Detroit still being talked about over twenty years later, arguably more important than they've ever been, nearly ten years after they've ceased to create new work, who had no struggle bouncing from shows at bowling alleys to hockey arenas on the same day, with a band member who literally built his own state-of-the-art pressing plant three blocks away from the collapsing walls of the first club they ever played. All together it's a journey that is both shouting to those a million miles away and whispering someone right next to you. Dispatching records to the farthest reaches of the planet and hand-delivering one to your neighbor. Writing lyrics that feel quintessentially universal and at the same time as if they were specific to you and your life and thoughts that no one else would ever know.
The duality of being both gargantuan large and intimately small at the same time. After all these years...that's what the White Stripes mean to me.
If you've made it this far...great. Post a comment about what the White Stripes mean to you and the best one will get some beautiful gem from my closet or floor or wherever the gems happen to have fallen on that beautiful day.
PS. got stuck at home today with car troubles so I don't have an actual copy of the Greatest Hits for my photo here. So I made my own. Winner can get this jacket maybe with one of the million test presses tossed inside
PPS. I believe the title of the album is, officially "The White Stripes Greatest Hits" as there was initially a concern that having two different titles "My Sister Thanks You And I Thank You" for standard and "Aside From That And Besides This" for the Vault would make it ineligible for chart placement. But a bunch of new chart rules changes made all of that a moot point anyway.
Honestly the white stripes mean a musical time out. So what is a musical time out mean? It’s meant a lot over the years. It takes me out sometimes brings me in /it’s distraction from boredom/ from its all too much. Fantastic fantasies wrapped around your skull held together by Koss AAA pro headphones blasting ,ringing, satisfying some undefined tribal urge that follows too this day. Music has kept me company a companion as far back as a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away, but can be recaptured today. By the time the white stripes came along music was still part of my escape but for different reasons from my youth or so I thought. I don’t know what to tell you about the idea of tearing the past down and what put up “new” symbols to be torn down later. We all know what the answer is but can’t bring ourselves to believe it to the point of actually changing. Have a merry little Christ-mass and a better year, ask for nothing and give it all away, yes better days are coming -rejoice and dismantle,put humpty dumpty back together again and listen to music along the way.
The White Stripes helped me develop into the person I am today. I discovered them 17 years ago when I was 16. Before The White Stripes, I didn’t know bands could get that deep. I was big into “classic rock” and never really experienced the intimate and honest lyrics that Jack and Meg were putting out in the world. The songs changed me as a person and developed me into the person I am today. The music and truth in the songs/live performances are almost a religion of sorts, definitely character defining. It also really means a lot to basically find out (in the little that has been shed publicly), that Jack and Meg are 100% as beautiful and great people as the message their music put out into the world. This band redefined music, love, truth, and many other things for me at a developing time in my life when I most needed it. Still to this day I barely see the band as a “band”, but more as an extension of who I am as a person and beautiful things I believe in. Thank God for The White Stripes and the effort and dedication Jack and Meg put into it for no other reason than to create something beautiful to share with anyone they thought might stumble on it.
What don’t The White Stripes mean to me?
The White Stripe mean family to me. I’ll explain. I had the opportunity to see the Stripes for the first time at the Detroit Institute of Art in the Diego Rivera room. As the show went on I sat on a bench next to an elder couple and I said to them “it’s amazing that there are at least 40 children running around the room listening to the music”. The gentleman says to me” That’s Jack’s nieces and nephews”. Turns out I was speaking with Jack’s father.
It’s hard to put into words what the White Stripes mean to me. They are proof that all you need is belief in yourself and in your music. Jack has gone on to be an international rock star and Meg had moved on to live her life low key. Two contradicting endings to the very same humble beginnings. The fact that they just did what they wanted to do regardless of outside influence is amazing. The fact that the whole world was on the same page and loved it for what it was is truly lightning in a bottle. 20 years later there are old fans and new generations that get to appreciate this Detroit duo that defied the rules and odds. So while “My Sister Thanks You and I Thank You” feels like a small sentiment, it’s a befitting humble title for one of the greatest rock bands. So simply……..thank you!
When I discovered the Beatles it felt like the world changed instantly. No music I’d ever heard before could ever compare, they just opened me up. And the band itself seemed so open and engaging. I dedicated every second of every day for a year or more learning everything I could about the guys and their music. I thought I’d never have another awakening on the same level. I was wrong. I discovered the White Stripes around 2009 when I rediscovered vinyl. I’d only ever bought one of their CD’s (Icky Thump) and only listened passively, not really digging in for whatever reason. When I rediscovered vinyl I was trying to find groups I’d like to hear on that format. Beck, The Beastie Boys, The Beatles and, ultimately, The White Stripes. I bought “Elephant” first because it seemed to be the biggest thing from them. When I listened all the way through I recognized the same excitement I’d felt when I first found the Beatles. It seemed sincere and playful. Not cynical, not posing. It was honest fun and didn’t seem to care about coming across as vulnerable. It was OK with being fun without being tough. I’d never heard anything like it before in modern rock. Everybody wants to be angsty. Everybody wants to be unapproachable. I like to be honest every day in my vulnerability. I love rock and roll but I don’t care about being tough or intimidating anybody. And here was a band who seemed to be coming from the same space. Anyway, I immediately bought everything they ever released and realized I missed a hell of an era. Jack and Meg broke up about a year and a half after I found them. I never got to see them live. But through them I found Third Man Records in Nashville, which led to lifelong friends. Thanks to the White Stripes my life will never be the same again in the most amazing ways. I’m thankful I found them. I just wish I’d found them sooner. Long-live Jack and Meg! (and Paul McCartney)
Simply, to me, the Stripes have always been right next to me yet just out.
I fell in love late. I thought I had time, ACL 2007. Some things left out of reach are put in a special place. Just as they were and will always be. A band that always seemed too good to be true. They are close to my heart and deep into my mind. Just as they were and will always be.
Jack was the tack but it couldn’t hold the pack so Meg used her peg but damn, she made him beg.
We climbed down the hole but the rope wouldn’t hold… now we’re older but not so much colder, digging up kegs and scraping the dregs. So pick up the phone or toss down a bone and we’ll play through the stack with no need to come back.
The Stripes make us pine for a time that never was…
The White Stripes meant so much to me when I was growing up and they still do now. One of the first albums I ever listened to from them was Get Behind Me Satan, and was immediately thrown back by the raging octaves of Blue Orchid, I just couldn’t stop listening to it. Every night I would come home and put it on repeat, the album’s constant change of tones made me feel the most emotions I had ever felt in ~40 minutes. It wasn’t long before I started collecting as many as their albums as I could and I started playing music. Meg’s simplistic but perfect drumming style influenced my simplicity and working towards being perfectly fine with being average instead of the best and Jack’s raging fuzzy blues solos can never escape my head, even influencing my style to this day. I’m sad I never got to see any of their shows when they were still together but forever they lie in musical history and my influenced style. Not to mention any time I’ve ever felt depressed or sad in any way, I can always trust that throwing on a white stripes album can always lift me up and get me going. Forever and ever, The White Stripes will always be the greatest
The first time I can recall hearing about the White Stripes was in Weird Al’s Angry White Boy polka. I thought Fell In Love With A Girl sounded good in polka form, it must be great in its original form so I decided to check out The White Stripes and became a fan.