A farewell to The White Stripes

Who is mourning the passing of The White Stripes? This gimmick band, as I’ve heard them called. Well, it probably isn’t the masses, itunesing whatever the NME tells them to on this particular day. They’re too busy ignoring musical integrity and a tradition of rock and roll that died on February 2nd this year, favouring instead the icily vacuous sounds of today’s all too commercial charts. The White Stripes, as gimmicky as they may be, embodied that rock and roll tradition, that beautiful sorrow that only the blues can carry, like a bottle of whisky in a brown paper bag. But Jack White has hung up his guitar, Meg has put away her drumsticks, and those few of us who really cared – those few who didn’t simply download ‘My Doorbell’ because Radio One told them to – need that bottle of whisky now more than ever.

This isn’t a case of adolescent adoration, postered walls and Elephant on repeat. Well, maybe it is a bit. This is about the blues. Love it or loathe it blues music is part of who we are culturally. It’s had a profound effect on all contemporary music. Take satanic blues legend Robert Johnson, for example, whose music has been covered by such globetrotting, platinum album selling superstars as The Red Hot Chilli Peppers. The White Stripes have provided us with some of the best and most insightful contemporary blues covers, as well as originals, that we are likely to ever see. Listen to their dirty, garage cover of Johnson’s ‘Stop Breakin’ Down’, or ‘Son House’s Death Letter’, which both provide us with examples of not only that blues value, so lacking in most modern music, but also White’s unrivalled ability with the electric guitar and his screaming vocals, passionate and sad. This is about the blues. Or, more importantly, where we are going to get our blues from now?

Jack White’s early life consisted of an upholstery business, which quickly failed due to his preoccupation with writing poetry inside the chairs and making bills out in crayon to add a childish twinge to a serious topic. Jack White then spent his musical career attempting to recreate the blues in new and interesting ways, all the while playing with the band’s childish aesthetic to cover up the fact that they were simply ‘a white two-piece from Detroit trying to play the blues’.

They formed in 1997 with White being attracted to bartender Meg White’s ‘crude, childish’ attitude when he put a drum stick in her hand. A slow rise to fame was in store for what would turn out to be one of the most influential bands of the 21st century. Their debut album, White Stripes, only sold one thousand copies at first, but after years of gradual success their 2007 effort, Icky Thump, which proved to be their last went gold with 725,000 copies sold worldwide.

The White Stripes' awesome live experience has lead to them being voted 2003, 2005 and 2007 best live performance and has drawn thousands of diehard fans thousands of miles to get the experience that simply no other band can provide. This talent has lead Jack White them to perform live with bands such as The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan creating an infamous name for himself as ‘The Decade’s dirty Bluesman’... The century’s Dirty Bluesman? Well no other musician can claim that anything they do is “1000% Blues”.

The White Stripes, our all time favourite band, were taken ill when they cancelled the latter half of their Icky Thump tour due to Meg White’s anxiety problems. The condition was not terminal, but did appear to signal the end for the blues duo. We were promised a full recovery and a new release but failing to deliver was all that followed for the band in the four years that passed. Their official break up was announced on February the second 2011. The band’s management insisted it was nothing to do with Meg’s previous illness, but ‘if you’re headin to the grave you don’t blame the hearse’.

R.I.P. The White Stripes

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