White Blood Cells

The White Stripes | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 3, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sympathy For The Recording Industry
• ASIN: B00005K9KP
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (378 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #200,495 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #100 in Music > Indie Music > Rock > Blues Rock

Track Listings

1. Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground

2. Hotel Yorba

3. I'm Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman

4. Fell In Love With A Girl

5. Expecting

6. Little Room

7. The Union Forever

8. The Same Boy You've Always Known

9. We're Going To Be Friends

10. Offend In Every Way

11. I Think I Smell A Rat

12. Aluminum

13. I Can't Wait

14. Now Mary

15. I Can Learn

16. This Protector

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com's Best of 2001

Rock & roll is constantly splintering into multiple personalities. Big radio players layer thick slabs of studio shine on their albums, while back-to-the-basics rockers keep the sound so raw it rubs calluses on your ears. The White Stripes fall in the latter category. The duo strips down to the fundamentals of Meg White's simple drumbeat and Jack White's garagy guitar and pleading vocals. While the elements are sparse, the Detroit act create a noisy, hip-grinding batch of punk R&B, displayed again on White Blood Cells, the Stripes' third full-length. While it's hard to pick favorites from such talent, this band only gets better with time. White's vocals were sounding like a young Robert Plant on De Stijl--definitely not a bad thing--but on Cells, he's developed his own persona. He throws musical fits on "Fell in Love with a Girl," gets almost loungy on the piano number "This Protector," and keeps the blues vibe running on "Now Mary." The album is so rich with basic variations on a simple theme it's hard to believe such soulful energy comes from just two people. White Blood Cells is an amazing piece of work, a benchmark that ought to inspire new legions of garage rockers for years to come. --Jennifer Maerz

Product Description

The band's commercial break through, this 2001 album went gold, spinning off the Top 20 Modern Rock hits 'Fell In Love With A Girl' and 'Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground.' --This text refers to the Vinyl edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Here We Go.....!, October 14, 2002

By 

Richard R. Carlton (Ada, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: White Blood Cells (Audio CD)

In White Blood Cells, the Stripes are beginning to bloom into a legend. Jack White is obviously developing at light speed right now. Sure he sounded like some kind of Robert Plant novice on De Stijl, but on Cells he's what Curt Cobain should have done eventually with Nirvanna or what Mick could have been if he had taken Jumpin' Jack Flash to the limit. Don't get me wrong....Jack is Jack, no way is he a pale imitation of anybody else, no matter how famous they are. And without Meg backing him like she's the muscle in his spine there would be no Stripes at all.

Dead Leaves spotlights Jack's guitar at a time when he's running full tilt boogie. The essence of punk is in Fell In Love With A Girl, and there is time for quirky stuff where the song won't go away (like Hotel Yorba). All 16 tracks are solid, the CD is one that you will run over and over and over until it's part of who you are.

You really don't know how raw guitar can be until you hear the Stripes in full roar. And Jack will always catch you off guard.....slow downs that make you wanna burst.....triple chords that make you wanna dance....wailing shafts of sound that give you chills.....abrasive isn't the right word.....this sound is so harsh it can draw individual nerve fibers right out of your brain while you love every second of it. This is one that you have to hear to really be alive.

Stripes make you realize that even if Green Day were the best of their era, this is how much better they could have been; this is how the Stones must have sounded at the Crawdaddy Club in 64; this is why all those hype-bands like the Hives & Vines will never last; this is nothing less than the start of the 3rd age of rock and roll. These guys have it.....the blinding future of rock may be in their hands.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indie this, Indie that... Indie Smindie..., July 13, 2002

By 

Jason Zagar (Pottsville, Pa USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: White Blood Cells (Audio CD)

All this [stuff] about indie cred and all that, I personally couldn't care less, a band is what they are, as long as they truly have talent. White Stripes have said talent. I picked up this album on a whim, after all, why not, I found it rather cheap. From the only song I'd heard from them (Fell in love with a girl) I was expecting a fairly average but typically same sounding Punk album, boy was I wrong. In fact, Fell in love is the only song on the album that sounds like that, and that isn't a bad thing.

The songs here are very stylistically varied, especially when their almost all Guitar and drum exclusively. From the second I popped the album in I was shocked. Sure, they've got musical influences, does that really make their music bad. Especially when they take punk, grunge, 60-70's rock, blues, and even some folk and put them into a pot stir it up and actually come out with an album that makes it all gel.

"Dead leaves" is a go stop go stop rocker with Robert-Plantish vocals (as are much of Jack White's vocals.) "Hotel" is the song I get the whole "Folky" thing from, it reminds me of a more rocking something Dylan might have written. "Fell in Love" Again is 100% classic punk sound, period. "Little Room" is an odd 50 second drum and vocals only track, sounding almost like a demo but yet after the initial oddity of it you'll find yourself singing and lalaing along with it every time it comes on (or at least I do). "Union Forever" is Slow Unplugged Nirvana-ish, one of my faves. "Gonna be Friends" is a sweet acoustic song reminiscing about school. "Smell a rat" reminds me much of something Radiohead might have put on Pablo Honey, very odd at first, another one of my faves that gets me singing along. "Aluminum" is a nice dark song, vocal-less except for the odd Aaaaaaahs that go on throughout it, but I could definitely see Ozzy singing something dark over it. It provokes thoughts of a dark evil world leaving your imagination to come up with what it's like there. "My Protector" is a piano and vocals only track reminding me again of Radiohead, specifically their Live version of "Like Spinning Plates". Though not nearly as good as "Plates" live, but still good nonetheless.

Anyways, theres my opinion on the album and select tracks that I felt I had something to say about, the whole album is great, I didn't leave out songs because I thought them bad, I just didn't have much to say about them that I hadn't said for a previous song.

In closing, I suggest anyone who likes any or all of the types of music stated at the top of this review to check out this album, its cheap compared to the other albums currently out there, and is well worth twice the cost. Its the first breath of fresh air I've had in a while, when drowning in a sea of uninspired poprock/raprock and girl-boybands. I'd really begun to think that rock was indeed played out and over with.

I'd like to thank the White Stripes for showing me that there indeed is still great things that can be done with rock, and as long as they're around, I still have hope for the future of music.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Germ-killing, January 24, 2002

By 

d_didonato "d_didonato" (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: White Blood Cells (Audio CD)

It's good to see that the White Stripes are linked (in the press and on amazon.com, anyway) to the Strokes. However, the White Stripes cash the check that the Strokes have written. Rock and Roll is a lot of things to a lot of people: the Strokes represent the image and the attitude; the Stripes represent a more powerful, yet innocent facet. Detractors are quick to point out the lack of technical ability in the drum department - but it works quite well with the style. Can you imagine a Neil Peart playing over "Fell in Love with a Girl"? It embodies the old punk ethos that sincerity is more important than ability (which works much better for rock music than, say, flying an airplane!). The most striking track on this disc was "We're Going to be Friends". I kept waiting for the schoolboy story to go horribly awry or lapse into some Korn-esque molestation tale, but instead it remained uncorrupted and innocent throughout. The world-weariest track is probably "The Union Forever" - but instead of being whiny and/or jaded-sounding, it takes more of a "rage, rage against the dying of a light" approach. When Jack White sings about "true love" not existing, he sounds honestly like someone who - at some point - believed that it did.
There's no self-defeating irony to be found anywhere on this album, which is a refreshing change. It's a narrow fence to tread upon - taking yourself seriously without taking yourself TOO seriously. The Stripes do this wonderfully. The slide guitar is noticeably absent, and this is more poppy than their subsequent releases, but the spirit remains intact. Indie hipster types are bored of faux-Pavement cleverness and are looking for something a bit more substantial. The Strokes are for the parents and the White Stripes are for the kids. And who was rock and roll invented for, anyway?