White Blood Cells

Eh had a brief white stripes phase but this doesn’t do much for me. It’s fine. Hotel Yorba kinda too cutesy and the other stuff kinda dull

Классный альбом, гаражный грязный рок

I never listened to White Stripes back in the day but between this and the first album we had, turns out I’m a fan. Who knew. I like the raw, simplistic nature of the songs on this album. It sounds like they could fall apart into a chaotic mess at any minute but they keep it together and make it rock.

I like the White Stripes music, but it draws on me after a while. It all starts to sound the same and I begin to desire variety. If these songs were in a mix tape of other artists i wouldn’t even notice but there is too much similarity from song to song for me to really enjoy the album.

Formulaic. Look it’s a good formula, but this album is the same song over and over again. I loved it when it first came out and still rock out when I hear it out today. But listening to song after song in album format is just too much of the same sound. This is iconic, but limited by its stripped down style. It robs it of staying power. 3.5

I simply love the vibe of the white stripes. No rhyme of reason for it, I just dig them.

7/10

Two white stripes albums back to back? Amazing! Love both these albums. Listened to them a repeat when they came out and can happily do it now still.

How can you have a guitar driven band and make a record without bass? the sound is awful, unfinished, to say the least. The guy's voice is interesting, I get the energy, but like I said, the sound design is poor.

ei lätkyttänyt.

Think now that the White Stripes hype has died down, this can be agreed to be a very enjoyable rock album, a very solid 3.5 star album which I'm happy to round up to 4 stars today.

ai sei lá não me desagradou nem agradou a ponto de merecer muitas palavras. o rock morreu mas não faz muita falta também.

uma das minhas bandas favoritas. gosto mais do elephant em diante mas nesse tem várias que adoro também

Nice, but nothing more than that.

There are times I wish I had a button like Christgau or Fantano to wave an album through; a sort of non-committal rating that could get an album off one's desk. Something to the tune of: This is fine. I do not wish to expend the effort to develop a genuine opinion on this one. Or, whatever you want. Two stars feels a bit mean, since I usually reserve under-three ratings for albums with serious flaws or songs I'd like to have skipped, and there are some very nice arrangements and performances, whereas the less stellar ones are just that and no worse. At the same time, three feels overly generous, because I cannot stand Jack White's voice, and I wouldn't mind exiling this genus of rock music from my own musical imaginary. I appreciate the references, the various little tuggings on the cultural tapestry, like the Citizen Kane references in "The Union Forever," but I remain unmoved. I have chosen to be kind.

Never understood why it was thought of so highly

Do I really have to hear four Jack White albums before I die? Do you? I say no, but if you choose just one, this is the obvious choice. The formula is the same but the songs are unsurpassed. 5 stars.

Consistent. With country rock sounds. Whilst listening I could imagine myself hearing this playing live in some saloon in the USA.

Garage Rock Revival Favorite Songs: Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, Hotel Yorba, Fell In Love With a Girl, We’re Going to be Friends, I Think I Smell a Rat, Aluminum, I Can’t Wait Least Favorite Song: I’m Finding it Harder to be a Gentleman (Mainly more so sonically, felt a little too rough for my ears) There’s some pretty great and some decent songs around this album. Although some of the songs are a little rough on the edges, I do think that the album’s a keeper for me. Definitely an album to recommend. 8/10

It is a consistent record from the band, which offers a good variety of hits and misses. It fails to have the cultural relevancy that 'Elephant' carries, and to me, the inclusion of 'De Stijl' might have been more interesting. 7/10 [SWAP]

Incredible start to the album a day journey. Unique and creative sound, the album blends exciting rock n roll with the alt sound. Added saved several of these I heard for the first time. So much fun

Banger

I hope everyone's introduction to "Fell in Love with a Girl" was through the rathergood.com punk kitties video circa 2002. Though, it was a couple of years later before I was properly introduced to The White Stripes. White Blood Cells remains my second-favorite album of theirs, after Elephant.

quite a trip down memory lane... crazy to listen to this album in retrospect and really internalize that it came out in 2001. i would argue "fell in love with a girl" might be one of the best songs ever made - a frenetic masterpiece i'm compelled to hit replay on over and over again. and with that iconic lego music video to boot ... golly!! meg white and her (former) husband really know how to make music. great stuff!! highlights - dead leaves and the dirty ground, hotel yorba, fell in love with a girl, expecting, the union forever, the same boy you've always known, we're going to be friends, offended in every way, i think i smell a rat, i can't wait

I never really liked the White Stripes growing up but I always remember this album being the weakest of the 3. But listening too it again today this album is fantastic. It might not have the big hit that the other 2 did, although Fell In Love With A Girl is up there, it's a great listen from front to back. 4.25* rounded down to 4*

I feel guilty for not giving this 5 stars, as obviously so many people love this band. But I think the colour thing is hackneyed, and I can't like listening to Jack's voice.

Nasty and gnarly equaled a major thumbs up for White Blood Cells. A unique guitar god, since Jack White does not wow with pyrotechnical skill nor Jimmy Page like riffs. I know “Seven Nation Army” has replaced “Stairway to Heaven” as THE guitar store song, but this album did not have one of those monster opening salvos. Instead, I heard Neil Young distortion with a few more notes. Some Tony Iommi on “Expecting” as well as Southern rock, Outlaws style, on “I Can’t Wait”. These comparisons are not suggesting that White merely copies his list of heroes. He echoes them while developing his bare bones guitar-drums approach. It is back to the basics while also sounding up to date, and plain fucking loud. Even the slower, more acoustic based numbers did not sound like White was going for 1928 country blues. An impressive feat to keep a foot in modernity while giving old heads something to appreciate. Maybe I will come around fully to White as a singer one day. For now, his yells come off more like screeches that cause me to reflexively pull my head back. He stays out of the way from the music enough to make this a strong album.

The man who keeps classic rock alive. Das war nur 7 Jahre nach dem Ende von Nirvana, deren Einflüsse man hier und da noch klar erkennen kann. Viel Liebe für diese rohe, echt Musik und Jack White. 4,5 / 5.

Tbh I don’t like this kind of music. All sounds similar to me.

nice

Ahh man... I had such high hopes. The White Stripes are delightful. Started off as a solid 5-star then sloped away into boredom. Shame.

Tough to rate this as an album, falls between a 3 and a 4. Will tip it to a 4 due to relistenable songs. 'Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground' is probably my personal favourite. Minus the vocals, the 'I Think We're Gonna be Friends' feels like a video game soundtrack. 'Fell in Love With a Girl' is the most known I'd imagine, still sounds good at this point too. Some of the other songs like 'Little Room' feel like an AI general noise to fill in the gap based on the other songs.

fell in love with a girl and we’re going to be friends definitely skewed my ranking higher

1. 4.5 2. 5 3. 4 4. 5 5. 3.5 6. 4 7. 4 8. 4.5 9. 5 10. 4.5 11. 4.5 12. 3.5 13. 4.5 14. 3 15. 3.5 16. 4

Underwhelming

Good to hear raw simple music

Helt greit

Listened before?: a few of the most popular tracks, that's about it. only White Stripes album i've heard in full so far is Get Behind Me Satan (which i already reviewed months ago) Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground - 5/5 Hotel Yorba - 3/5 I'm Finding It Harder to Be a Gentleman - 4/5 Fell in Love With a Girl - 5/5 Expecting - 3/5 Little Room - no rating The Union Forever - 4/5 The Same Boy You've Always Known - 3/5 We're Going to Be Friends - 4/5 Offend in Every Way - 4/5 I Think I Smell a Rat - 3/5 Aluminum - 2/5 I Can't Wait - 4/5 Now Mary - 3/5 I Can Learn - 3/5 This Protector - 3/5 Average score: 3.5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ in some ways, this sounds better than Get Behind Me Satan. and yet, it receives a similar score overall there's a lot more tracks that i enjoyed, and waaaay more energy. still, there were definitely some weak songs toward the last quarter of the album. i can see why this was one of their more popular releases at least, and i would likely come back to listen to a good handful of tracks

Thump bash crash twang, and the more enjoyable for it

Don’t know that I had to listen to three White Stripes albums before I died. I always wondered why Meg gets a bad rap as a drummer. Well now I know. Every song starts out with an interesting guitar element and then wham here comes what sounds like a six-year-old wailing on the drums. She is really underserved by the album engineer here. Bonus was u expectedly encountering the Napoleon Dynamite opening credits song.

614/1089 - Wasn't huge on the other two on this list but this one had some catchy songs and a nice distorted grittiness to the sound. High 3 low 4 for me and definitely my favorite White Stripes album from the list.

Well I really hope their other stuff is better than this because I really wanted to like them.

Энергичный, сырой и предельно прямолинейный гаражный рок, в котором минималистичная форма сочетается с яркими мелодиями и нервной, экспрессивной манерой исполнения. Альбом обладает цельным звучанием и несколькими действительно сильными композициями, но постоянная напористость Джека Уайта со временем может начать утомлять, а его эмоциональная подача — казаться несколько навязчивой.

cute!!

A really fun piece of garage rock revival from the early 2000s. To be perfectly honest, I pretty much prefer something like this compared to how more processed The White Stripes would end up becoming, even though "Seven Nation Army" is an absolute banger. Jack White's wails pair perfectly with the wall of feedback and distorted garage punk riffs he pumps out as well as Meg White's basic but very emotive drumming. In a way she kind of reminds me a lot of Paul Ledney from Profanatica, as while they aren't technical drummers in the slightest, they play with such attitude and energy that really can't be emulated by anyone else. The softer moments like on "We're Going to Be Friends" also feel extremely natural with this stripped back sound, as you really focus on the story that Jack White reminisces on here, playing in your head as if it's happening right in front of you.

I only knew Fell In Love With a Girl which is good. The rest of this is mostly whatever

Some of the tunes were just not pleasing to the ear

Ja. Rock. Dat is eigenlijk de review. The White Stripes zijn echt de posterchild van ECHTE ROCK N ROLL IS NIET DOOOOOOOD voor mij. Samen met Queens of the Stone Age ofzoiets. Tuurlijk; Seven Nation Army, super bekend enzo. Maar ik heb toch ergens het idee dat Jack White solo iets meer mijn ding is, het word een stuk meer bluesy dan. Merk dat dit album voor mij eigenlijk grotendeels hetzelfde nummer is. Je kan maar zo vaak een harde gitaar er op knallen met een matige drummer op de achtergrond voor het allemaal hetzelfde klinkt voor mij. Ok ze proberen iets anders op We're going to be friends, maar dat pakt nou ook weer niet geweldig uit. Het is een lief liedje, daar niet van, maar ook weer niet heel bijzonder. Dit is wel echt mijn minst favoriete Jack White affiliated album, vond Get Behind me Satan dan een stuk sterker, vooral experimenteler, en Elephant heeft natuurlijk de grote hit die je al snel een sterretje extra bezorgd. FAVO: Geen idee, denk dat ene nummer met die distorted harde gitaar en matige drums terwijl Jack simpele teksten 'zingt'

It was pretty typical for this group.

YOU NEED A BASS PLAYER

It starts as an easy 5 but I think it ends up being just a bit too long and just a bit too long since the best songs. A very high 4.

JL : 2, I Can Learn

This was my third White Stripes album. I gave the previous two 3 stars, but looking back I'm not sure I liked them even that much. I think it's just that I thought I "should" rate them higher than a 2. I'm now at the point in this project (#443) that I don't care about such things and I'm rarely giving more stars than I think a record deserves. With all of that, this was fine. I don't like Jack White's voice and I find most of the songs musically just meh. The only song I kinda liked was The Same Boy You've Always Known, but I didn't even save it to a playlist so I didn't like it that much. This will get the 2 star rating it deserved.

8/10

oh look more white stripes

Very generic rock album

was alright i jammed

Overrated 3/5

The sound was very raw, but even though I thought I might not enjoy it, it was actually pleasant enough.

Masterpiece. One of the gifts that rock gave us on early 2000s. I’d say that this is white stripes at its best

Un classico, j'écoute pas assez souvent les White Stripes

Chouette

Assez générique

Absolute magic amazing album not one song I cam say was not needed or out of order. As good as an album as they come. Zepplin merges with the Beatles with a touch of the who's raw power chords. Masterpiece

best jack white work of his career

So many great songs

Had been a long time since I heard this one, great songs. Dead Leaves and Dirty Ground/Hotel Yorba/Fell in Love with a Girl… all incredible.

garagey but felt very underdeveloped, the second track genuinely sucks

Wow.. I forgot how good this was! How can 2 people make such noise?!

This is what they used to call garage rock Good stuff

I can totally understand the perspective some people have as it pertains to this band having multiple albums on the list. I love blues rock, I love the white stripes. To me it’s just shit I throw on when I wanna rock out. Sure they have some songs that resonate with me lyrically. But for the most part, I come to this band for jamming out. Jack white isn’t some insane lyricist. A lot of these garage rock/blues rock revival bands are VERY repetitive. A lot of them feel like compilations of tracks rather than a cohesive album with any sort of journey. (We’re looking at you Hives) the white stripes aren’t any exception to that. I could do with just having one Stripes album on the list. I think elephant encapsulated them perfectly. I’m not sure this record adds anything to that, but it’s also not bad. Just have some fun man, enjoy the jamming and quit acting like fantano.

The hits on here are great but can we move on good albums are not allowed to be on here

The first two albums were so different from anything that was coming out at the time. Groundbreaking and showed what two instruments and on voice could do.

This is way, way better than I expected. This rocks.

A pretty great blues rock album with some great punchy songs and a few slower paced.

Interesting guitar sounds that borrow from garage rock, blues and country. But the disjointed drumming is a put-off.

They are too many songs, and therefore feels a bit unfocused. There is a sound, and ambition but its not for me absolutely cause it feels deliberately scattered

Except for the song “we’re gonna be friends” I rushed through this album quick. Not it for me.

Genuinely such a hit or miss album for me, the vibes switched a lot and I only really enjoyed 4-5 of the total songs. I saved the ones I liked but I wouldn’t play this album front to back often

Not my cup of tea, very boring.

Love The White Stripes. I can probably recite most of this album from front to back, it’s my favorite of theirs easily and I’ve listened to it countless times. The band really pulled out something unique here and found a sound that is so identifiably their own. Dead Leaves, Hotel Yorba, Fell In Love With a Girl, Union Forever, Same Boy, Offend in Every Way, the list goes on. Without reciting the entire tracklist just know that this is top notch stuff.

If I'm not actively in the process of listening to The White Stripes, I forget how goddamned great they are. This is another masterpiece from them.

I'm not huge on The White Stripes, but I can recognize this is a cut above their other albums. I think Jack White is a bit overrated, because he doesn't really do much creative or super standout with his guitar playing. I get that it is sort of a revival thing, but it still could have been much more interesting. Some of the guitar tones are great, the energy on songs like Fell in Love with a Girl is fantastic and crazy addictive. This whole album in general can be described in one word: energetic. Even when the songs run a bit derivative, the fiery passion carries them. Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, Hotel Yerba, I Can't Wait, The Union Forever are all bangers that are among the best White Stripes songs. I also love We Are Going to Be Friends, very cute song that works well despite being a bit outside of their usual sound palette. The album is nice, certainly enjoyable despite some weird detours and not being the most original. I enjoy it more than Elephant.

Ah the White Stripes, a band my husband has made me listen to countless times.

Boring

Love — totally predictable I would

An odd mix of fun, angsty, a bit white-knighty in many of the lyrics; maybe that's reflective of 2001. Overall, not hard to listen to, but nothing there compelling to revisit. Somgs saved to Liked: 0

11/10 No notes ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Didn't really feel like listening to this, so I got into it today with a negative energy. And... it was actually really nice! For the first part at least. This Protector is a fine closer to a somewhat boring second half. But the hits are hits!

I'm into guitar, so some riffs are solid — "The Union Forever" has genuinely good riffs. The singer though, can't say I'm particularly a fan, sounds like the typical screamy-type vocal I've heard before. Album overall wasn't amazing, but decent enough, a few tracks stood out and that's what matters most — "We're Going to Be Friends" was the standout, nice pleasant sound to it. Giving it more credit mostly for the riffs, since a couple tracks I'd genuinely use in a film if I had to.

Ugh, I really can't listen to all of this as the White Stripes really set my teeth on edge. I'm having quite a good day and I'm not going to ruin it with this record. A begrudging nod to Hotel Yorba and Fell in Love with a Girl, which I can't help but like. The rest of it is gigantically overrated, and incredibly hard to listen to, never mind actually enjoy.

If this album lost 4 or 5 songs I think it would be I infinitely better. It feels at times like being cool is important which inevitably is a failure of cool. However, there are some really great moments in this slightly rambling album. I think we're going to be friends is a particular standout. This track is probably the best thing on what is probably their best album.

Favorite songs: The union forever, Fell in love with a girl

Good variety. And Friends is one of the best songs ever.

Already finding that there are a few albums where I go against the grain. This is one of them even though I like White Stripes quite a bit. Elephant will get a high rating if it’s on the list (I figure it has to be.) There’s no denying their ability to deliver hits. There are some banger songs beginning with Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, which I’d put up at the top of Jack White’s entire career. The album tracks didn’t do as much for me on this re-listen.

The one white stripes song I know I really like, so I have some optimism for this album. Really guitar to open. Good vocals/lyrics. Good guitar again on hotel Yoruba. Lyrics are a little goofy. Finding harder grabs me from the first chord. Piano and guitar work so well together. Good enough vocals. Much better vocals on fell in love. Good guitar again. Little room is interesting. Good interlude I guess. Cool guitar on union forever. Vocals are eh. More talking than singing. Too slow. Much better writing on the same boy you’ve always known. Simple but effective guitar. Good song. I think I’ve heard we’re going to be friends before. Great writing/story telling. Again another simple but effective backing track. Love the guitar on offend in every way. Really cool song. Smell a rat is a nice change of pace. Much louder. Good drums and guitar. Not a ton going on lyrically. I like aluminum a lot actually. Highlights the strengths of this band. Awesome guitar. Guitar solo on I can’t wait is really good, rest of it is just eh. Better writing and vocals on now Mary. Guitar works so well with the vocals on I can learn. Maybe the best guitar riff so far. This protector is a nice closer. Good piano. Almost acts as a slow fade out. Needed this to wrap things up. Cool album. Not life changing, but no terrible songs. Would listen again. 3.3/5 stars.

3,1/5

Great memories associated with this record, first 4 tracks explode out the speakers, just great stuff. First half is raw, rockets by and it's hard to dislike anything. Basically perfect for what it is. Second half of the album just slightly dips a bit on a couple of tunes and drags the score down from perfect. This is a great record and after 25 years it's aging well. 9/10

I’ve heard one song on the album before. Sonically not for me though

A staple of early 2000s rock. It might not be totally my style (hence the 4 not 5 stars) but I recognize that this is a good album. I got some late Beatles vibes in some of the songs. Ironically for a gay man my favorite track was “I fell in love with a girl”.