I was just thinking about this yesterday - very welcome news. I think the time off and other projects should give Jack a fresh perspective. Was overall disappointed by Icky Thump.

Yeah, I was being an ass about semantics (you can't have a reunion w/o breaking up...)

I'll personally take both Raconteurs records over the last two White Stripes, but we've pretty well established that I'm a very strange person.

was a hiatus wasn't it?

liked icky thump for a little while. Don't really care for it anymore when weighted against the other releases.

1-4 "Your grasp of old-timey historical detail..."; 5-6 "...has earned you a place in our Civil War Reenactment League."

reunion [riːˈjuːnjən] Definitions
n
1. the act or process of coming together again
2. the state or condition of having been brought together again
3. a gathering of relatives, friends, or former associates

So anyway, The White Stripes are recording again.

Yeah, we always refer to new records by groups "on hiatus" as reunion records. Gimme a fuckin' break.

(nice try, Duff, but I wasn't ready to let go yet...)

outstanding. the last two WS albums are as good as anything else they'd ever done. i am thrilled to hear that they are not done.

best characterization of a non-hiatus ever.

Well now they are on a hiatus. An indefinite one.

Well, that sucks.

maybe now they will put out Get Behind Me Satan as a Vault release.

ps, this fucking sucks.

No great loss, they made a few good records but it isn't as if they were going to release a classic ever or anything.

Leaving aside your physic powers on how good their further recorded output might have been, the fact they'll not be performing live again is a great loss.

^they may have never released a true classic LP, but their catalog overall and as a whole is outstanding. pretty solidly the best american rock band of the 2000s in my opinion. i am truly saddened and upset by this news. i think it sucks b/c this has essentially been the case since the IT tour that was canceled. i think their legacy has suffered b/c we've spent the last 4 years wallowing in "are they still a band? what do we have to look forward to?" limbo, unlike say fugazi or sleater-kinney, whose hiatus went publicly into effect less than 1 year after incredibly strong swan songs. IT could and should have been that record.

wow. i'm bummed. i will be listening to a lot of WS over the next week. glad i got to see them multiple times during their peak, but i feel like they still had so much more in the tank .

This would be less of a bummer if the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather didn't suck.

No, they released two.

Other than Radiohead, Outkast, Aracde Fire and maybe Kanye (though that love is spread between more albums) and M.I.A. can anyone name another act that released two records between 2000-2009 that received such positive reviews and still held up at the end of the decade? Wilco? The Flaming Lips? TV on the Radio? Animal Collective? Sorry, all trailing Elephant and White Blood Cells on any measure you want to use to quantify them other than your own preference.

The 2000s didn't do bands making "Classic Rock Albums" for the most part. The White Stripes were the closest it ever got.

^ Agreed.

^^^

the most OTM Mitch has ever been.

yea this sucks. agree that the raconteurs blow, but i like the dead weather and maybe they will actually get better who knows. obviously neither approach the white stripes for quality. anyway, jack white will continue to be a badass until he dies so we have that.

p.s.: anybody thinking elephant as anything other than a "classic" needs a new brain. fucking somb, i thought we agreed on this.

Sad Day For Music

Great Band
Great Live Shows
Great Albums

Thankfully I was able to see this band 3 times, and I was in the Canadian Documentary for 3 seconds

Decoration Day, The Dirty South.

Plus I wouldn't include The Arcade Fire in the "two album" category, or Radiohead. I'll give Arcade Fire Funeral, and Radiohead Kid A. In Rainbows is far from a "classic" , and easily falls behind White Blood Cells and Elephant.

It's also hard to top Yoshimi and Embryonic, two highly experimental records.


Sad to see the White Stripes go. Maybe Jack wasn't feeling that vibe, maybe he didn't want to wear red hot pants anymore.

no band in the 00's released as many consistently great albums as this band.

who can really stand up to White Stripes, De Stijl, White Blood Cells, Elephant, Get Behind Me Satan, and Icky Thump.

on top of all of this, The Raconteurs and Dead Weather released a string of solid singles, and Jack has started and maintained the most exciting record label i can recall from recent memory.

only liked De Stijl and White Blood Cells myself, and was never that impressed w/ them live the 2x i saw them play smaller club shows in '01/02 (actually was much more impressed by the Racs live), but i certainly know tons of huge fans who are bummed by the "news"

best tweet about the whole thing:

yeah, to me, WBC or Elephant have never been head and shoulders above their other records, nor have i ever thought of either of them as perfect. basically i would give DS->IT all 9s, and maybe an 8 to the debut. i'm w/ spirit on this one mostly.

that tweet solace posted sums up the whole sadness of situation. people have long since been done w/ this band, and while that fact is a true shame, its understandable in light of how their final years played out. also, this news would be a lot less bad if the raconteurs and TDW were in the same league as the white stripes.

This just plain sucks. I was really hoping to see them live just one more time....only got to see them twice and that just wasn't enough. Under Blackpool lights is easily my favorite concert video , I even ripped the audio just to listen to it on my iPod. The dynamic between the 2 of them on stage was fucking magical.

There were lots of rumors of them recording recently I almost wonder if they did get in the studio and tried to make it happen but weren't happy with the results. If so I suppose kudos to them for knowing when to call it quits.

Shut up.

"Carolina Drama" is a really good song, though.

the Raconteurs only suck when compared to the White Stripes.

their 2nd album was pretty awful though.

I like The Raconteurs. I hated the 2nd album at first, but grew to like it after many listens over a period of many months.

Really depressing. Wish they wouldn't make it all formal and all. Only got to see them once. Sad face.

I like the Raconteurs, they're a good band but they aren't great. Not in the same league, as the Stripes.

Best they go out on a relatively high note. They did quite well for what they brought to the table, that cannot be debated.

It's sad because it seems rather silly. Jack White isn't going to stop making music, obviously, and there's only one other person in the band. And it took them about 2 weeks, top, to knock out an album. Not sure how much effort it would have taken them to do this every couple years or so. Then again, nobody stays broken up. This only raises their price for Glastonbury/Lollapalooza 2013.

http://www.self-titledmag.com/home/2011/02...ns-compilation/

Cynical part of me wants to say: "Yeah, whatever, I guess they're headlining Coachella/Glasto/Lolla in a few years then". But really, Jack White doesn't need the Stripes anymore. He has the Raconteurs, Dead Weather and if he gets together with a couple of other rock heroes or indie gods for some other thing, his version of Them Crooked Vultures will be sub-headlining all those festivals anyway.

Full AOL article

Glad I saw them twice. Jack is pretty impressive live. I like the Raconteurs. I think that first album stands up to the Stripes. I guess I have to hear the 2nd now.

Trivia: Mine & Jess' first official date was a WS show. Elephant tour, I believe.

^that's pretty awesome.

re: UR's post, i feel like that's been the sentiment for a while, even as far back as 2003-2005ish. folks sorta knew that jack was somewhat biding his time and "slumming" if you will w/ WS projects, and that it'd be a matter of time before he moved. bummer to accept but i think that very likely may have been true. what's unfortunate though is that the reverse has been true, that the racs and DW are really more along the lines of slumming projects than the WS' legacy though.

listening to the s/t record right now and plan on going through their entire LP discog soon. i have a smattering of b-sides but its woefully incomplete. i can't wait until their box set of b-sides inevitably comes out (them and radiohead are at the top of my "need to officially release b-sides/non album tracks/etc." list).

and yeah, i'm not gonna be shocked when they reunite for coachella or whatever in 2017. as someone said earlier, no one stays broken up any more.

I don't see a reunion happening. Sure nobody stays broken up anymore, but Jack doesn't really follow the herd so much. Plus you have to figure in 10 years Meg is gonna have a bunch of kids or something. I could see them doing a one off charity gig or something like the Floyd has done but I don't see a full on reunion.

yea i just don't buy the idea that jack white "doesn't need the white stripes anymore." it's been very apparent from the beginning the guy was a rock star who just happened to market himself as a dude in a group. he could have easily gone the solo artist route ala beck or pj harvey and hired a band to play his stuff. he must like other people or something. not sure what the dude's problem is tbh.

2nd Raconteurs record better than first OR Icky Thump.

I know b/c the SOMB disagrees.

If Jack was telling Vanity Fair a few months ago that he wanted to make a new White Stripes record, then clearly Meg is the one who pulled the plug.

I'd bet money it went like this: Jack got fed up waiting for Meg to commit to making a new record, delivered an ultimatum, and she called his bluff. Now he is powerless, undone by his own creation, forever doomed to an eternal hell of lesser side projects and producing duties for wizened blues singers.

At the end of the day, nobody really cares about the Dead Weather or the Raconteurs. They want that "Seven Nation Army" riff, and now Jack can't do anything about it. Tough spot.

This news sucks.

Could Meg have made enough $$ off the WS where she never needs to work again?

I'm glad I got to see them once. They were great live.

see, i had heard they were in the studio.
its not unreasonable that they just couldn't get back into that groove, and called it instead of releasing something totally sub par just to do it.

not to mention, Jack is a busy dude these days with Third Man and all, and I think some of this has to do with him just not having the time to really put his all into The Stripes.

I hope Third Man Vault does a b-side comp, that would be awesome.

Exactly.

naw, you two will eat those words when the jack white project drops an album that makes seven nation army sound like kumbaya.

am i the only one who wouldn't put Seven Nation Army in my top 10 White Stripes songs?

I wouldn't

I would...then again i would put that song in the top 5 of the 00's though