White Blood Cells is the third studio album by American rock duo the White Stripes, released on July 3, 2001. The album was recorded in less than one week at Easley-McCain Recording in Memphis, Tennessee, and was produced by frontman and guitarist Jack White. It was the band's final record released independently on Sympathy for the Record Industry. The album explores themes of love, hope, betrayal, and paranoia, which were inspired by the increased media attention the group were receiving.
White Blood Cells was released to critical and commercial success. It produced the groundbreaking single "Fell in Love with a Girl" which was paired with its equally successful stop motion music video, as well as the singles "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground", "Hotel Yorba" and "We're Going to Be Friends". The album, along with the band's 2003 follow-up Elephant, has been featured on several music publications' lists of the greatest albums of the 2000s as well as of all time. Uncut ranked the album first on their 2009 list of "The Greatest Albums of the 21st Century" to that point, and Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 497 on its 2012 list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".
Background and production
Continuing the stripped-down garage rock nature of the duo, White Blood Cells features less of the band's blues rock influences, instead displaying a more raw, basic, and primitive rock and roll sound. The album's lyrical themes, which were written by White over a period of four years, touch on themes relating to love, hope, betrayal, and paranoia. Following a major label re-release on V2 Records in 2002, the album became promoted throughout the music press, bringing the band critical acclaim. The White Stripes followed with a worldwide tour and the record peaked at number 61 on the Billboard 200, later being certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The album's cover art satirically parodies the amount of increasing mainstream popularity the band was receiving, which depicts the duo attacked by photographers.
The band rehearsed for one week and recorded the album at Easley-McCain Recording, in Memphis, Tennessee over three days in February 2001. Meg White was initially hesitant to commence immediate recording, as she thought the songs were "too new." The album was recorded in less than four days, to try to keep it "as unorganized as possible," according to Jack. The record's quick production was intentional in order to get "a real tense" feeling, as well as capture the band's energy. The record was "rushed" and a final day was saved for mixing and mastering the record; this was the first White Stripes album to be mastered in the studio. It was the first time for the band recording in a 24-track recording studio, and Jack White asked recording engineer Stuart Sikes more than once "not to make it sound too good."
The album was dedicated to Loretta Lynn, creating a friendship between Lynn and both Jack and Meg White. In 2004, Jack White would produce Lynn's comeback hit album Van Lear Rose. Redd Kross bassist Steven Shane McDonald created an online-only art project, titled Redd Blood Cells, in which he added a bass track to the otherwise bass-less album. The White Stripes arranged with Steven to take the files down after more than 60,000 downloads.