Overview
Continuing the stripped-down garage rock nature of the duo, White Blood Cells attempts to do away with 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.
Praised for its simplicity and straightforward sound and instrumentation, White Blood Cells set the stage for The White Stripes to breakthrough into the mainstream and is often compared with classic rock influences. It helped define the band's sound and shape the band's role in the garage rock revival of the early 2000s. In recent years, the album has been, along with the band's follow-up Elephant (2003), featured on several music publications' lists of the greatest albums of the 2000s as well as all-time.
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