White Blood Cells is the third studio album by American rock duo the White Stripes, independently released by the Sympathy for the Record Industry on July 3, 2001. Recording took place in Memphis, Tennessee at Easley-McCain Recording over three days, and was produced by guitarist and lead vocalist Jack White. Production was rushed in order to capture a "real tense feeling" and the band's energy, and was their first album to be mastered in a studio.

Following their success releasing two albums within the Detroit music scene, the White Stripes departed from their blues-inspired roots and opted for a simple garage rock sound. They promoted White Blood Cells with a trio of shows in Detroit weeks before its release. They also released three singles to promote the album: "Hotel Yorba", "Fell in Love with a Girl", and "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground", which are among the band's best-known songs. The song "We're Going to Be Friends" was later issued to rock radio but did not receive a commercial single release.

White Blood Cells received widespread critical acclaim, and brought the band to the forefront of the garage rock revival. It became their first album to sell over a million copies, earning platinum certifications from the British Phonographic Industry and the Recording Industry Association of America. In 2007, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame added White Blood Cells to their 200 Definitive Albums list. In 2012, White Blood Cells appeared on Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list. Authors and reviewers have praised White Blood Cells as one of the best albums of the 21st century.

After rehearsing for a week,^[1] The White Stripes recorded White Blood Cells over three days in February 2001, at Easley-McCain Recording in Memphis, Tennessee.^[6][7] Meg was initially hesitant about rushing the recording process, believing the songs were "too new" and required more practice.^[8] Rushing the record, however, was done in order to keep the album "as unorganized as possible" and get "a real tense" feeling.^[9][10]

It was the band's first time recording, mixing and mastering their music in a 24-track recording studio, and Jack asked recording engineer Stuart Sikes more than once "not to make it sound too good."^[8][11] According to Stuart Sikes, in order to save money, the first 12 tracks of the tape were used for one song, while on the remaining 12 tracks, another song would be recorded.^[12]

The album was dedicated to Loretta Lynn, creating a friendship between Lynn, Jack and Meg; Jack later produced Lynn's 2004 album Van Lear Rose.^[13] 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.^[14]

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.^[15] Shortly before the release of White Blood Cells, Jack asserted that "There's no blues on the new record. We're taking a break from that. There's no slide work, bass, guitar solos, or cover songs. It's just me and Meg, guitar, drums and piano."^[1][11] All material on White Blood Cells is original, and is the first and only White Stripes album to not feature any covers.^[1]

The lyrics featured in White Blood Cells explore love, hope, betrayal, and paranoia, brought on by the increasing media attention the duo began receiving.^[15][16] Some of the songs were written in the band's early years. "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" was written by Jack before the duo released their debut album The White Stripes in 1999; it is speculated to be based on the end of Jack and Meg's marriage, though neither have commented on the matter.^[17] Some material for White Blood Cells was also inspired by other side-projects of Jack.^[18] Jack said being able to utilize his older works was "cool because a lot of things had been sitting around for a long time, stuff I had written on piano that had been just sitting around not doing anything. And it was good to put them all together at once, put them all in the same box and see what happened."^[11]

"Little Room" is "homily", written in response to White's favorite song, "Grinnin' in Your Face" by Son House.^[19] "The Union Forever" contains allusions to Citizen Kane (1941), reportedly Jack's favorite film, and nearly every line in the song comes from the movie;^[20] Warner Bros. was once rumored to be sueing the band over copyright infringement for Citizen Kane.^[21] "Hotel Yorba" is based on a real hotel a couple of blocks from Jack White's childhood home: "The Hotel Yorba is a really disgusting hotel," he remarked to Spin in 2001. "There was a great rumor when I was a kid that The Beatles had stayed there. They never did, but I loved that rumor. It was funny."^[1]

The cover art of White Blood Cells depicts Jack and Meg surrounded by people wielding television and video cameras, which was intended to both comment and satirize on the music industry.^[10] Jack said in a 2001 interview: "When does music become a business and why do we have to be suckered into it? Why do we have to buy a cell phone, you know what I mean? A lot of that stuff upsets me. It gets annoying."^[1] The name for the album was chosen as "this idea of bacteria coming at us, or just foreign things coming at us, or media, or attention on the band, it just seems to us that there are so many bands from the same time or before we started that were playing and are still playing that didn't get this kind of attention that we're getting. Is the attention good or bad? When you open the CD, it's a picture of us with these cameras. Wondering if it's good or bad."^[11]

To promote the album, the band performed three shows in Detroit at the Gold Dollar, Magic Bag, and Magic Stick three weeks before the album's release.^[11][22][23] White Blood Cells was released by the Sympathy for the Record Industry label on July 3, 2001,^[24] and received a major label re-release on V2 Records in 2002.^[25][26] Third Man Records released White Blood Cells XX, a companion album to White Blood Cells, in April 2021, which included home demos, early studio mixes, alternate takes, and a live show from September 6, 2001 at Headliner's in Louisville, Kentucky.^[27]

More information Aggregate scores, Source ...

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	86/100[28]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[29]
Alternative Press	8/10[30]
Los Angeles Times	[31]
NME	8/10[32]
Pitchfork	9.0/10[33]
Q	[34]
Rolling Stone	[35]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[36]
Uncut	[37]
The Village Voice	A[38]

Close

White Blood Cells received universal acclaim, and propelled the band to the forefront of the garage rock revival of the early 2000s.^[39][40] Review aggregating website Metacritic reports a normalized score of 86 out of 100 based on 16 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".^[41] This makes White Blood Cells the White Stripes' second highest-scoring album on the website as of 2024. It received platinum certifications from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). White Blood Cells peaked at number 61 on the Billboard 200 and number 55 in the United Kingdom, being bolstered in both territories by the "Fell in Love with a Girl" single and its Lego-animation music video.^[42][43]

The stripped-down garage rock sound of White Blood Cells drew praise in the UK, and in the US soon afterward.^[44][45] Several outlets praised their "back to basics" approach,^[46][47] with Daily Mirror calling them "the greatest band since The Sex Pistols."^[48] After their appearance on a live set on The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn, Joe Hagan of The New York Times declared that the White Stripes "have made rock rock again by returning to its origins as a simple, primitive sound full of unfettered zeal."^[49] Rolling Stone said that, on White Blood Cells, "Jack's Delta-roadhouse fantasies, Detroit-garage-rock razzle and busted-love lyricism, as well as Meg's toy-thunder drumming all peaked at once."^[50] It was included on many "best of 2001" year-end lists, including Blender,^[51] Rolling Stone,^[52] Mojo,^[53] and Kerrang!'s top 20,^[54] and NME,^[55] Pitchfork,^[56] and The Village Voice's top 10.^[57]

The A.V. Club ranked White Blood Cells as the number one best album of the decade in its Top 50 Albums of the 2000s list.^[58] British music magazine Uncut also ranked the record as the best album of the 2000s in its 2009 list Top 150 Albums of the 2000s.^[59] Billboard placed the record at number eleven on its Top 20 Albums of the 2000s,^[60] while Rolling Stone included it just behind the White Stripes' follow-up, Elephant, at number 20 on its Top 100 Albums of the 2000s.^[61] NME featured the album at number 19 on its Top 100 Albums of the 2000s list,^[62] and Pitchfork's Top 200 Albums of the 2000s included it as number 12.^[63] Several other music publications, including Consequence of Sound, The Daily Californian, Glide, and Under the Radar featured White Blood Cells within the top 30 greatest records of the 2000s.^[64] In 2007, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame added White Blood Cells to their 200 Definitive Albums list.^[65] In 2012, Rolling Stone placed White Blood Cells at 497 on their list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".^[50] The record is included in both The Guardian's "1000 Albums To Hear Before You Die" and the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.^[66][67]

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.^[80]

The White Stripes

• Jack White – vocals, guitar, piano, production, mixing
• Meg White – drums, backing vocals

Production

• Stewart Sikes – engineering, mixing
• Fred Kevorkian – mastering

Artwork

• "The Third Man" – layout and design
• Patrick Pantano – photography

• Album era

• Handyside, Chris (August 12, 2004). Fell in Love with a Band: The Story of The White Stripes. St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-33618-7.