The White Stripes is the debut studio album

Studio album

A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...

 by American alternative rock

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

 band The White Stripes

The White Stripes

The White Stripes was an American rock band, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. The group consisted of the songwriter Jack White and drummer Meg White . Jack and Meg White were previously married to each other, but are now divorced...

, released on June 15, 1999. The album was produced by Jim Diamond

Jim Diamond (music producer)

Jim Diamond is a music producer, studio engineer, and bass guitar player based in Detroit, Michigan. He worked on the first two White Stripes albums and played bass with The Dirtbombs.- Background :...

 and vocalist/guitarist Jack White

Jack White (musician)

Jack White , often credited as Jack White III, is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and occasional actor...

, recorded in January 1999 at Ghetto Recorders and Third Man Studios in Detroit. White dedicated the album to deceased blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 musician Son House

Son House

Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music...

.

Recording and production

Johnny Walker of the Soledad Brothers played slide guitar on two songs: "Suzy Lee" and "I Fought Piranhas". Walker is credited with having taught Jack White how to play slide, a technique featured heavily on the White Stripes' first two albums. Walker explains, "[Jack] had a four track

4-track

4-track or 4-track tape may refer to:* The 4-track cartridge as an analogue music storage format popular from the late 1950s* A 4-track tape used in professional recording studios for multitrack recording...

 in his living room and invited me to come by and do some recording. In return, I showed him how to play slide."

Critical reception

Allmusic said of the album:

"Jack White's voice is a singular, evocative combination of punk, metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

, blues, and backwoods while his guitar work is grand and banging with just enough lyrical touches of slide

Slide guitar

Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...

 and subtle solo

Guitar solo

In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...

 work... Meg White balances out the fret

Fret

A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard...

work and the fretting with methodical, spare, and booming cymbal

Cymbal

Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...

, bass drum

Bass drum

Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...

, and snare

Snare drum

The snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...

... All D.I.Y. punk-country-blues-metal singer/songwriting duos should sound this good."

Track listing

All songs written by The White Stripes

The White Stripes

The White Stripes was an American rock band, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. The group consisted of the songwriter Jack White and drummer Meg White . Jack and Meg White were previously married to each other, but are now divorced...

, except where noted.

Personnel

The White Stripes

• Jack White
  Jack White (musician)
  Jack White , often credited as Jack White III, is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and occasional actor...
  
   – vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  , guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  , piano
  Piano
  The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
  
  , production
  Record producer
  A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
  
  
• Meg White
  Meg White
  Megan Martha "Meg" White is an American drummer best known for her work in the Detroit rock duo The White Stripes.-Early life:...
  
   – drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  

Additional personnel

• Johnny Walker – slide guitar
  Slide guitar
  Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
  
   on "Suzy Lee" and "I Fought Piranhas"
• Jim Diamond
  Jim Diamond (music producer)
  Jim Diamond is a music producer, studio engineer, and bass guitar player based in Detroit, Michigan. He worked on the first two White Stripes albums and played bass with The Dirtbombs.- Background :...
  
   – production, engineering
  Audio engineering
  An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
  
  
• Ko Melina Zydeko – photography
  Photography
  Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
  
  
• Heather White – photography

Release history

Region	Date	Label	Format	Catalog
United States	June 15, 1999	Sympathy for the Record Industry Sympathy for the Record Industry Sympathy for the Record Industry is a mainly independent garage rock and punk label formed in 1988 by record industry anti-mogul Long Gone John...	LP album LP album The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...	SFTRI 577
			Compact Disc Compact Disc The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...	SFTRI 577
United Kingdom	November 26, 2001	XL Recordings XL Recordings XL Recordings is a British independent record label owned by Richard Russell. It originated as a 1989 offshoot of Beggars Banquet Records.Though only releasing an average of six albums a year, XL Recordings has worked with The Prodigy, Radiohead, The White Stripes, Dizzee Rascal, M.I.A., Vampire...	Compact Disc	XLCD 149
			LP album	XLLP 149
United States	June 11, 2002	V2 Records V2 Records V2 Records is a record label that is owned by Universal Music Group as of October 2007. The label was founded in 1996 by Richard Branson, five years after he sold Virgin Records to EMI....	Compact Disc	63881-27131-2
Japan	March 19, 2003	V2 Records Japan	Compact Disc	V2CP 148
United States	November 30, 2010	Third Man Records Third Man Records Third Man Records is an independent record label founded by Jack White in Detroit, Michigan, in 2001. Third Man established its first physical location — a combination record store, performance venue, and headquarters for the label — in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2009.-History:Jack White founded...	LP album	TMR-042