Presented by GRAMMY.com, Songbook is an editorial series and hub for music discovery that dives into a legendary artist's discography and art in whole — from songs to albums to music films and videos and beyond.
There's a hair-raising TV moment that sums up why thousands and thousands of music fans adore and revere Jack White — well, half of why.
Back in 2019, his band the Raconteurs appeared on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert," performing their new single "Bored and Razed." On the whole, it was dynamic and raucous and engaging — featuring a characteristically harebrained solo from a tangle-headed, Cramps-shirted White.
But what a freaking ending: he lets loose a Roger Daltrey-style, full-chested, life-affirming "Yeeeeeeeeeah!!!" for the ages. Then, White bangs out the six-chord theme of "Bored and Razed" — and hurls his body at drummer Patrick Keeler's kit for the final kaboom.
It doesn't matter if you aren't into this particular sphere of alternative rock, or if you have any particular affection for White. No matter which way you slice it, this is genuine, visceral rock music. And if that form of human expression has any emotional impact on you, the hairs on the back of your neck are liable to stand on end.
That said, if rock 'n' roll anarchy was all White dealt in, we probably would have never heard his name. Like Neil Young before him, White deals in aural extremes — both Godzilla-scaled rock songs and tender, innocent balladry. That was on display when his first band, the White Stripes, appeared on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" a decade earlier.
\
What did he and Meg White choose to perform for Coco's final "Late Night" episode, but their final public outing as a band? Not "Seven Nation Army," not "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground," not "Ball and Biscuit" — no, a fuzzed-out rager wouldn't have been appropriate. Rather, they performed "We're Going to Be Friends," an innocent, acoustic daydream about school days and young love.
In the valley between "Bored and Razed" and "We're Going to Be Friends" lies White's eccentric, sweet, moving and occasionally flat-out bizarre body of work, which is still taking shape before our ears. How does one begin to process all of it?
In this edition of Songbook, let's dive into White's various bands from the White Stripes onward — concluding with White's solo career, which, five albums in, genuinely feels like it's just beginning.
The White Stripes
When the White Stripes called it a day in 2011, they stressed it wasn't because of creative differences or health issues — but a higher purpose.
"It's for a myriad of reasons," they said in a statement, "but mostly to preserve what is beautiful and special about the band and have it stay that way."
What exactly was "beautiful and special" about the White Stripes? It goes much deeper than tired talk of blues tropes, or their peppermint-colored visual aesthetic, or Meg White's "primal," "cavewoman" approach.
Rather, it was the former married couple's sheer force of personality, aesthetic and songcraft — plus, the fact that White is arguably the most viscerally thrilling electric guitarist of his generation.
All these elements reached their apogees on their third and fourth albums, 2001's White Blood Cells and 2003's Elephant.
Gateway listen: White Blood Cells
Shedding the occasional reliance on blues covers on their first two albums, White Blood Cells showed the awesome range that a singer/guitarist and drummer could command.
So many of its tunes remain classics — the back-porch country of "Hotel Yorba," the frenetic garage-punk of "Fell in Love With a Girl," and, of course, the lovely "We're Going to Be Friends."
The arguable pinnacle, though, is the vulnerable "The Same Boy You've Always Known," which begins downcast and autumnal and slams into an aching chorus.
The heart-rending kicker arrives at the very end: "If there's anything good about me," White sings, "I'm the only one who knows."
Another gateway listen: Elephant
The White Stripes' deepest and dankest album by some margin, Elephant — which won a GRAMMY in 2004 for Best Alternative Music Album — represents the summit of what this duo could accomplish.
"Seven Nation Army" — named after White's childhood misunderstanding of "Salvation Army" — is a football-stadium stomp-along today for a reason. The tender, solitary "You've Got Her in Your Pocket" displays White's mastery of McCartney-style sentimentality. "The Hardest Button to Button" rides one of their most indelible grooves.
And right in the middle of Elephant lies their most gobsmacking displays of brute force: "Ball and Biscuit."
The verses are ominous and lascivious in the blues tradition; when White's raucous, twisted solos slam the frequencies into the red, it's the closest music comes to inflicting whiplash.
Going deeper: The White Stripes and De Stijl
While the aforementioned pair of albums provides the most logical gateway, the records that precede and succeed them come awfully close in cruciality.
But for the purposes of this list, it's worth zeroing in on their first two albums to get a sense of their scrappy power and potential in their early years.
Aurally, 1999's The White Stripes is by far their heaviest, scrappiest, garage-iest work, but the reason it resonates is that the songs are terrific.
Therein, originals like "The Big Three Killed My Baby" and "Astro" stand toe-to-toe with the traditional tunes "John the Revelator" (interpolated into "Cannon") and "St. James Infirmary Blues," Robert Johnson's "Stop Breaking Down" and Bob Dylan's "One More Cup of Coffee."
De Stijl is a relatively underdiscussed gem, too; White indulged his inner Ray Davies in the sunshiney "Apple Blossom" and broadened his emotional palette with the doeful "I'm Bound to Pack it Up."
It all ends with "Your Southern Can is Mine," one of many casual, tongue-in-cheek album closers for the Stripes — this one borrowed from White's hero Blind Willie McTell.
The Raconteurs
Back in the mid-to-late '90s, Brendan Benson was getting his bearings in the music biz, with an Ethan Johns-assisted debut, One Mississippi, under his belt. But then, he saw a show that changed his entire trajectory.
"I first saw the White Stripes at the Gold Dollar [club in Detroit] and I was blown away. It was one of their first shows, or it might have been their first show," Benson told GRAMMY.com in 2019. "I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe how cool it was."
Benson made his way over to White and the two got to playing music; the rest is history. In 2005, they made their collaboration official with a new band, the Raconteurs, filled out by the Greenhornes' bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler.
Gateway listen: Broken Boy Soldiers
By all means, the place to begin with the Raconteurs is the first song they ever wrote: "Steady, As She Goes."
Filtering White's strut through Benson's pop sensibility, the tune represented an inspired synergy of the two men's personalities — and birthed an entirely new band (don't call it a "supergroup").
More than 15 years later, their home-studio-recorded Broken Boy Soldiers holds up; "Level" and "Store Bought Bones" remain earworms, and hearing two distinct artists fight for the mic is a sorely missed experience in most alternative rock that ensued.
Broken Boy Soldiers set the stage for a fruitful collaboration; 2006's eclectic, '70s-fried Consolers of the Lonely is absolutely worth seeking out as well.
When these two eccentrics made noise together, the result was paradoxically some of the most accessible and commercial output of either's career.
Going deeper: Help Us Stranger
After more than a decade on the backburner, the Raconteurs returned with guns blazing at the end of the 2010s with Help Us Stranger. (The band never broke up or drifted apart; it was just a long pause.)
And while all three Raconteurs albums are strong in their own rights, it's worth homing in on Help Us Stranger for how deftly it refreshes a sound that could have been caught in mid-2000s amber.
Because like the White Stripes before them, the Raconteurs aren't an "aughts band"; they're a rock band, period. At this point, White and Benson were both veterans, and what results are rock-solid, kick-the-tires compositions that straddle the future and the past.
Highlights are everywhere: Benson's "Only Child" aches and kicks rocks, White's "Don't Bother Me" is swollen with barely-contained rage at 21st-century narcissists, and the strutting single "Sunday Driver" is a consummate ass-kicker.
To say nothing of the ascendant "Shine the Light on Me," the smoldering "Now That You're Gone" and a string-popping rendition of the Donovan obscurity "Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness)."
In the end, what could have been a "reunion record" turned out to be one of White's most rewarding offerings — one predicated on brotherhood and bonhomie.
The Dead Weather
On the shadow side of Planet Jack is the Dead Weather, another post-White Stripes group he formed with the Raconteurs' Jack Lawrence, the Kills' Alison Mosshart and Queens of the Stone Age's Dean Fertita.
The wrinkle here: White isn't on guitar, but his very first instrument: drums. Granted, he sings, adds guitar to a few tunes, and the band still firmly inhabits his aesthetic plane.
Still, this major point of difference means the Dead Weather remains one of the most unique facets of White's songbook. Rest assured: rather than it being like Michael Jordan pivoting to baseball, White the drummer is a force of nature too.
Gateway listen: Horehound
The Dead Weather's debut succeeds for so many reasons — the tension between Mosshart and White, the particular dynamism between this quartet, an ominous atmosphere you could cut with a knife.
"Hang You From The Heavens" sounds conjured from a cauldron, "I Cut Like a Buffalo" is simmering and funky, and "Will There Be Enough Water" inhabits that torn-and-frayed Exile on Main St. vibe. (It's no wonder White previously joined the Stones onstage for "Loving Cup.")
Going deeper: Sea of Cowards and Dodge and Burn
After Horehound, it's not a major investment to check out the rest of the Dead Weather's output — the coiled-tight Sea of Cowards and high-velocity Dodge and Burn are natural outcroppings.
It's been more than seven years since we've heard from the Dead Weather; will we get more of White's and Mosshart's potent collaboration?
If the Raconteurs are any indication, a long time off doesn't mean the ship has sailed for good. For her part, count Mosshart in for a reconvening: "We had no plan or desire to start a band, but the music just seemed to kidnap us," she told Consequence in 2022.
"Maybe one day we'll all be home at the same time and get together and do something again," she continued. "It'll have to be magic again. It'll have to feel just right."
Going Solo
Sure, you could reasonably get into solo Jack White by just starting from the beginning.
His first two albums under his own name, 2012's Blunderbuss and 2014's Lazaretto, beamed White's vision through a maximalist lens — and he scooped up a combined nine GRAMMY nominations and two wins for his trouble.
Gateway listens: Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive
But with that in mind, White's latest two albums — both from 2022 — provide a handy twofold entrance to this phase of his career.
The former is a zonked, kaleidoscopic listen that barely gels (in the best way), careening from Cab Calloway ("Hi-De-Ho," featuring Q-Tip) to self-lacerating ragers ("What's The Trick?").
Entering Heaven Alive, on the other hand, embraces a subdued, melodic approach that will doubtlessly satisfy those who really, really miss his more Beatlesque offerings of yore.
Going deeper: Boarding House Reach
If Fear of the Dawn seems rather fragmentary and ADHD, you haven't heard anything yet. Because Boarding House Reach is by far the most confounding entry in White's canon — deliciously so.
This is no hyperbole: there is absolutely no precedent for "Ice Station Zebra," "Hypermisophoniac" or "Get in the Mind Shaft" in White's discography.
This comports with its making — inspired by rappers like Nicki Minaj, White made the album in an isolated frenzy, crafting musical Frankensteins on the reel-to-reel recorder he'd used since he was a teen.
Boarding House Reach received mixed reviews, but that's exactly why you should hear it — it left everyone scratching their heads.
Even more interestingly, it doesn't really exist on the spectrum between light versus heavy, or melodic versus bludgeoning — it points to somewhere new and wholly alien.
Let it be known that the man who showed many of us turn-of-the-century country-blues just might be charting guitar music's future. Twelve GRAMMYs and 33 nominations in, consider us strapped in for his next unforeseeable transformation.
Songbook: A Guide To Every Album By Guided By Voices' Current Lineup — So Far