Icky Thump (2007)

Icky Thump is the sixth and final studio album by American rock duo the White Stripes. It was released in June 2007 in the United States by Warner Bros. and internationally by XL. Produced by vocalist and guitarist Jack White, it was recorded across three weeks at Blackbird from January to February 2007, the longest recording period of any White Stripes album. Icky Thump marks a return to the band's early garage rock and punk blues influences, featuring lyrics about "feeling positive about being alive".

Icky Thump was praised by critics, marking a resurgence after the polarizing reviews of their previous record. The album was a commercial success, topping the UK Albums Chart and peaking at number two on the Billboard 200, receiving gold certifications in both territories. It also entered the top ten of several other countries. Icky Thump won Best Alternative Music Album and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards.

Recording and production

Icky Thump was recorded and mixed entirely in analog at Nashville's Blackbird Studio in Studio D by engineer Joe Chiccarelli throughout January and early February 2007. After touring with The Raconteurs, Jack White was inspired to make another White Stripes album as he and Meg "gel effortlessly" and "that blessing" extended to the music. She temporarily relocated from Los Angeles, California to Jack's home in Nashville for a couple months to record the album. She was described as "on fire" and more involved in the whole process than previous albums. Meg described the album to be not "as elaborate as [Get Behind Me Satan]. [They] were ready to get back to a simple, basic form." According to Chiccarelli, in an interview with HitQuarters, The White Stripes had previously rehearsed and demoed around half the album, while the rest was conceived in the studio. In the manner of Get Behind Me Satan's second track "The Nurse", much of the album was constructed of "chopping things up" from one song with riffs and drum grooves improvised in the moment of recording and putting the leftover reel into another song. Pro Tools was not used for this process and there was no regard for how different things would sound (as Pro Tools can correct inconsistencies in tone or tempo). Chiccarelli said, "We spent a little more time than he is used to experimenting and trying different things on that album, whether it was different ways to record the drums or the vocals, or different arrangements, or cutting takes together."

In addition to his signature 1964 JB Hutto Montgomery Airline and 1950s Kay Hollowbody guitar, Jack would use his own 1954 and 1969 Fender Telecasters that were in the studio mainly for solos or for use with an Electro-Harmonix POG (polyphonic octave generator) pedal. Gretsch guitars were used extensively. The rare 1957 White Penguin electric guitar was used on "Icky Thump", and appears in its music video. The acoustic Rancher Falcon model, emblazoned with Golden Age actress Rita Hayworth on its back, was used in the music video for "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You're Told)" and in the Under Great White Northern Lights film. The assistant engineer, Lowell Reynolds, serendiptiously achieved the trademark Detroit rock distortion that Chiccarelli was seeking by incorrectly formatting the input and output into the stereo bus and they used that format for the rest of the album. Many Coles 4038 and AEA R84 microphones as well as Fender Twin Reverb amplifiers were overloaded in the process. Jack's guitars were so loud in the isolation booth it would often hurt Chiccarelli's, Reynolds's, and Meg's ears, forcing the former to wear protective earmuffs and the latter to not use monitor headphones at all as it made her uncomfortable. Instead, for her parts, the isolation booth's door was opened for the guitar's sound to spill to the drum's microphones. Much of the vocal production was spent modeling Jack's performance after Little Richard, which also overloaded the microphones and preamplifiers, yet Chiccarelli resolved this by looking at Jack's live performances in which he used a floor monitor and thought to tape an RCA 77-DX and Shure SM57 together and use a Fender Deluxe 85 amplifier to manipulate the distortion with Jack's movement. RCA 77-DX was the main vocal microphone used on the album, except for on the title track, which used a Telefunken U 47.