- Record Label: Warner Bros.
- Release Date: Mar 16, 2010
- Critic score
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- By date
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This concert CD/DVD does a great job of highlighting both sides of The White Stripes' carefully controlled public persona.
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Jack and Meg careen from riff to riff, idea to idea, clinging for dear life as they dig their spurs into the mythical rodeo beast of rock ’n’ roll. Their lean guitar-and-drums approach allows them to turn on a dime, following any stormy muse they please.
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As a stand-alone release, it’s impressive; as a document and celebration of the greatest band of 21st century (sorry, Radiohead), it’s imperative.
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Under Great White Northern Lights is a perfect explanation of the band's significance to doubters, now and in the future.
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The album sounds ridiculously heavy, with many songs-- including the gurgling "I'm Slowly Turning Into You" and the Dusty Springfield cover "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself"-- easily trumping their studio counterparts.
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The live album is built from tracks taken from different shows so doesn’t show off the improvisatory nature of their setlist-free shows, but again, it’s a reminder that their three-year absence is a bit of a tragedy.
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MojoSo unlike "Raw & Alive" by The Seeds, say there's no need for overdubbed excitement here, just the Noughties' most smokin' rock'n'roll act, on breathtaking form. [Apr 2010, p.96]
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Since a big part of the Stripes’ live show also rests on their visuals, the Under Great White Northern Lights DVD gives the complete experience, but this album is satisfying enough to make it a must for most fans.
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Under Great White Northern Lights would be a funny postscript. It's not particularly revelatory, less cohesive a concert film that Under Blackpool Lights, and in no way intimates that the band was about to go into hiatus. Really, it serves, more than anything else, as a reminder of just how singularly odd the White Stripes are, and how boring things are without them around.
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Northern Lights captures the live show as circus, the aura where group participation and the raggedness of improvisation supersedes a faithful rendering of songs, an interpretation that, if not always satisfying to listen to, is at least fascinating to behold.
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But right down to the tongue-in-cheek stage patter (“My name’s Jack White and this is my big sister Meg White on the drums!”) there’s nothing here that White Stripes’ fans haven’t heard before.
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They're a great loud band, but apart from some bagpipes before Let's Shake Hands, there's little new or particularly interesting here.
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Ultimately, like many live albums before them and certainly after them, it's just okay. It succeeds in capturing a performance that is an apt representation of the band and is largely an aural pleasure, yet you never really shake the fruitless nature of the album.
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Under The RadarAs part filler, part last-band-standing victory lap. Under Great White Northern Lights is a worthwhile addition to The Stripes' discography. [Spring 2010, p.71]
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UncutThe combo of an unadventurous set-list and cutting between several different shows makes Under Great White Northern Lights an oddly detached experience. [Jun 2010, p.111]
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The sold-separately CD soundtrack reiterates that point, capturing the pair's post-millennium blues, from the scat-rap, tornado groove of "Icky Thump" and electric mandolin haunt "Little Ghost" to the proto-punk, Maximum R&B of "Let's Shake Hands."
User score distribution:
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Positive: 23 out of 26
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Mixed: 2 out of 26
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Negative: 1 out of 26
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Sep 7, 2011
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Feb 12, 2011
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CodyTMar 18, 2010