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- Record Label: Warner Bros.
- Release Date: Mar 16, 2010
![Under Great White Northern Lights [Live] Image](https://static.metacritic.com/images/products/music/5/7f1c6a309cc2a65f1b0a701c625b1b02-98.jpg)
- Summary: The live album features recording from the duo's summer tour of Canada in 2007 which was also filmed for a documentary of the same name.
- Record Label: Warner Bros.
- Genre(s): Rock, Alternative, Live
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
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Positive: 11 out of 16
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Mixed: 5 out of 16
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Negative: 0 out of 16
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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."
Score distribution:
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Positive: 4 out of 5
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Mixed: 1 out of 5
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Negative: 0 out of 5
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Sep 7, 2011
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DerekS.Mar 17, 2010The DVD and CD combo pack is well worth the money if you're a fan of the White Stripes for the last scene alone.
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BlairElizabethMar 17, 2010The White Stripes are absolutely amazing. If you like good music, listen to AER radio on aertalk.com. It's amazing!
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Feb 12, 2011
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CodyTMar 18, 2010
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