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Poll: Deciding Jack White’s Greatest Hits

Help choose the very best from Jack White’s 20+ year music career – Rock, blues, folk, country…he has done it all and then some!

Jack While live photo by David James Swanson

Anyone who’s ever perused my author page on this website can quickly figure out that I’m a Jack White fan. I consider him the most important rock artist of the past 20 years, although that is not what’s up for debate here.

No one, aside from maybe Ty Segall has been more productive – White has fourteen high-profile albums to his name as a member of The White Stripes (6), The Raconteurs (2, with another coming next year), The Dead Weather (3), plus a trifecta under his own name. This doesn’t include his countless collaborations, from Quantum of Solace movie theme “Another Way to Die” (with Alicia Keys) to being name-dropped on A Tribe Called Quest’s We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service.

While it is anything but the ultimate barometer of success, I’ve always been surprised there hasn’t already been some kind of greatest hits compilation issued for him yet. I mean, The Best of The Vines came out way back in 2008, and they were the fourth best of the “The” bands! There’s no better time to rectify this situation than with Jack currently on a 10-city tour of Canada before wrapping up the 9-months long Boarding House Reach gestation period. I want to know what the readers of A Journal of Musical Things think are Jack’s all-time finest songs, whether they’re Billboard chart-toppers (i.e., “Seven Nation Army”, “Icky Thump”), or obscurities from when he was an upholsterer such as “Apple of My Eye”.

This isn’t like the US midterms; vote as often as you’d like by commenting on this very post, through Alan Cross’ Facebook, Twitter, or by emailing [email protected] directly. Just a quick note that this is not Alan’s email it’s mine, the guy who’s surname is the last lyric in The White Stripes’ “Lafayette Blues”. Let’s come up with a kick-ass tracklist he’d be proud to press into vinyl at Third Man Records!

Gilles LeBlanc

Gilles LeBlanc literally fell into “alternative rock” wayyy back at Lollapalooza 1992, where he got caught in his first mosh pit watching some band named Pearl Jam. Since then, he’s spent the better part of his life looking for music to match the liberating rush he felt that day, with a particular chest-beating emphasis on stuff coming out of his native Canada. It took him awhile, but Gilles now writes feverishly about all things that rock (and or roll) through his ROCKthusiast alter ego.

Gilles LeBlanc has 104 posts and counting. See all posts by Gilles LeBlanc

6 thoughts on “Poll: Deciding Jack White’s Greatest Hits

  • My nine year old son is voting for “My Doorbell”

    Reply
  • IMO, the most genius creative thing he ever did was The Dead Weather.

    Epic. So dark and musically layered.

    Plus: Alison Mosshart… most underrated rock star ever

    Reply
    • Couldn’t agree more, Steve! What’s your top DW album and track? Are you also a fan of The Kills? Ash and Fire is a great album.

      Reply
    • Scott, great choice! Such an underrated song. Be like the squirrel.

      Reply
  • “Cannon”, from the White Stripes epoponymous debut album.

    Reply

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