The White Stripes closed up shop on Groundhog Day (February 2) of last year. They hadn't toured in a while and Jack was involved with at least three other projects. The good of the situation was that they never sullied their reputation and took the two piece band to it's most extreme. The bad, of course, was the loss of another great band who actually achieved a level of commercial success and was played on modern rock radio (for better or worse) that didn't sound like another rehash of Pearl Jam. A good reason for this was that there really was no connection between grunge music of the 90's and the Stripes, something which can not be said of 95% of the bands described as "alternative" during the last 15 years. I feel some good came out of the Northwest and the Year Punk Broke, but too many bands have made Nirvana and Pearl Jam their Led Zeppelin, and we know how that turned out in the 80s already. So who were the White Stripes influenced by? Here is a playlist of songs they covered and recorded, with the original artist recording followed by the White Stripes version.
