There’s no other way to say this: The White Stripes have broken up. Well, I guess you can say it all cool-like, the way Jack and Meg White did:
The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore. The White Stripes belong to you now and you can do with it whatever you want. The beauty of art and music is that it can last forever if people want it to. Thank you for sharing this experience. Your involvement will never be lost on us and we are truly grateful.
Don’t worry, though: it doesn’t mean that Jack White will be any less active. Hell, it doesn’t even mean that you won’t be able to find more music under the The White Stripes moniker, as Third Man Records already plans to release live and studio recordings as part of their Vault program. But yes, new recordings are obviously out of the picture in the near future.
But why the breakup anyway? For anyone wondering about rocky roads in the White relationship, the couple has been divorced since 2000 (where have you been?), so it’s probably not as simple as when moms and dads decide not to live together anymore. But it is a little bewildering that, while they give no definitive explanation, they claim that the breakup is not due to “artistic differences or lack of wanting to continue.”
Readers: We need to get to the bottom of this.
• The White Stripes: http://www.whitestripes.com
• Third Man: http://www.thirdmanrecords.com