Pretentiously Indie As It May Sound...

This week, I said I was going to write about the Andy Gray/Sky/Sexism fiasco. However, two weeks have passed since the actual event, and I've realised that by now, people care about it as little as I want to write another blatantly obvious post about how Andy Gray was wrong but Sky went too far in sacking him, and add it to a mountain of articles that all say the exact same thing (unless you read The Sun, who hate sexism even though when you scroll down the page a little further on a Friday afternoon, you get treated to their 'hottest women of the week' section, which doesn't objectify the fairer sex at all).

Anyway, in the last week or so, many things have happened that have pushed the Sky fiasco out of the limelight, which is probably for the best, as it was all a bit of a storm, no, an asteroid collision in a teacup. We've had civil unrest in Egypt, as a president who has been in charge for 30 years has seemingly reached the end of his reign. We've had Top Gear presenters insulting the population of Mexico (Andy Gray got sacked for less) and our own Prime Minister has told us all that our multicultural society has failed.

Worse still, Jordan's single again, which inevitably means yet another increase in the already overly fucking generous amount of column inches she gets; I can't get a Jessie J ticket without paying double the face value, and on Wednesday, The White Stripes announced they were splitting up. Where's the good  news? Well? ANSWER ME!

Truth be told, my heart sank a little when I read that nothing fresh was going to come from the Detroit Duo. Pretentiously Indie as it may sound, but The White Stripes, along with American counterparts The Strokes, made sure we didn't spend the whole of the naughties listening to Christina Aguilera, or worse still, Limp Bizkit. Whereas The Strokes were the archetypal rock and roll band - slick, partying hard and generally looking cool as fuck - The White Stripes were different. They were quirky (a colour scheme of nothing but red, white and black was assumed throughout their time together), there was always an element of mystery about them. For one thing, people genuinely thought they were siblings for a couple of years, until it emerged they used to be married.

Musically, The White Stripes primarily kept things as simplistic as their colour scheme. A lot has been made of Meg White's drumming capabilities, but in all honesty it serves the music's purpose down to a tee. Songs such as 'Seven Nation Army' wouldn't work with complex drum beats and exuberant fills. Of course, the music does have complexities within it, but these always came from Jack White, either with his guitar (see 'Little Cream Soda') or his vocal delivery (see 'Blue Orchid').

Of course, we might have seen this split coming. We haven't heard any new material from The White Stripes in four years, and we haven't seen them live either. In that time, we've seen multiple releases from Jack under different guises, be it The Raconteurs, The Dead Weather or as a solo venture. He may have been distancing himself from his original band for some time.

That doesn't really matter now though, the harsh truth is, we'll never get to hear the likes of 'Fell In Love With A Girl', or 'Icky Thump' live again, and that in itself is a massive shame. Jack White will continue to be a guitar virtuoso, and will continue to release music. However, knowing that none of that is going to come from The White Stripes is quite saddening.