White Stripes Exhausted By Fanatical Devotion to Red, White and Black

The cover of the White Stripes’ next album, Icky Thump, due June 19, finds the erstwhile troubadours Meg and Jack sittin’ on a log, plumb tuckered out from playin’ their songs. They’re wearing their rhinestone Nash Vegas finest, as befits the cover of an album recorded at legendary Blackbird Studio in Nashville.

The Stripes haven’t done anything crazy like abandoning the design motifs used on all their album covers to date – their devotion to the colors red and white would make Barbara Kruger proud – so this album looks to be a country-inflected version of more of the same from the White Stripes, which is fine. And we guess their joint poker face is one of the reasons we love them. But would it kill them to maybe buy a blue shirt for Jack, or experiment with a slightly different sound?

On the other hand, “300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues” is the best White Stripes song title ever.