Recording and Production
After Get Behind Me Satan, Icky Thump marks a return to the punk, garage rock and blues influences for which the band is known. Additionally, the album introduces Scottish folk music, avant-garde, trumpet, and bagpipes into the formula, whilst simultaneously reintroducing older characteristics such as the first studio recording of the early White Stripes song "Little Cream Soda".
Icky Thump was recorded and mixed entirely in analog at Nashville's Blackbird Studio by Joe Chiccarelli. According to Chiccarelli in an interview with HitQuarters, the band had already rehearsed and demoed around half the album, with the rest being conceived in the studio. The album took almost three weeks to record—the longest of any White Stripes album. The recording differed from previous albums in that White had the comparative luxury of recording to 16-track analog rather than his usual 8-track. Also, Chiccarelli said: "We spent a little more time than he is used to experimenting and trying different things on that album, whether it was different ways to record the drums or the vocals, or different arrangements, or cutting takes together.". Trumpet player Regulo Aldama, who appears on "Conquest", was discovered by Jack White at a local mexican restaurant.
Jack White said that the album would appeal to fans of the band's self-titled debut, suggesting a stripped-down garage rock sound. A statement on the band's official website (spuriously attributed to "Kitayna Ireyna Tatanya Kerenska Alisof" of the "Moscow Bugle", a reference to the 1966 Batman film) humorously claims that:
| “ | The White Stripes have completed the recording and mixing of their sixth album. It is entitled Icky Thump, and is their first album to include a title track, which curiously (and not ironically) has the same words in it's name. Though some residents of northern England might almost recognize the title, the Stripes stress they are spelling it wrong intentionally just for "kicks" and "metaphors," and to avoid a possible lawsuit from the estate of Billy Eckstine. | ” |
A video of The Stripes in the studio working on the album can also be found at their site, although the aforementioned statement has this to say about the song: "The actual music has been replaced with mid eighties sampling keyboard technology to prevent what industry analysts are now calling 'song poaching.'"
Entertainment Weekly's online site had an interview with Michel Gondry in which he said he would be directing a video for "I'm Slowly Turning Into You". He mentions the idea for the video. Gondry also says that the video idea came first, and after mentioning the idea to Jack White, White wrote the song to fit that idea.
Several tracks from the album were leaked, and on May 30, 2007, Chicago radio station Q101 aired the entire album without the band's permission. Jack called into the station and reacted angrily about them playing it. There is speculation that the label supplied the album to the station in order to promote its release. In the liner notes of Icky Thump, "Electra" is thanked on the second line, just after God. According to Ben Blackwell, Jack White's nephew, this is not directed towards the radio DJ, Electra, but to a pet Jack and Meg White used to have.
The White Stripes announced the completion of Icky Thump on February 28, 2007. The title is derived from "ecky thump", a Lancashire colloquial response of surprise, popularized by an episode of the 1970s UK comedy series The Goodies. On Later with Jools Holland (broadcast June 1, 2007) Jack attributed the album's name to its use as an exclamation by his wife, who is from Lancashire. He added that the deliberate misspelling was to make it easier for an American audience to identify with. The liner notes for Icky Thump also suggest the spelling variation was due to concerns over copyright infringement.
Ironically, the Pearly Kings and Queens costume theme that the band used for this album is a traditional Cockney outfit, somewhat contrary to the Northern dialect of the title.
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Famous quotes containing the words recording and/or production:
“I didn’t have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let’s say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing!”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“The problem of culture is seldom grasped correctly. The goal of a culture is not the greatest possible happiness of a people, nor is it the unhindered development of all their talents; instead, culture shows itself in the correct proportion of these developments. Its aim points beyond earthly happiness: the production of great works is the aim of culture.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)