Get Behind Me Satan
Encyclopedia
Get Behind Me Satan is the fifth album by American
alternative rock
band The White Stripes
, released on June 7, 2005 on V2 Records
. Though still basic in production style, the album marked a distinct change from its guitar-heavy 2003 predecessor, Elephant
. With its reliance on piano
-driven melodies and experimentation with marimba
on "The Nurse" and "Forever For Her (Is Over For Me)", Get Behind Me Satan plays down the punk
, garage rock
and blues
influences that dominated earlier White Stripes albums. Frontman Jack White
plays with different technique than in the past, trading in his electric guitar
for piano, mandolin
, and acoustic guitar on all but a handful of tracks, as his usual riff
-conscious lead guitar
style is overtaken by a predominantly rhythmic
approach. Rolling Stone
ranked it the third best album of the year and it received the Grammy
for Best Alternative Music Album
in 2006. As of February 2007, Get Behind Me Satan had sold 850,000 units in the United States.
, and mixed it at Ardent Studios
in Memphis, Tennessee
. This represented a change from their previous album because The White Stripes did not use a professional studio for production work.
Jack White has explained that the title, Get Behind Me Satan, refers to a well-known line from the story of the Temptation of Jesus which is later repeated against the disciple Simon Peter, in of the New Testament
. In the King James Version, the quotation is slightly different: "Get thee behind me, Satan". Jack White has also stated in an interview on the radio
show Fresh Air
that "truth is the number one theme throughout the album Get Behind Me Satan."
Get Behind Me Satan is the only album by The White Stripes to not be commercially released in a vinyl format. The reason behind it was because The White Stripes had intended to re-record Get Behind Me Satan entirely live in a New Zealand studio and wanted that to be the official vinyl version. However, the studio that they were planning to record it in no longer had the recording equipment to make it possible. As a result, there was never a commercially released vinyl of the album. Yet, there are only a few copies of the album on vinyl LP that were given exclusively to music journalists for review, which have since become coveted collector's items. They were released by both XL Recordings and V2 Records and each label had 300 each, making the total 600 and highly rare.
episode "I Get a Sidekick Out of You", with Lane and Zach in Meg and Jack's positions, respectively. It was also used for the 2008 Ozy and Millie
calendar as both the front cover and for the month of January with the characters Ozy and Mille replacing Jack and Meg.
charts at #3, ranking higher in the U.S. charts than their previous records, but lower in the UK charts than Elephant. "Blue Orchid
", the first single, became a radio hit in the United States and the band's second UK Top 10 hit. "My Doorbell
" was the second single off of the album, followed by "The Denial Twist
". Both also reached the Top 10 in the UK and charted on the Modern Rock Charts as well.
In 2006, the album was included in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
, edited by Robert Dimery, but was removed in the 2007 edition. "Instinct Blues" was featured in Michel Gondry
's 2006 film The Science of Sleep
. It was voted the sixth best album of the year in the 2006 Village Voice Pazz and Jop critic poll, with the song "My Doorbell
" being voted as the year's ninth best single.
.
The track "Passive Manipulation" features Meg White
on lead vocal and timpani
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band The White Stripes
The White Stripes
The White Stripes was an American rock band, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. The group consisted of the songwriter Jack White and drummer Meg White . Jack and Meg White were previously married to each other, but are now divorced...
, released on June 7, 2005 on V2 Records
V2 Records
V2 Records is a record label that is owned by Universal Music Group as of October 2007. The label was founded in 1996 by Richard Branson, five years after he sold Virgin Records to EMI....
. Though still basic in production style, the album marked a distinct change from its guitar-heavy 2003 predecessor, Elephant
Elephant (album)
Elephant is the Grammy winning fourth album by the American alternative rock band The White Stripes. Released on April 1, 2003 on V2 Records, the album marks the band's major label debut...
. With its reliance on piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
-driven melodies and experimentation with marimba
Marimba
The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...
on "The Nurse" and "Forever For Her (Is Over For Me)", Get Behind Me Satan plays down the punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, garage rock
Garage rock
Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that was first popular in the United States and Canada from about 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s, it was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name...
and blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
influences that dominated earlier White Stripes albums. Frontman Jack White
Jack White (musician)
Jack White , often credited as Jack White III, is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and occasional actor...
plays with different technique than in the past, trading in his electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
for piano, mandolin
Mandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
, and acoustic guitar on all but a handful of tracks, as his usual riff
RIFF
The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....
-conscious lead guitar
Lead guitar
Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
style is overtaken by a predominantly rhythmic
Rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
approach. Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
ranked it the third best album of the year and it received the Grammy
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for Best Alternative Music Album
Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album
The Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album is an award presented to recording artists for quality albums in the alternative rock genre at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards...
in 2006. As of February 2007, Get Behind Me Satan had sold 850,000 units in the United States.
Album
Jack White recorded the album at his own Third Man Studios in Detroit, MichiganDetroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
, and mixed it at Ardent Studios
Ardent Studios
Ardent Studios is a recording studio located in Memphis, Tennessee. Ardent Records/Ardent Music is the in-house label.- History :Ardent Studios was founded by John Fry and was initially a studio in his family's garage, where he recorded his first Ardent Records 45's. In 1966 the operation moved...
in Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
. This represented a change from their previous album because The White Stripes did not use a professional studio for production work.
Jack White has explained that the title, Get Behind Me Satan, refers to a well-known line from the story of the Temptation of Jesus which is later repeated against the disciple Simon Peter, in of the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
. In the King James Version, the quotation is slightly different: "Get thee behind me, Satan". Jack White has also stated in an interview on the radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
show Fresh Air
Fresh Air
Fresh Air is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States. The show is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its longtime host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to 450 stations and claimed 4.5 million listeners. The show...
that "truth is the number one theme throughout the album Get Behind Me Satan."
Get Behind Me Satan is the only album by The White Stripes to not be commercially released in a vinyl format. The reason behind it was because The White Stripes had intended to re-record Get Behind Me Satan entirely live in a New Zealand studio and wanted that to be the official vinyl version. However, the studio that they were planning to record it in no longer had the recording equipment to make it possible. As a result, there was never a commercially released vinyl of the album. Yet, there are only a few copies of the album on vinyl LP that were given exclusively to music journalists for review, which have since become coveted collector's items. They were released by both XL Recordings and V2 Records and each label had 300 each, making the total 600 and highly rare.
Cover art
The album cover was used in the Gilmore GirlsGilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls is an American family comedy-drama series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, starring Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel. On October 5, 2000, the series debuted on The WB and was cancelled in its seventh season, ending on May 15, 2007 on The CW...
episode "I Get a Sidekick Out of You", with Lane and Zach in Meg and Jack's positions, respectively. It was also used for the 2008 Ozy and Millie
Ozy and Millie
Ozy and Millie is a webcomic, created by D. C. Simpson, which debuted in January 1997. The comic was part of Keenspot from 2001 to 2003, going independent for several years before returning to Keenspot in November 2006. It follows the adventures of assorted anthropomorphized animals...
calendar as both the front cover and for the month of January with the characters Ozy and Mille replacing Jack and Meg.
Reception
Get Behind Me Satan entered the U.S. and UKUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
charts at #3, ranking higher in the U.S. charts than their previous records, but lower in the UK charts than Elephant. "Blue Orchid
Blue Orchid
"Blue Orchid" is the first track by the American alternative rock band The White Stripes from their album Get Behind Me Satan, and the first single to be released from the album....
", the first single, became a radio hit in the United States and the band's second UK Top 10 hit. "My Doorbell
My Doorbell
"My Doorbell" is the third track by the American alternative rock band The White Stripes from their album Get Behind Me Satan and the second single to be released from the album...
" was the second single off of the album, followed by "The Denial Twist
The Denial Twist
"The Denial Twist" is the third single released from American alternative rock band The White Stripes' 2005 album, Get Behind Me Satan.-Track listing:*CD version# "The Denial Twist" – 2:35# "Shelter of Your Arms" – 3:30...
". Both also reached the Top 10 in the UK and charted on the Modern Rock Charts as well.
In 2006, the album was included in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die is a musical reference book edited by Robert Dimery, first published in 2005. The most recent edition consists of a list of albums released between 1955 and 2010, part of a series from Quintessence Editions Ltd...
, edited by Robert Dimery, but was removed in the 2007 edition. "Instinct Blues" was featured in Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry is an Academy Award winning filmmaker, whose works include being a commercial director, music video director, and a screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène. - Life and career :...
's 2006 film The Science of Sleep
The Science of Sleep
The Science of Sleep is a 2006 French film written and directed by Michel Gondry. The film stars Gael García Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Miou-Miou, and Alain Chabat.-Plot:...
. It was voted the sixth best album of the year in the 2006 Village Voice Pazz and Jop critic poll, with the song "My Doorbell
My Doorbell
"My Doorbell" is the third track by the American alternative rock band The White Stripes from their album Get Behind Me Satan and the second single to be released from the album...
" being voted as the year's ninth best single.
Track listing
All songs written by Jack WhiteJack White (musician)
Jack White , often credited as Jack White III, is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and occasional actor...
.
The track "Passive Manipulation" features Meg White
Meg White
Megan Martha "Meg" White is an American drummer best known for her work in the Detroit rock duo The White Stripes.-Early life:...
on lead vocal and timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
.
Personnel
- Jack White — vocals, guitar, piano, marimba, tambourine, production, mixing
- Meg White — drums, Timpani, triangle, percussion, vocals, bells
- Howie WeinbergHowie WeinbergHowie Weinberg is a music mastering engineer who has worked with numerous bands.- Career :He has worked at Masterdisk, New York City, since 1977...
— mastering