VH1'S 100 GREATEST: MEG WHITE

It was a huge honor to be asked to be a commentator for VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Music. The list seems to be taken from VH1's lifetime - so no Aretha, Billie, Loretta, etc.

But still, there's a lot of great artists included, and I was really glad to see that Meg White of The White Stripes on the list. She was the perfect drummer for that duo, no one else would have worked, no one else could have made it work. She was so amazing.

Unlike her former bandmate Jack White, she doesn't seem to have the itch to make music all the time.  I wonder if she'll ever be in another band.

Personally, I just hope The White Stripes get back together at some point.  It's hard to imagine Meg in any other band (prove me wrong, Meg).  It would be a shame if she actually retired from music.

GRAMMY WATCH: "THE WHITE STRIPES: UNDER GREAT WHITE NORTHERN LIGHTS"

I just wrote about what was probably my favorite music documentary of the past year, Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage.  Another one that deserves mention is The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights. It's nominated against Rush in Best Longform Video at the Grammys tomorrow.  While I prefer the Rush flick, I think that Emmett Malloy did a great job on this. Ostensibly, it documented The White Stripes' 2007 tour of Canada, and instead of just doing arenas, they did lots of last minute performances in strange locations, including an old age home, a bus, and a Y. It showed a lot about Jack White's commitment to music and making it something that isn't just easy to get. The special shows were announced usually at the last minute, it wasn't the kind of deal where you buy stuff online via a presale from the comfort of your own home. Jack doesn't make it easy on himself either - he mentions that he plays old guitars that are difficult to keep in tune, he keeps his picks at the back of the stage so if he drops one, he has to rush to the back of the stage and not mess up the song, stuff like that. It's really part of Jack's entire aesthetic, it comes through in his music and also in the way he runs Third Man Records.

But the unspoken heart of the film is the relationship between Jack and Meg White, a relationship that seems too complicated to explain or describe in words or pictures. And we now know, that the film documented part of what was their last tour, as they just announced their breakup earlier this month.

If you haven't seen the flick, stop here.

The interviews with Jack and Meg tell a lot of the story: the relationship looks like it's getting uncomfortable. Of course, it's to be expected: while Jack always sticks with the storyline that they are brother and sister, everyone knows that they are ex-husband and wife. The fact that they are in a band together - a duo at that - is pretty amazing. It's a complex relationship, too: she encouraged him to date the woman who is now his wife, Karen Elson, and he hired her husband Jackson Smith to play guitar on Elson's debut album. Meg and Smith were married in a ceremony at Jack's house; Jack Lawrence of The Raconteurs was married at the same ceremony. It's complicated.

But you can kind of see things coming to an end in the last scene. Jack and Meg are sitting at a piano, with Jack playing "White Moon," and Meg swaying and watching him.  There's one little moment, where she looks at him and then at the camera and then away.  Soon after, tears start flowing from her eyes. It kind of says everything. It really is a cool doc, and watching it for the second time, with the Stripes now in the rear view mirror, it takes on a lot more weight. It's rare that documentaries about music groups have such raw moments of honesty, and few of them are this poignant, lovely and sad at the same time. I was really sorry to hear that they were breaking up... but after watching this again, I kind of understand why.

GOODBYE TO A GREAT BAND: THE WHITE STRIPES

So, as the entire music world knows by now, The White Stripes announced that, as of today, they are no longer a band. I don't want to overstate how bummed I am - there are a lot of worse things going on in the world to be sad or upset about.  On the other hand, you almost can't overstate how great they were.

I had a hard time immersing myself in bands after the Lollapalooza thing started to fade in the mid '90s.  After that wave of incredible bands of the late '80s and early '90s, I had a hard time really "buying into" many bands or artists (I'm not limiting this to just artists who literally played Lollapalooza, I'll include Faith No More and Helmet and Nirvana here, as well as less testosterone-y groups like Cowboy Junkies or Cake).

Part of it I attributed to my age: I graduated college in the early '90s, and stayed interested in new bands for a while, but pretty soon I couldn't find anyone new who I'd  be willing to go to see in concert.  There was also the sort of "indie rock" element, and obviously I don't mean "indie" as in independent artists like Fugazi or Ani DiFranco.  I mean the whole sort of slacker thing, which I often feel like comes from bands like Pavement or Sebadoh.  I won't say that those bands don't have good songs or talent, but they just don't hold my interest, and they don't seem to care about being great. In fact, the idea of trying to be great seems to be sort of embarrassing to them. That was my take.  You can have that sort of attitude if you are, say, Dylan or Lou Reed, but few bands are that awesome.  So: they don't care = I don't care.

And then The White Stripes came along. They had the old-school/punk rock "rust never sleeps" attitude, but at the same time, there was definitely a reverence for the past. They were hip but populist. They wanted their music to hold up to the legends, but they didn't want to get lazy. They were disciplined, they had a vision, they definitely cared and most importantly, they wrote great songs. Like a lot of other people, I got into them in 2001 around the time of their third album, White Blood Cells. To me, they were the band of the '00s (The Drive-By Truckers, Pearl Jam and U2 would also be in the running). (Last year, I named Jack White as my Artist of the '00s). After White Blood Cells, I picked up their first two albums, and by the time they released Elephant in 2003, I was all in.

They occasionally collaborated with other musicians (a horn section on "Conquest," Holly Golightly on "It's True That We Love One Another." But really, it was about the power of two people, Jack and Meg White. Three colors (red, white and black) and three instruments (guitar - or keyboards or marimba, drums and vocals)... I guess maybe they ran out of ideas.  Part of the discipline of the band was sticking within their confines, and to change that would be to change what was so great about the band. On 2005's Get Behind Me Satan I thought they were maybe running out of juice, but on 2007's Icky Thump, they had some of their finest moments (including the classic "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do What You're Told)".  That's a good way to go out. Their final performance was on Conan O'Brien's (first) last show (ha ha) doing "We're Going To Be Friends."

Of course, Jack has been making music outside of the Stripes anyway, with The Raconteurs, The Dead Weather, and more recently with Wanda Jackson. Whatever Jack does, it has a particular sound, but none of his other projects had what The White Stripes had. I'm sad that he, or they, feel that they have nothing else left to say, but I respect that they know what they're doing, and they don't want to ruin what was a great band by putting out music that doesn't hold up to their legacy. That's admirable. Thanks for the awesome music. (By the way, you can read their parting statement at their official website).

A POST ABOUT THE WHITE STRIPES' MUSIC

IT ROCKS.