'White Blood Cells'

"Fell In Love With A Girl" got Jack and Meg White famous.

"Hotel Yorba" got their foot in the door.

It was late 2001, I was in college, and my only access to cable television was at a bar or at the house of the girl I was dating. Paying for television seemed to dumb, at the time.

At the time, MTV had already evolved into the crap hole that it is today. It was well on its way toward not playing any music whatsoever.

However, several years earlier, MTV had launched MTV2. This station not only played music videos all day, but they attached themselves to the wave of independent-tinged rock music that was selling more and more records and turning more and more heads. Hell, even bands that weren't doing anything, you could find them on MTV2. It was a great time waste.

I first heard about The White Stripes due to their album De Stijl, but I knew little about then or anything about their upcoming White Blood Cells.

Then one afternoon, I switch over to MTV2 and there is the music video for "Hotel Yorba." Just Jack and Meg. Sparse drums and an acoustic guitar. Jack's signature caterwaul. Catchy.

Months later, MTV2 would be overrun with Michael Gondry's Lego-enhanced video for "Fell In Love With A Girl" and the Whites never looked back. I saw two people get very famous lounging on my girlfriend's antique couch.