“We went back in the fall and got the master tapes and cut new vinyl masters right from the tapes,” Jack White said last summer, revealing The White Stripes’ plans to reissue their first three albums, The White Stripes, De Stijl, and White Blood Cells, via Third Man Records. Now four months later (and just in time for the holidays), the reissue project is ready for release.
Though they’ve been out of print in North America for five years, November 30 marks the day that all three records — remastered without ever being converted to a digital format and pressed on 180-gram vinyl for the first time — will be available again for purchase, this time from the Third Man online store. Packaging has been updated, too:
For artwork, we started from scratch and went back and tracked down all the source material, working from the original photographic prints to provide the crispest versions possible of these album covers. From there, we printed the artwork on the deluxe old-style, tip-on sleeves from the wonderful folks at Stoughton Printing in California. This process involves printing the artwork on a sheet of paper (a slick) which is then folded over and hand-glued to a heavy board blank jacket.
All three LPs come with an MP3 version and collectors can pick up limited-edition copies on red and white vinyl, as well. For more info, head thataway.