Icky Thump
by The White Stripes
- 92
- BPM
- A major
- Key
- 11B
- Camelot
- 43
- Danceability
- 2
- Acousticness
On January 20 and 21, 2007, the White Stripes tracked "Icky Thump" at Blackbird Studio in Nashville, in sessions for what became their sixth and final album. Overdubs went on through January 22. The guitar solo ran through a Zvex Wooly Mammoth and a DigiTech Whammy pedal, and a 1959 Univox synthesizer played the snake-charming solos.
The title comes from the north-English exclamation "Ecky thump!", popularized in an episode of the British comedy series The Goodies. Jack White wrote lyrics that challenge anti-immigration pundits. It is the first political White Stripes track since "The Big Three Killed My Baby".
Warner Bros. and XL released it as the album's lead single in April 2007, and it reached iTunes in the United States and Canada on April 26. It peaked at number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100, their only top 40 single there. It also reached number two in the UK, the band's biggest hit there, kept from the top by "Umbrella" by Rihanna featuring Jay-Z. In Scotland it dethroned "Umbrella". The song won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Jack White and the Malloy Brothers co-directed the video, filmed in Nashville but set in Mexico.
Icky Thump runs at 92 BPM, the tempo of hip-hop, R&B and reggaeton. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.61 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 652 ms. It is in A major, Camelot 11B, which shares its notes with F# minor and mixes cleanly with D major and E major.
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