White Stripes to Reissue First Three Albums—on Tape

Dust off the old boombox. Just kidding—who still has the old boombox? Well, figure something out because Third Man Records is going to reissue The White Stripes’ first three albums—1999’s The White Stripes, 2000’s De Stijl, and 2001’s White Blood Cells—on cassette tape.

The white tapes with red lettering, set for Oct. 14 release, are attached to Cassette Store Day, which began in the U.K. in 2013 and has since spread to the U.S., Japan, Germany and France. According to the event’s website, the idea is to “keep what was once perceived as a dead format alive and viable in today’s digital age!” They took the words right out of Jack White’s mouth.

The Stripes albums, authorized for release on cassette for the first time, have all been remastered and reprinted by Third Man Records. Other tapes in the CSD reissue series include The Bouncing Souls’ Simplicity, Pentagram’s Review Your Choices, Love’s Black Beauty, American Football’s self-titled EP, and a bunch of classic ska from The Toasters, Mephiskapheles and The Slackers.

You can find a list of participating stores here.

In July, Third Man released a recording of the very first White Stripes show on digital and streaming services. The recording, The First Show: Live On Bastille Day, is a celebration of the band’s 20th anniversary. The performance was at The Gold Dollar Detroit’s open mic night on Bastille Day, in 1997.