title: Florence and the Machine

text: The band's second studio album, "Ceremonials", was released on the 28 October 2011. It reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and number six on the US "Billboard" 200. On 12 January 2012, Florence and the Machine were nominated for two Brit Awards, Best British Female Artist and British Album of the Year, with the awards ceremony taking place on 21 February 2012 at the O2 Arena, London. On 26 April 2012, the band released "Breath of Life", a song which was recorded as the official theme song for the film "Snow White and the Huntsman". On 5 July 2012, a remix of "Spectrum (Say My Name)" by Scottish musician Calvin Harris was released as the fourth single from "Ceremonials", becoming the band's first UK number-one hit. Welch expressed excitement about putting new material together for a third studio album after the band finishes touring at the end of September 2012. Welch collaborated for a second time with Harris on the song "Sweet Nothing", released on 12 October 2012 as a single from Harris's third studio album "18 Months" (2012). The song entered at number one on the UK Singles Chart, becoming their second collaborative number-one single.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: In mid-2012, it was announced that Universal Republic Records was going defunct, moving all artists including Florence and the Machine to Republic Records making the label itself revived. In late August 2012, Welch told "Style" magazine that she plans to take a twelve-month hiatus before starting work on the band's next studio album, stating, "There's a big 'take a year off' plan. The record company have put no pressure on me for the next album. They've said I can have as long as I want."


title: Florence and the Machine

text: In December 2012, Florence and the Machine were nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album for "Ceremonials" and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for "Shake It Out" at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards. On 4 April 2013, it was announced that Florence and the Machine had written a song for Baz Luhrmann's film rendition of "The Great Gatsby" (2013), titled "Over the Love", which was released on 17 April 2013 on SoundCloud.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: On 4 June 2014, Welch told "NME" that the band's third studio album was in the works. In January 2015, a fansite posted a photo showing Florence and the Machine's upcoming album being mixed in a recording studio. On 9 February, the band played all the songs from the new album in full, amongst them "Ship to Wreck", "Caught", "Delilah" and the album's first single, "What Kind of Man" in a private London show.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: The next day, on 10 February, the band released a short music video for the title track of their studio album, "How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful", which also acted as the official album teaser, directed by Tabitha Denholm and Vincent Haycock and shot in Mexico. The single and album were available to pre-order subsequently on all popular online music stores. The music video is just under 3 minutes as compared to the 5 minute album version of the track. On 12 February, the album's lead single "What Kind of Man" was revealed on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 show, followed by the release of music video later that day on band's Vevo channel via YouTube.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: The band released a music video of another track called "St. Jude" on 23 March, choreographed by Ryan Heffington and directed by Vincent Haycock, continuing the narrative from the previous video of "What Kind of Man". On 8 April the album's second single titled "Ship to Wreck" premiered on Huw Stephens' show on BBC Radio 1. The accompanying music video was released a week later on 13 April, continuing the storyline of past two videos.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: On 19 May, DJ Annie Mac revealed another new song from the record on her BBC radio show in name "Delilah".


title: Florence and the Machine

text: The album was released on 29 May in Germany, 1 June in the UK and 2 June in the US. A deluxe version of the album containing 5 additional tracks was released on 13 May 2015. The album became their third number one on the UK Albums Chart, and debuted at number one on the US "Billboard 200". The album earned five nominations in the 58th Annual Grammy Awards


title: Florence and the Machine

text: The band were confirmed for numerous European festivals in summer 2015 including Way Out West in Sweden, Super Bock Super Rock in Portugal and Rock Werchter in Belgium, among others. In June 2015, it was announced that the band would headline the Glastonbury Festival in Pilton, Somerset due to the withdrawal of previous headliners Foo Fighters, after lead vocalist Dave Grohl fractured his leg on stage in Sweden. Florence and the Machine's Glastonbury set was critically acclaimed by numerous outlets. Welch thanked Grohl for his support following their choice as a replacement and wished him a speedy recovery, before performing a cover of the Foo Fighters' "Times Like These".


title: Florence and the Machine

text: On 7 December 2015, the band received five nominations for the 58th Annual Grammy Awards to be held in 2016. These nominations included "Ship to Wreck" for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, "How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful" for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Recording Package, and "What Kind of Man" for Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: In 2016 Florence and the Machine recorded a classical cover of Ben E. King's 1961 song "Stand by Me", which was featured as the main theme to the video game "Final Fantasy XV". It was premiered during the "Uncovered: Final Fantasy XV" event on 30 March 2016, and the full version was released on 12 August 2016. Alongside their "Stand by Me" cover, they also composed two original songs for "Final Fantasy XV", entitled "I Will Be" and "Too Much Is Never Enough", which were also released on 12 August 2016.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: In April 2016, the band released "The Odyssey", a short film by Vincent Haycock and Welch which consisted of all music videos shot within the "How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful" (2015) era, together with some interconnecting sung and spoken scenes. The premiere took place at London's Rio Cinema on 20 April 2016, and was followed by an unrecorded Q&A. The online world premiere on 21 April 2016 was delayed to the 24th due to Prince's death. The band contributed a song to the 2016 Tim Burton film "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" titled "Wish That You Were Here", released as a single on 25 August 2016.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: Welch confirmed on 27 May 2017 that a new studio album was in the works. On 28 February 2018, the band's drummer, Christopher Hayden, announced that he had left the band. The first single from the album, "Sky Full of Song", was released on 12 April 2018, followed by "Hunger" in May. Titled "High as Hope", the band's fourth studio album was released on 29 June 2018. A third single, "Patricia", was released on 10 August 2018. On 24 January 2019, Florence and the Machine released a new single, "Moderation", which had been previously performed live during the Australian leg of the High as Hope Tour. It was accompanied by a B-side, "Haunted House".


title: Florence and the Machine

text: On 21 April 2019, Florence and the Machine had a song featured in the "Game of Thrones" episode "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" which was composed by Ramin Djawadi. The song is entitled "Jenny of Oldstones".


title: Florence and the Machine

text: On 17 April 2020, Florence and the Machine released the song "Light of Love" in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The band announced that all proceeds from the song, which was originally recorded for "High as Hope" (2018), would go to the Intensive Care Society.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: In early 2022, Florence and the Machine were confirmed to be headlining a series of summer music festivals, including the Madrid's Mad Cool.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: Towards the end of February 2022, fans of the band started to receive letters with a print titled, "King - Chapter 1", as well as a billboard in London displaying the visual of the work. Speculation indicating that a new single was about to be released were confirmed on 22 February by Welch herself through her Instagram account. The single, titled "King" was digitally released the next day along with its accompanying music video. Soon after, the single "Heaven Is Here" was released on 7 March.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: On 9 March 2022, Welch announced "Dance Fever", the band's fifth studio album in a post to her Instagram account also revealing the album cover and pre-order date. She described the album as "a fairytale in 14 songs" in the same post. The announcement was followed up with the release of the third single "My Love" on 10 March. On 20 April, the fourth single "Free" was released. The album was released on 13 May. It debuted at number one in the UK and number two in Australia.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: In 2022 drummer Loren Humphrey left the band. On 16 March 2022 Sam Doyle (Drummer from the Maccabees) was confirmed as joining the band on tour for this era. However, Humphrey rejoined the band in summer of 2022.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: Florence and the Machine started off by playing a handful of gigs in and around London. In May 2008, they supported MGMT on tour in Europe. The BBC played a large part in Florence and the Machine's rise to prominence by promoting her as part of "BBC Introducing". This led to them playing music festivals in 2008, including Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds and Bestival. Florence and the Machine were also part of the Shockwaves NME Awards Tour 2009 in January and February.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: The group has supported the UK Teenage Cancer Trust, performing at a concert for the charity at London's Royal Albert Hall in March 2009. Florence and the Machine supported Blur for their 26 June comeback performance at the Manchester Arena. They played at the Lovebox Festival on 18 and 19 July. In July 2009, the group supported Duran Duran. During summer 2009, Florence and the Machine performed at a number of major festivals in the UK and Ireland, including the Glastonbury Festival 2009, Reading and Leeds 2009, Electric Picnic 2009 and T in the Park 2009.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: Florence and the Machine played at Australia's Splendour in the Grass music festival in July 2010. The group drew one of the biggest crowds of the three-day festival. They performed in the natural open-air amphitheatre, which had to be closed off by security due to safety concerns as an unprecedented number of festival-goers rushed to see the performance. It is estimated that 28,000 people of the 33,000 people who attended the festival crammed in to see Florence and the Machine. The amphitheatre was reopened shortly after the start, once the safety concerns were allayed. In October 2009, the band's equipment and instruments were caught in a trailer fire during their European tour, forcing the band to use rented instruments to complete their remaining shows. Welch stated, "You could hear the harp's strings ping in the fire. Strange sound. We recorded it and I want to use it in a song."


title: Florence and the Machine

text: On 27 October 2009, Florence and the Machine played their first official New York City gig at the Bowery Ballroom, and performed "Kiss with a Fist" on the "Late Show with David Letterman". On 5 November, the band performed "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)" on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!".


title: Florence and the Machine

text: After the success of "Lungs" (2009) topping the UK Albums Chart in January 2010, seven months after the album was released, Florence and the Machine announced an eleven-date UK and Ireland tour called The Cosmic Love Tour in May 2010. Florence and the Machine performed at Oxegen 2010, T in the Park 2010, the Isle of Wight Festival 2010, Roskilde Festival 2010, V Festival 2010, and the San Miguel Primavera Sound 2010. In March 2010, it was that confirmed that the band's first headlining festival would be Latitude 2010, having been booked the previous September before achieving mainstream success.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: The Cosmic Love Tour kicked off at Dublin's Olympia Theatre on 2 May 2010 where the group performed a new song called "Strangeness and Charm" and ended at London's Hammersmith Apollo on 15 May 2010. On 25 June, the group played the Glastonbury Festival 2010, where they performed "Strangeness and Charm" and a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" during their ten-song set. Their performance drew one of the biggest crowds of the day and one of the biggest in the Other Stage's history.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: Florence and the Machine opened for U2 on the North American leg of their U2 360° Tour in June and July 2011.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: In an interview with "New York Post"s PopWrap, Welch revealed that in the weeks and months prior to her performance of 12 September at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, she was so nervous she lost sleep and cried. In addition, she struggled during the pre-show rehearsal with a move that required her to stand up on a rotating platform. It was described as "both ethereal and downright joyous". After the performance, "Lungs" (2009) rose to number two on the iTunes albums chart and "Dog Days Are Over" rose to number nine on the iTunes singles chart. In addition, Florence and the Machine became the number-one search on Google and received 1,700 tweets per minute on Twitter. Florence and the Machine performed "Dog Days Are Over" on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" on 15 October 2010. On 20 November 2010, the band performed "Dog Days Are Over" and "You've Got the Love" on "Saturday Night Live". They performed an online-only concert at New York City's Ed Sullivan Theater on 16 December 2010 as part of the "Live on Letterman" concert series. Welch and a number of other female singers opened the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards on 13 February 2011 with a tribute to an ailing Aretha Franklin. On 27 February 2011, Welch replaced pregnant Dido and sang her portion of Best Original Song nominee "If I Rise" (from "127 Hours") with A. R. Rahman at the 83rd Academy Awards. Two years of worldwide touring had been scheduled to promote "Ceremonials". Welch and guitarist Rob Ackroyd held a private performance for a terminally ill 15-year-old fan, Karinya Chen, in Austin, Texas on 23 May 2016. On the 29th September 2019,


title: Florence and the Machine

text: Florence Welch has been compared to other female singers such as Kate Bush, Siouxsie Sioux of Siouxsie and the Banshees, PJ Harvey, Tori Amos and Björk. During an interview, Welch cited Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane as her influence and "hero". Florence and the Machine's style has been described as "dark, robust and romantic". Their music is a mix of "classic soul and midnight-on-the-moors English art rock". Welch stated that her lyrics related to Renaissance artists: "We're dealing with all of the same things they did—love and death, time and pain, heaven and hell." Commenting her success, she said: "I'm lucky that there seems to be a massive revival in female performers. My icons were always women like Kate Bush, Stevie Nicks and Siouxsie Sioux. Who wouldn't be proud to carry on that tradition?".


title: Florence and the Machine

text: The group's musical style has been described as indie rock, indie pop, baroque pop, chamber pop, art rock, art pop, neo soul, and folk.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: Florence and the Machine won the Critic's Choice Award at the 2009 Brit Awards after coming third in the BBC's Sound of 2009 poll. As well as attention from the BBC, the band received significant support from "NME" magazine, who included them on their annual Shockwaves NME Awards Tour for 2009, along with Glasvegas, Friendly Fires and White Lies.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: "The Sunday Times" described Welch as "the most peculiar and most highly acclaimed female singer of the moment" and "the latest in a line of great English pop eccentrics". AllMusic referred to "Lungs" as "one of the most musically mature and emotionally mesmerising albums of 2009". "Spin" magazine rated "Lungs" (2009) eight out of ten and wrote, "You've gotta hand it to the girl: She always makes you feel "something"." The magazine named it the eighth best album of 2009. In December 2010, Florence and the Machine appeared on one of "Spin"s three holiday issue covers as Artist of the Year.


title: Florence and the Machine

text: Florence and the Machine won the Mastercard British Album award for "Lungs" at the 2010 Brit Awards, having also been nominated for British Female Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act. On 19 February 2010, Florence and the Machine won Best International Band at the 2010 Meteor Awards. The group led the nominations for the 2010 MOJO Awards, with four nods. They received a nomination for Best New Artist at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards. In April 2011, Florence and the Machine were ranked 50 in the 2011 "Time" 100 poll, which annually lists the 100 most influential people in the world. American recording artist Beyoncé cited Florence and the Machine as an influence for her 2011 album "4".


title: The White Stripes

text: The White Stripes were an American rock duo from Detroit formed in 1997. The group consisted of Jack White (songwriter, vocals, guitar, piano, and mandolin) and Meg White (drums and vocals). After releasing several singles and three albums within the Detroit music scene, the White Stripes rose to prominence in 2002 as part of the garage rock revival scene. Their successful and critically acclaimed albums "White Blood Cells" and "Elephant" drew attention from a large variety of media outlets in the United States and the United Kingdom. The single "Seven Nation Army", which used a guitar and an octave pedal to create the opening riff, became one of their most recognizable songs. The band recorded two more albums, "Get Behind Me Satan" in 2005 and "Icky Thump" in 2007, and dissolved in 2011 after a lengthy hiatus from performing and recording.


title: The White Stripes

text: The White Stripes used a low-fidelity approach to writing and recording. Their music featured a melding of garage rock and blues influences and a raw simplicity of composition, arrangement, and performance. The duo were also noted for their fashion and design aesthetic which featured a simple color scheme of red, white, and black—which was used on every album and single cover the band released—as well as the band's fascination with the number three. The band's discography consists of six studio albums, two live albums, one extended play (EP), one concert film, one tour documentary, 26 singles, and 14 music videos. Their last three albums each won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album. In 2015, "Rolling Stone" named them the sixth greatest duo of all time.


title: The White Stripes

text: In high school, Jack Gillis (as he was then known) met Meg White at the Memphis Smoke—the restaurant where she worked and where he would read his poetry at open mic nights. The two became friends, and began to frequent the coffee shops, local music venues, and record stores of the area. By this time, Gillis was already playing drums with musician friends, including his upholstery apprenticeship mentor, Brian Muldoon. In 1994, he got his first professional job as the drummer for the Detroit cowpunk band Goober & the Peas.


title: The White Stripes

text: After dating for several years, Gillis and White married on September 21, 1996. Contrary to convention, he took his wife's surname. Shortly after, Goober and the Peas broke up, but Jack continued to play in other bands, such as the garage punk band the Go (he played lead guitar on their 1999 album "Whatcha Doin'"), the Hentchmen, and Two-Star Tabernacle. On Bastille Day 1997, Meg started learning to play the drums. In Jack's words, "When she started to play drums with me, just on a lark, it felt liberating and refreshing. There was something in it that opened me up." The couple then became a band and, while they considered calling themselves Bazooka and Soda Powder, they settled on the White Stripes. Jack explained the name's origin:


title: The White Stripes

text: Meg loves peppermints, and we were going to call ourselves the Peppermints. But since our last name was White, we decided to call it the White Stripes. It revolved around this childish idea, the ideas kids have—because they are so much better than adult ideas, right?"


title: The White Stripes

text: From the beginning, they established certain motifs: publicly pretending to be brother and sister, outfitting their production in only black, red, and white, and heavily using the number "three". White has explained that they used these colors to distract from the fact that they were young, white musicians playing "black music". They were also noted for their lack of a bass player, and their general refusal to be interviewed separately.


title: The White Stripes

text: The White Stripes had their first live performance on August 14, 1997, at the Gold Dollar bar in Detroit. They began their career as part of the Michigan underground garage rock scene, playing with local bands such as the Hentchmen, the Dirtbombs, the Gories, and Rocket 455. In 1998, Dave Buick—owner of an independent, Detroit-based, garage-punk label called Italy Records—approached the band at a bar and asked if they would like to record a single. Jack initially declined, believing it would be too expensive, but he eventually reconsidered when he realized that Buick was offering to pay for it. Their debut single, "Let's Shake Hands", was released on vinyl in February 1998 with an initial pressing of 1,000 copies. This was followed in October 1998 by the single "Lafayette Blues" which, again, was only released on vinyl with copies.


title: The White Stripes

text: In 1999, the White Stripes signed with the California-based label Sympathy for the Record Industry. In March 1999, they released the single "The Big Three Killed My Baby", followed by their debut album, "The White Stripes", on June 15, 1999. The self-titled debut was produced by Jack and engineered by American music producer Jim Diamond at his Ghetto Recorders studio in Detroit. The album was dedicated to the seminal Mississippi Delta blues musician Son House, an artist who influenced Jack. The track "Cannon" from "The White Stripes" contains part of an a cappella version, as performed by House, of the traditional American gospel blues song "John the Revelator". The White Stripes also covered House's song "Death Letter" on their follow-up album "De Stijl". Looking back on their debut during a 2003 interview with "Guitar Player", Jack said, "I still feel we've never topped our first album. It's the most raw, the most powerful, and the most Detroit-sounding record we've made."


title: The White Stripes

text: At the end of 1999, the White Stripes released "Hand Springs" as a 7" split single with fellow Detroit band the Dirtbombs on the B-side. 2,000 copies came free with the pinball fanzine "Multiball". The record is currently—like the majority of vinyl records by the White Stripes—out of print and difficult to find.


title: The White Stripes

text: Jack and Meg divorced in March 2000. The White Stripes were scheduled to perform at a local music lounge soon after they separated. Jack assumed the band was over and asked Buick and nephew Ben Blackwell to perform with him in the slot that had been booked for the White Stripes. However, the day they were supposed to perform, Meg convinced Jack that the White Stripes should continue and the band reunited. The White Stripes' second album, "De Stijl" (Dutch for "The Style"), was released on the Sympathy for the Record Industry label on June 20, 2000. Considered a cult classic and self-recorded on an 8-track analog tape in Jack's living room, "De Stijl" displays the simplicity of the band's blues and "scuzzy garage rock" fusion prior to their breakthrough success.


title: The White Stripes

text: The album title derives from the Dutch art movement of the same name; common elements of the De Stijl aesthetic are demonstrated on the album cover, which sets the band members against an abstract background of rectangles and lines in red, black and white. The White Stripes cited the minimalist and deconstructionist aspects of De Stijl design as a source of inspiration for their own musical image and presentation. The album was dedicated to furniture designer and architect Gerrit Rietveld of the De Stijl movement, as well as to the influential Georgia bluesman Blind Willie McTell.


title: The White Stripes

text: "Party of Special Things to Do" was released as a 7" on Sub Pop in December 2000. It comprised three songs originally performed by Captain Beefheart, an experimental blues rock musician.


title: The White Stripes

text: "De Stijl" eventually reached number 38 on "Billboard Magazine"'s Independent Albums chart in 2002, around the time the White Stripes' popularity began establishing itself. One "New York Times" critic at the time said that the Stripes typified "what many hip rock fans consider real music." The song "Why Can't You Be Nicer to Me?" was used in "The Simpsons" episode "Judge Me Tender".


title: The White Stripes

text: The White Stripes' third album, "White Blood Cells", was released on July 3, 2001, on Sympathy for the Record Industry. The band enjoyed its first significant success the following year with the major label re-release of the album on V2 Records. Its stripped-down garage rock sound drew critical acclaim in the UK, and in the US soon afterward, making the White Stripes one of the most acclaimed bands of 2002.


title: The White Stripes

text: Several outlets praised their "back to basics" approach, with "Daily Mirror" calling them "the greatest band since The Sex Pistols." In 2002, "Q" magazine listed the White Stripes as one of "50 Bands to See Before You Die". After their first appearance on network TV (a live set on "The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn"), Joe Hagan of "The New York Times" declared, "They have made rock rock again by returning to its origins as a simple, primitive sound full of unfettered zeal." "White Blood Cells" peaked at number 61 on the "Billboard" 200, reaching Gold record status by selling over 500,000 albums. It reached number 55 in the United Kingdom, being bolstered in both countries by the single "Fell in Love with a Girl" and its accompanying Lego-animation music video directed by Michel Gondry. The video won three awards at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards: Breakthrough Video, Best Special Effects, and Best Editing, and the band played the song live at the event. It was also nominated for Video of the Year, but fell short of winning. "Stylus Magazine" rated "White Blood Cells" as the fourteenth greatest album of 2000–2005, while Pitchfork Media ranked it eighth on their list of the top 100 albums from 2000 to 2004.


title: The White Stripes

text: In 2002, George Roca produced and directed a concert film about the band titled "Nobody Knows How to Talk to Children". It chronicles the White Stripes' four-night stand at New York City's Bowery Ballroom in 2002, and contains live performances and behind-the-scenes footage. Its 2004 release was suppressed by the band's management, however, after they discovered that Roca had been showing it at the Seattle Film Festival without permission. According to the band, the film was "not up to the standards our fans have come to expect"; even so, it remains a highly prized bootleg.


title: The White Stripes

text: The White Stripes' fourth album, "Elephant", was recorded in 2002 over the span of two weeks with British recording engineer Liam Watson at his Toe Rag Studios in London. Jack self-produced the album with antiquated equipment, including a duct-taped 8-track tape machine and pre-1960s recording gear. It was released in 2003 on V2 in the US, and on XL Recordings in England. It marked the band's major label debut and was their first UK chart-topping album, as well as their first US Top 10 album (at number six). The album eventually reached double platinum certification in Britain, and platinum certification in the United States.


title: The White Stripes

text: "Elephant" garnered critical acclaim upon its release. It received a perfect five-out-of-five-star rating from "Rolling Stone" magazine, and enjoys a 92-percent positive rating on Metacritic. Allmusic said the album "sounds even more pissed-off, paranoid, and stunning than its predecessor... Darker and more difficult than "White Blood Cells"." "Elephant" was notable for Jack's first guitar solos, and "Rolling Stone" placed him at number 17 on its list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". That same year, "Elephant" was ranked number 390 on the magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2009, the album came in at number 18 in NME's "Top 100 Greatest Albums of the decade". NME referred to the album as the pinnacle of the White Stripes' time as a band and one of Jack White's best works of his career.


title: The White Stripes

text: The album's first single, "Seven Nation Army", was the band's most successful and topped the Billboard rock charts. Its success was followed with a cover of Burt Bacharach's "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself". The album's third single was the successful "The Hardest Button to Button". "There's No Home for You Here" was the fourth single. In 2004, the album won a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album, while "Seven Nation Army" won a Grammy for Best Rock Song.


title: The White Stripes

text: In 2005, Jack began working on songs for the band's next album at his home. He played with different techniques than in past albums, trading in his electric guitar for an acoustic on all but a few of the tracks, as his trademark riff-based lead guitar style is overtaken by a predominantly rhythmic approach. The White Stripes' fifth album, "Get Behind Me Satan", was released in 2005 on the V2 label. The title is an allusion to a Biblical quotation Jesus made to the Apostle Simon Peter from the Gospel of Matthew 16:23 of the New Testament (in the King James Version, the quotation is slightly different: "Get thee behind me, Satan"). Another theory about this title is that Jack and Meg White read James Joyce's story collection "Dubliners" (published 1914) and used a line from the final story "The Dead" to title this album. The title is also a direct quotation from Who bassist John Entwistle’s solo song "You’re Mine".


title: The White Stripes

text: With its reliance on piano-driven melodies and experimentation with marimba on "The Nurse" and "Forever For Her (Is Over For Me)", "Get Behind Me Satan" did not feature the explicit blues and punk styles that dominated earlier White Stripes albums. However, despite this, the band was critically lauded for their "fresh, arty reinterpretations of their classic inspirations." It has garnered positive reactions from fans, as well as critical acclaim, receiving more Grammy nominations as well as making them one of the must-see acts of the decade. "Rolling Stone" ranked it the third best album of the year and it received the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album in 2006.


title: The White Stripes

text: Three singles were released from the album, the first being "Blue Orchid", a popular song on satellite radio and some FM stations. The second and third singles were "My Doorbell" and "The Denial Twist", respectively, and music videos were made for the three singles. "My Doorbell" was nominated for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.


title: The White Stripes

text: The White Stripes postponed the Japanese leg of their world tour after Jack strained his vocal cords, with doctors recommending that Jack not sing or talk for two weeks. After a full recovery, he returned to the stage in Auckland, New Zealand to headline the Big Day Out tour. While on the British leg of the tour, Jack changed his name from Jack White to "Three quid".


title: The White Stripes

text: The White Stripes released a cover version of Tegan and Sara's song "Walking with a Ghost" on iTunes in November 2005. The song was later released in December as the "Walking with a Ghost" EP featuring four other live tracks. In October 2006, it was announced on the official White Stripes website that there would be an album of avant-garde orchestral recordings consisting of past music written by Jack called "Aluminium". The album was made available for pre-order on November 6, 2006, to great demand from the band's fans; the LP version of the project sold out in a little under a day. The project was conceived by Richard Russell, founder of XL Recordings, who co-produced the album with Joby Talbot. It was recorded between August 2005 and February 2006 at Intimate Studios in Wapping, London using an orchestra. Before the album went out of print, it was available exclusively through the "Aluminium" website in a numbered limited edition of 3,333 CDs with 999 LPs.


title: The White Stripes

text: On January 12, 2007, V2 Records announced that, due to being under the process of reconstruction, it would no longer release new White Stripes material, leaving the band without a label. However, as the band's contract with V2 had already expired, on February 12, 2007, it was confirmed that the band had signed a single album deal with Warner Bros. Records.


title: The White Stripes

text: The White Stripes' sixth album, "Icky Thump", was released on June 19, 2007, on Warner Bros. Records. This was their first record with Warner Bros., since V2 closed in 2006, and it was released on a one-album contract. "Icky Thump" entered the UK Albums Chart at number one, and debuted at number two on the "Billboard" 200 with 223,000 copies sold. By late July, "Icky Thump" was certified gold in the United States. As of March 8, 2008, the album has sold 725,125 copies in the US. On February 10, 2008, the album won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.


title: The White Stripes

text: Following the well-received "Get Behind Me Satan", "Icky Thump" marked a return to the punk, garage rock and blues influences for which the band is known. It was recorded at Nashville's Blackbird Studio and took almost three weeks to record—the longest of any White Stripes album. It would also be their first album with a title track. The album's release came on the heels of a series of concerts in Europe and one in North America at Bonnaroo.


title: The White Stripes

text: Prior to the album's release, three tracks were previewed to "NME": "Icky Thump", "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You're Told)" and "Conquest". "NME" described the tracks as "an experimental, heavy sounding 70s riff", "a strong, melodic love song" and "an unexpected mix of big guitars and a bold horn section", respectively. On the US Billboard Charts dated May 12, 2007, "Icky Thump"—the first single—became the band's first Top 40 single, charting at number 26, and later charted at number 2 in the UK.


title: The White Stripes

text: On April 25, 2007, the duo announced that they would embark on a tour of Canada, performing in all 10 provinces, plus Yukon, Nunavut and Northwest Territories. In the words of Jack: "Having never done a tour of Canada, Meg and I thought it was high time to go whole hog. We want to take this tour to the far reaches of the Canadian landscape. From the ocean to the permafrost. The best way for us to do that is ensure that we perform in every province and territory in the country, from the Yukon to Prince Edward Island. Another special moment of this tour is the show which will occur in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia on July 14, the White Stripes' Tenth Anniversary." Canadian fiddler Ashley MacIsaac opened for the band at the Glace Bay show; earlier in 2007, MacIsaac and Jack had discovered that they were distantly related. It was also at this time that White learned he was related to Canadian fiddle player Natalie MacMaster.


title: The White Stripes

text: On June 24, 2007, just a few hours before their concert at Deer Lake Park, the White Stripes began their cross-Canada tour by playing a 40-minute set for a group of 30 kids at the Creekside Youth Centre in Burnaby. The Canadian tour was also marked by concerts in small markets, such as Glace Bay, Whitehorse and Iqaluit, as well as by frequent "secret shows" publicized mainly by posts on The Little Room, a White Stripes fan messageboard. Gigs included performances at a bowling alley in Saskatoon, a youth center in Edmonton, a Winnipeg Transit bus and The Forks park in Winnipeg, a park in Whitehorse, the YMCA in downtown Toronto, the Arva Flour Mill in Arva, Ontario, Locas on Salter (a pool hall) in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and a famous one-note show on George Street in St. John's, Newfoundland. They played a full show later that night at the Mile One Centre in downtown St. John's. Video clips from several of the secret shows have been posted to YouTube. As well, the band filmed its video for "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You're Told)" in Iqaluit.


title: The White Stripes

text: After the conclusion of the Canadian dates, they embarked on a brief U.S. leg of their tour, which was to be followed by a break before more shows in the fall. But before their last show—in Southaven, Mississippi—Ben Blackwell (Jack's nephew and the group's archivist) says that Meg approached him and said, "This is the last White Stripes show". He asked if she meant of the tour, but she responded, "No. I think this is the last show, period." On September 11, 2007, the band announced the cancellation of 18 tour dates due to Meg's struggle with acute anxiety. A few days later, the duo canceled the remainder of their 2007 UK tour dates as well.


title: The White Stripes

text: The band was on hiatus from late 2007 to early 2011. While on hiatus, Jack formed a group called The Dead Weather (featuring himself, Jack Lawrence, Dean Fertita, and Alison Mosshart), although he insisted that the White Stripes remained his top priority. The White Stripes performed live for the first time since September 2007 on the final episode of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" on February 20, 2009, where they performed an alternate version of "We're Going to Be Friends". This proved to be their final live performance as a band.


title: The White Stripes

text: In 2009 he reported that the White Stripes were working on their seventh album. In an article dated May 6, 2009, with MusicRadar.com, Jack mentioned recording songs with Meg before the Conan gig had taken place, saying, "We had recorded a couple of songs at the new studio." About a new White Stripes album, Jack said, "It won't be too far off. Maybe next year." Jack also explained Meg's acute anxiety during the Stripes' last tour, saying, "I just came from a Raconteurs tour and went right into that, so I was already full-speed. Meg had come from a dead-halt for a year and went right back into that madness. Meg is a very shy girl, a very quiet and shy person. To go full-speed from a dead-halt is overwhelming, and we had to take a break."


title: The White Stripes

text: A concert film, "Under Great White Northern Lights", premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 18, 2009. The film (directed by Emmett Malloy) documents the band's summer 2007 tour across Canada and contains live concert and off-stage footage. Jack and Meg White appeared at the premiere and made a short speech before the movie started about their love of Canada and why they chose to debut their movie in Toronto. The tour was in support of the album "Icky Thump", and they performed in every province. Jack conceived the idea of touring Canada after learning that Scottish relatives on his father's side had lived for a few generations in Nova Scotia before relocating to Detroit to work in the car factories. Additionally, their 10th anniversary occurred during the tour on the day of their show in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and in this shot, Jack and Meg are dancing at the conclusion of the concert. The film was directed by a friend of the duo, Emmett Malloy. A second feature, "Under Nova Scotian Lights", was prepared for the DVD release.


title: The White Stripes

text: In an interview with "Self Titled", Jack alluded to the creation of a White Stripes film to be released later in 2009. In an interview with contactmusic.com, Jack claimed that working with the White Stripes would be "strange". "It would definitely be strange to go into the White Stripes again and have to rethink my game," adding: "But that would be the best thing about it, because it would be a whole new White Stripes."


title: The White Stripes

text: In 2010, a Super Bowl ad by the U.S. Air Force Reserve caused the White Stripes to "take strong insult and objection to the Air Force Reserve presenting this advertisement with the implication that we licensed one of our songs to encourage recruitment during a war that we do not support." The Air Force Reserve denied that the song was from the White Stripes and the music was scored by an advertising agency for the commercial.


title: The White Stripes

text: In November 2010, the White Stripes contributed a previously released cover version of the song "Rated X" to the compilation album "". In late 2010, the White Stripes reissued their first three albums on Third Man Records on a 180-gram vinyl along with 500 limited-edition, "split-colored" records to accompany it. Jack hinted at a possible White Stripes reunion in a 2010 interview with "Vanity Fair". He said, "We thought we'd do a lot of things that we'd never done: a full tour of Canada, a documentary, coffee-table book, live album, a boxed set... Now that we've gotten a lot of that out of our system, Meg and I can get back in the studio and start fresh."


title: The White Stripes

text: On February 2, 2011, the duo announced that they had officially ceased recording and performing music as the White Stripes. The announcement specifically denied any artistic differences or health issues, but cited "a myriad of reasons ... mostly to preserve what is beautiful and special about the band".


title: The White Stripes

text: In a 2014 interview, Jack said that Meg's lack of enthusiasm for the project contributed to the band's breakup. White told "Rolling Stone" that "she viewed me that way of 'Oh, big deal, you did it, so what?' Almost every single moment of the White Stripes was like that. We'd be working in the studio and something amazing would happen: I'm like, 'Damn, we just broke into a new world right there!' And Meg's sitting in silence."


title: The White Stripes

text: and indie rock. They emerged from Detroit's active garage rock revival scene of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Their contemporaries included bands such as The Von Bondies, The Dirtbombs, The Detroit Cobras, and other bands that Jack included on a compilation album called "Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit", which was recorded in his living room.


title: The White Stripes

text: The band was influenced by blues musicians including Son House, Blind Willie McTell and Robert Johnson, garage rock bands such as The Gories and The Sonics, the Detroit protopunk sound of bands like the MC5 and The Stooges, in addition to groups like The Cramps, The Velvet Underground, and the early Los Angeles punk blues band The Gun Club. Jack has stated on numerous occasions that the blues is the dominant influence on his songwriting and the roots of the band's music, stating that he feels it is so sacred that playing it does not do it justice. Of The Gun Club's music in particular, Jack said, "'Sex Beat', 'She's Like Heroin To Me', and 'For The Love Of Ivy'...why are these songs not taught in schools?" Heavy blues rock bands such as AC/DC and Led Zeppelin have also influenced the band, as Jack has claimed that he "can't trust anybody who doesn't like Led Zeppelin."


title: The White Stripes

text: Traditional country music such as Hank Williams and Loretta Lynn, rockabilly acts like the Flat Duo Jets, Wanda Jackson and Gene Vincent, the surf rock of Dick Dale, and folk music like Lead Belly and Bob Dylan have also influenced the band's sound. Meg has said one of her all-time favorite musicians is Bob Dylan; Jack has performed live with him, and has claimed "I've got three fathers—my biological dad, God and Bob Dylan".


title: The White Stripes

text: The White Stripes were notable for having only two musicians, limiting the instruments they could play live. Jack, the principal writer, said that this was not a problem, and that he "always centered the band around the number three. Everything was vocals, guitar and drums or vocals, piano and drums." Fans and critics drew comparisons between Jack's prowess on the guitar and Meg's simplistic, reserved drumming.


title: The White Stripes

text: Early on, the band drew attention for their preference for antiquated recording equipment. In a 2001 "New York Times" concert reviews, Ann Powers noted that Jack's "ingenious" playing was "constrained by [Meg's] deliberately undeveloped approach", and that "he created more challenges by playing an acoustic guitar with paper taped over the hole and a less-than-high-quality solid body electric."


title: The White Stripes

text: With few exceptions, Jack displayed a continued partiality towards amps and pedals from the 1960s. Jack used a number of effects to create his sound, such as a DigiTech Whammy IV to reach pitches that would be otherwise impossible with a regular guitar. When performing live, Jack used a Randy Parsons custom guitar, a 1964 JB Hutto Montgomery Airline, a Harmony Rocket, a 1970s Crestwood Astral II, and a 1950s Kay Hollowbody. Also, while playing live, he used an MXR Micro-Amp, Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi distortion/sustainer, and an Electro-Harmonix POG (a polyphonic octave generator). He also used a Boss TU-2 tuner pedal. He plugged this setup into a 1970s Fender Twin Reverb, and two 100-Watt Sears Silvertone 1485 amplifiers paired with two 6x10 Silvertone cabinets. In addition to standard guitar tuning, Jack also used several open tunings.


title: The White Stripes

text: White also played other instruments such as a black F-Style Gibson mandolin, Rhodes bass keys, and a Steinway piano. He played a custom-made red and white marimba on "The Nurse", "Forever for Her (Is Over for Me)" as well as on the non-album tracks "Who's A Big Baby" and "Top Special".


title: The White Stripes

text: Meg's minimalistic drumming style was a prominent part of the band's sound. Meg never had formal drum lessons. She played Ludwig Drums with Paiste cymbals, and says her pre-show warm-up consisted of "whiskey and Red Bull." Jack downplayed criticisms of her style, insisting:


title: The White Stripes

text: "I never thought 'God, I wish Neil Peart was in this band.' It's kind of funny: When people critique hip hop, they're scared to open up, for fear of being called racist. But they're not scared to open up on female musicians, out of pure sexism. Meg is the best part of this band. It never would have worked with anybody else, because it would have been too complicated... It was my doorway to playing the blues."


title: The White Stripes

text: "I appreciate other kinds of drummers who play differently, but it's not my style or what works for this band. I get [criticism] sometimes, and I go through periods where it really bothers me. But then I think about it, and I realize that this is what is really needed for this band. And I just try to have as much fun with it as possible ... I just know the way [Jack] plays so well at this point that I always know kind of what he's going to do. I can always sense where he's going with things just by the mood he's in or the attitude or how the song is going. Once in a while, he throws me for a loop, but I can usually keep him where I want him."


title: The White Stripes

text: Although Jack was the lead vocalist, Meg did sing lead vocals on four of the band's songs: "In the Cold, Cold Night" (from "Elephant"), "Passive Manipulation" (from "Get Behind Me Satan"), "Who's a Big Baby?" (released on the "Blue Orchid" single), and "St. Andrew (This Battle Is in the Air)" (from "Icky Thump"). She also accompanied Jack on the songs "Your Southern Can Is Mine" from their album "De Stijl", "Hotel Yorba" and "This Protector" from their album "White Blood Cells", on "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You're Told)" and "Rag & Bone" from their album "Icky Thump", "Rated X" and also sang alongside Jack and Holly Golightly on the song "It's True That We Love One Another", from the album "Elephant".


title: The White Stripes

text: Jack and Meg White appeared in Jim Jarmusch's film "Coffee and Cigarettes" in 2003, in a segment entitled "Jack Shows Meg His Tesla Coil". This particular segment contains extensions of White Stripes motifs such as childhood innocence and Nikola Tesla. In 2004, the band released its first music film "Under Blackpool Lights", which was shot entirely on super 8 film and was directed by Dick Carruthers.


title: The White Stripes

text: The band also appeared as themselves in "The Simpsons" episode "Jazzy and the Pussycats" in 2006. Jack is one of three guitarists featured in the 2009 documentary "It Might Get Loud", and Meg appears in segments that include the White Stripes.


title: The White Stripes

text: The Academy Award-winning movie, "The Social Network" featured "Ball and Biscuit" in the opening scene.


title: The White Stripes

text: Several songs by the White Stripes are featured in the first season of the television series Peaky Blinders.


title: The White Stripes

text: The song "Little Ghost" appears in the post credits scene for the 2012 Laika studios film, "ParaNorman".


title: The White Stripes

text: Several White Stripes recordings were completed rapidly. For example, "Elephant" was recorded in about two weeks in London's Toe Rag Studio. Their 2005 follow-up, "Get Behind Me Satan", was likewise recorded in just two weeks.


title: The White Stripes

text: For live shows, the White Stripes were known for Jack's employment of heavy distortion, as well as audio feedback and overdrive. The duo performed considerably more recklessly and unstructured live, never preparing set lists for their shows, believing that planning too closely would ruin the spontaneity of their performances.


title: The White Stripes

text: In 2007, British choreographer Wayne McGregor used music by the White Stripes for his production "Chroma", a piece he created for The Royal Ballet in London, England. The orchestral arrangements for "Chroma" were commissioned by Richard Russell, head of XL Recordings, as a gift to the White Stripes and were produced by the British classical composer Joby Talbot. Three of these songs, "The Hardest Button To Button", "Aluminium" and "Blue Orchid", were first played to the band as a surprise in Cincinnati Music Hall, Ohio. McGregor heard the orchestral versions and decided to create a ballet using the music. Talbot re-orchestrated the music for the Royal Opera House orchestra, also writing three additional pieces of his own composition. The world premiere of the ballet took place on November 16, 2006, at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London. The ballet subsequently won the 2007 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production.


title: The White Stripes

text: The White Stripes had a carefully constructed image built around lore they created for themselves and visual motifs. Early in their history, they turned down a potential deal with Chicago label Bobsled, because the label wanted to put its green logo on the CD. Their presentation was a subject of intrigue among the public and in the media.


title: The White Stripes

text: Early in their career, the band provided various descriptions of their relationship. Jack claimed that he and Meg were siblings, the youngest two of ten. As the story went, they became a band when, on Bastille Day 1997, Meg went to the attic of their parents' home and began to play on Jack's drum kit. This claim was widely believed and repeated despite rumors that they were, or had been, husband and wife. In 2001, proof of their 1996 marriage emerged, as well as evidence that the couple had divorced in March 2000, just before the band gained widespread attention. Even so, they continued to insist publicly that they were brother and sister. In a 2005 interview with "Rolling Stone" magazine, Jack claimed that this open secret was intended to keep the focus on the music rather than the couple's relationship:


title: The White Stripes

text: When you see a band that is two pieces, husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, you think, 'Oh, I see...' When they're brother and sister, you go, 'Oh, that's interesting.' You care more about the music, not the relationship—whether they're trying to save their relationship by being in a band.


title: The White Stripes

text: The White Stripes made exclusive use of a red, white and black color scheme when conducting virtually all professional duties, from album art to the clothes worn during live performances; Meg said that "like a uniform at school, you can just focus on what you're doing because everybody's wearing the same thing." Jack also explained that they aspired to invoke an innocent childishness without any intention of irony or humor. "Spin" magazine commented that "his songs—about getting married in cathedrals, walking to kindergarten, and guileless companionship—are performed with an almost naive certitude." Other affectations included Jack using two microphones onstage.


title: The White Stripes

text: The media and fans alike varied between intrigue and skepticism at the band's appearance and presentation. Andy Gershon, president of the V2 label at the time of their signing, was reluctant to sign them, saying, "They need a bass player, they've got this red-and-white gimmick, and the songs are fantastic, but they've recorded very raw...how is this going to be on radio?" In a 2002 "Spin" magazine article, Chuck Klosterman wondered, "how can two media-savvy kids posing as brother and sister, wearing Dr. Seuss clothes, represent blood-and-bones Detroit, a city whose greatest resource is asphalt?" However, in 2001, Benjamin Nugent with "TIME" magazine commented that "it's hard to begrudge [Jack] his right to nudge the spotlight toward his band, and away from his private life, by any means available. Even at the expense of the truth."


title: The White Stripes

text: On October 2, 2005, Jim Diamond—the owner and operator of Ghetto Recorders recording studio—filed a lawsuit against the band and Third Man Records for "breach of contract". In the suit, he claimed that as the co-producer, mixer, and editor on the band's debut album, and mixer and engineer on "De Stijl", he was due royalties for "mechanical rights". The band filed a counterclaim on May 16 of that year, requesting damages against Diamond and an official court declaration denying him rights to the material. Diamond lost the suit, with the jury determining that he was not instrumental in crafting the band's sound.


title: The White Stripes

text: Dominique Payette, a Quebecois radio host, sued the band for $70,000 in 2008 for sampling 10 seconds of her radio show in the song "Jumble Jumble" without permission. The matter was ultimately settled out of court.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team plays its home games at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York. Founded in 1960 as a charter member of the American Football League (AFL), they joined the NFL in 1970 following the AFL–NFL merger. The Bills' name is derived from an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) franchise from Buffalo that was in turn named after western frontiersman Buffalo Bill. Drawing much of its fanbase from Western New York, the Bills are the only NFL team that plays home games in that state. The franchise is owned by Terry and Kim Pegula, who purchased the Bills after the death of original owner Ralph Wilson in 2014.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Bills won consecutive AFL Championships in 1964 and 1965, the only major professional sports championships from a team representing Buffalo. After joining the NFL, they struggled heavily during the 1970s before they became perennial postseason contenders during the late 1980s to the late 1990s. Their greatest success occurred between 1990 and 1993 when they appeared in a record four consecutive Super Bowls; an accomplishment often overshadowed by them losing each game. From the early 2000s to the mid-2010s, the Bills endured the longest playoff drought of 17 years in the four major North American professional sports, making them the last franchise in the four leagues to qualify for the postseason in the 21st century. They returned to consistent postseason contention by the late 2010s, although the Bills have not returned to the Super Bowl. Alongside the Minnesota Vikings, their four Super Bowl appearances are the most among NFL franchises that have not won the Super Bowl.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Bills began competitive play in 1960 as a charter member of the American Football League led by head coach Buster Ramsey and joined the NFL as part of the AFL–NFL merger in 1970. The Bills won two consecutive American Football League titles in 1964 and 1965 with quarterback Jack Kemp and coach Lou Saban, but the club has yet to win a league championship since.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: Once the AFL–NFL merger took effect, the Bills became the second NFL team to represent the city; they followed the Buffalo All-Americans, a charter member of the league. Buffalo had been left out of the league since the All-Americans (by that point renamed the Bisons) folded in 1929; the Bills were no less than the third professional non-NFL team to compete in the city before the merger, following the Indians/Tigers of the early 1940s and an earlier team named the Bills, originally the Bisons, in the late 1940s in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC).


title: Buffalo Bills

text: Following the AFL–NFL merger, the Bills were generally mediocre in the 1970s, but featured All-Pro running back O. J. Simpson. After being pushed to the brink of failure in the mid-1980s, the collapse of the United States Football League and a series of highly drafted players such as Jim Kelly (who initially played for the USFL instead of the Bills), Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith and Darryl Talley allowed the Bills to rebuild into a perennial contender in the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, a period in which the team won four consecutive AFC Championships; the team nevertheless lost all four subsequent Super Bowls, records in both categories that still stand.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The rise of the division rival New England Patriots under Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, along with numerous failed attempts at rebuilding in the 2000s and 2010s, helped prevent the Bills from reaching the playoffs in seventeen consecutive seasons between 2000 and 2016, a 17-year drought that was the longest active playoff drought in all major professional sports at the time. On October 8, 2014, Buffalo Sabres owners Terry and Kim Pegula received unanimous approval to acquire the Bills during the NFL owners' meetings, becoming the second ownership group of the team after team founder Ralph Wilson. Under head coach Sean McDermott, the Bills broke the playoff drought, appearing in the playoffs for four of the next five seasons. The team earned its first division championship and playoff wins since 1995 during the 2020 season, aided by Brady's departure to Tampa Bay and out of the AFC East as well as the Bills' own development of a core of talent including Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs, and Tre'Davious White.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: For their first two seasons, the Bills wore uniforms based on those of the Detroit Lions at the time. Ralph Wilson had been a minority owner of the Lions before founding the Bills, and the Bills' predecessors in the AAFC had also worn blue and silver uniforms.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The team's original colors were Honolulu blue, silver and white, and the helmets were silver with no striping. There was no logo on the helmet, which displayed the players' numbers on each side.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: In 1962, the standing red bison was designated as the logo and took its place on a white helmet. In 1962, the team's colors also changed to red, white, and blue. The team switched to blue jerseys with red and white shoulder stripes similar to those worn by the Buffalo Bisons AHL hockey team of the same era. The helmets were white with a red center stripe. The jerseys again saw a change in 1964 when the shoulder stripes were replaced by a distinctive stripe pattern on the sleeves consisting of four stripes, two thicker inner stripes and two thinner outer stripes all bordered by red piping. By 1965, red and blue center stripes were put on the helmets.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Bills introduced blue pants worn with the white jerseys in 1973, the last year of the standing buffalo helmet. The blue pants remained through 1985. The face mask on the helmet was blue from 1974 through 1986 before changing to white.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The standing bison logo was replaced by a blue charging one with a red slanting stripe streaming from its horn. The newer emblem, which is still the primary one used by the franchise, was designed by aerospace designer Stevens Wright in 1974.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: In 1984, the helmet's shell color was changed from white to red, primarily to help Bills quarterback Joe Ferguson distinguish them more readily from three of their division rivals at that time, the Baltimore Colts, the Miami Dolphins, and the New England Patriots, who all also wore white helmets at that point. Ferguson said "Everyone we played had white helmets at that time. Our new head coach Kay Stephenson just wanted to get more of a contrast on the field that may help spot a receiver down the field." (The Patriots have worn silver helmets since 1993, the Colts have since been realigned to the AFC South, and in 2019 the New York Jets have since switched back to green-colored helmets, after playing 20 years with white ones.)


title: Buffalo Bills

text: In 2002, under the direction of general manager Tom Donahoe, the Bills' uniforms went through radical changes. A darker shade of blue was introduced as the main jersey color, and nickel gray was introduced as an accent color. Both the blue and white jerseys featured red side panels. The white jerseys included a dark blue shoulder yoke and royal blue numbers. The helmet remained primarily red with one navy blue, two nickel, two royal blue, two white stripes, and white face mask. A new logo, a stylized "B" consisting of two bullets and a more detailed buffalo head on top, was proposed and had been released (it can be seen on a few baseball caps that were released for sale), but fan backlash led to the team retaining the running bison logo. The helmet logo adopted in 1974—a charging royal blue bison, with a red streak, white horn and eyeball—remained unchanged.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: In 2005, the Bills revived the standing bison helmet and uniform of the mid-1960s as a throwback uniform.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Bills usually wore the all-blue combination at home and the all-white combination on the road when not wearing the throwback uniforms. They stopped wearing blue-on-white after 2006, while the white-on-blue was not worn after 2007.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: For the 2011 season, the Bills unveiled a new uniform design, an updated rendition of the 1975–83 design. This change includes a return to the white helmets with "charging buffalo" logo, and a return to royal blue instead of navy. The set initially featured striped socks, but by 2021, the Bills gradually reduced its usage and began wearing either all-white or all-blue hosiery without stripes in most games.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: Buffalo sporadically wore white at home in the 1980s, including all eight home games in 1984, but stopped doing so beginning in 1987. On November 6, 2011, against the New York Jets, the Bills wore white at home for the first time since 1986. Since 2011, the Bills have worn white for a home game either with their primary uniform or a throwback set.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Bills' uniform received minor alterations as part of the league's new uniform contract with Nike. The new Nike uniform was unveiled on April 3, 2012.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: On November 12, 2015, the Bills and the New York Jets became the first two teams to participate in the NFL's Color Rush uniform initiative, with Buffalo wearing an all-red combination for the first time in team history. Like the primary uniforms, the set initially had red socks with white and blue stripes, but in 2020, it was replaced with red socks without stripes.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: A notable use of the Bills' uniforms outside of football was in the 2018 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships, when the United States men's national junior ice hockey team wore Bills-inspired uniforms in their outdoor game against Team Canada on December 29, 2017.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: On April 1, 2021, the team announced they will wear white face masks during the upcoming season and beyond.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Bills have rivalries with their three AFC East opponents, and also have had historical rivalries with other teams such as the Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts (a former divisional rival), Kansas City Chiefs, Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Dallas Cowboys. They also play an annual preseason game against the Detroit Lions.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Cleveland Browns once shared a rivalry with the Bills' predecessors in the All-America Football Conference. The current teams have a more friendly relationship and have played sporadically since the AFL–NFL merger.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: This is often considered Buffalo's most famous rivalry. Though the Bills and Dolphins both originated in the American Football League, the Dolphins did not start playing until 1966 as an expansion team while the Bills were one of the original eight teams. The rivalry first gained prominence when the Dolphins won every match-up against the Bills in the 1970s for an NFL-record 20 straight wins against a single opponent (the Bills defeated the Dolphins in their first matchup of the 1980s). Fortunes changed in the following decades with the rise of Jim Kelly as Buffalo's franchise quarterback, and though Kelly and Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino shared a competitive rivalry in the 1980s and 1990s, the Bills became dominant in the 1990s. Things have since cooled down after the retirements of Kelly and Marino and the rise of the New England Patriots, but Miami remains a fierce rival of the Bills, coming in second place in a recent poll of Buffalo's primary rival, and the two teams have typically been close to each other in win–loss records. Miami leads the overall series 61–54–1 as of 2021, but Buffalo has the advantage in the playoffs at 3–1, including a win in the 1992 AFC Championship Game.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The rivalry with the New England Patriots began when both teams were original franchises in the American Football League (AFL) prior to the NFL–AFL merger, but did not gain notability until the emergence of New England's Tom Brady in 2001. The teams were very competitive prior to the 2000s. However, the arrival of Patriots quarterback Brady in the early 2000s led to New England dominating the AFC East, including the Bills, for two decades. As a result, the Patriots replaced the Dolphins as Buffalo's most hated rival. The Bills have taken a 4–1 edge since Brady's departure in 2020, which included consecutive AFC East titles from 2020 to 2021 and a series sweep of the Patriots in the former. During the latter season, the Bills dominated in a 47–17 victory against the Patriots in the rivalry's first playoff matchup in 59 years, which saw the Bills score a touchdown on every offensive drive throughout the entire game and as such is the only "perfect offensive game" in NFL history. Overall, the Patriots lead the series 77–47–1, though by only a razor-thin 45–44–1 margin without Brady on the field.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The rivalry is also noted for several players being a member of both teams during their careers, including Drew Bledsoe, Doug Flutie, Lawyer Milloy, Brandon Spikes, Scott Chandler, Chris Hogan, Mike Gillislee, and Stephon Gilmore.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Bills and Jets were both original AFL teams, and both represent the state of New York, though the Jets (since 1984) actually play their games in East Rutherford, New Jersey. While the rivalry represents the differences between New York City and Western New York, it has historically not been as intense as the Bills' rivalries with the Dolphins and Patriots, and the teams' fanbases either have grudging respect or low-key annoyance (stemming more from the broader upstate-downstate tensions than the teams or sport) for each other when the teams are not playing one another. Oftentimes the Bills-Jets rivalry has become characterized by ugly games and shared mediocrity, but it has had a handful of competitive moments. The series heated up recently when former Jets head coach Rex Ryan became the Bills' head coach for two seasons, and had become notable again as Bills quarterback Josh Allen and former Jets quarterback Sam Darnold, both drafted in the same year, maintained a friendly rivalry with one another. Buffalo leads the series 67–56 as of 2021, including a playoff win in 1981.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Tennessee Titans (formerly the Houston Oilers) share an extended history with the Bills, both teams being original AFL clubs in 1960 and rivals in that league's East Division before the AFL-NFL merger. Matchups were intense in the 1990s with quarterback Warren Moon leading the Oilers against Jim Kelly's Bills. After both teams failed to meet the same success in the late 2000s to early 2010s, they have returned to consistent playoff contention since 2017, resulting in several high profile games as of late. Memorable playoff moments between the teams include The Comeback, in which the Frank Reich-led Bills overcame a 35–3 deficit to stun the Oilers 41–38 in 1992, and the Music City Miracle, in which the now-Titans scored on a near-last-minute kickoff return with a controversial lateral pass ruling to beat the Bills 22–16 in 1999. The Music City Miracle was notable for being Buffalo's last playoff appearance until 2017. The Titans currently lead the series 30–20.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: A brief rivalry emerged between the Bills and the Jacksonville Jaguars after former Bills head coach Doug Marrone, who had quit on the team after the 2014 season, was hired as a coaching assistant for Jacksonville and eventually rose to become the Jaguars' head coach. Since then, the series has featured a Bills loss to the Jaguars in London, an ugly, low-scoring playoff game in 2017, trash talk from former Jaguars players such as Jalen Ramsey, and a brawl between the teams in Buffalo in 2018. Prior to this, Jacksonville had handed Buffalo its first playoff loss in Bills Stadium in 1996 before years of concurrent bottom feeding in the late 2000s and early 2010s.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs were also original teams in the AFL and have had a long history against each other, despite never being in the same division. Buffalo currently leads the series 27–24–1, which has included five playoff meetings, three of which were AFL/AFC championship games; Kansas City won the 1966 AFL Championship game that determined the AFL's representative in the first Super Bowl, going on to face the Green Bay Packers, in addition to the 2020 AFC Championship game that saw the team advance to its second straight Super Bowl appearance, while Buffalo defeated Kansas City in the 1993 AFC championship game to advance to its fourth straight Super Bowl appearance. Each time the Super Bowl participant would end up losing the big game. Despite a lull in the series in the 2000s and 2010s, the rivalry gained attention nonetheless as the Bills and Chiefs met in nine of ten years from 2008 to 2017. After a 2-year hiatus in the series, four high-profile matchups occurred between the Bills and Chiefs in 2020 and 2021, including the aforementioned 2020 championship game and the 2021 Divisional round game, which is now considered one of the greatest playoff games of all time but was also controversial due to the league’s overtime rules.A rivalry between Josh Allen and Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has also developed, drawing comparisons to Jim Kelly's rivalry with Dan Marino as well as the rivalry between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Buffalo Bills have retired three numbers in franchise history: No. 12 for Jim Kelly, No. 34 for Thurman Thomas and No. 78 for Bruce Smith. Despite the fact that the Bills have retired only three jersey numbers, the team has other numbers no longer issued to any player or in reduced circulation.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: Since the earliest days of the team, the number 31 was not supposed to be issued to any other player. The Bills had stationery and various other team merchandise showing a running player wearing that number, and it was not supposed to represent any specific person, but the 'spirit of the team.' In the first three decades of the team's existence, the number 31 was only seen once: in 1969, when reserve running back Preston Ridlehuber damaged his number 36 jersey during a game, equipment manager Tony Marchitte gave him the number 31 jersey to wear while repairing the number 36. The number 31 was not issued again until 1990 when first round draft choice James (J.D.) Williams wore it for his first two seasons; it has since been returned to general circulation, with safety Damar Hamlin wearing the number in 2021.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: Number 32 had been withdrawn from circulation, but not retired, after O. J. Simpson. Former owner Ralph Wilson insisted on not reissuing the number, even after Simpson's highly publicized murder case and later robbery conviction. The number was placed back into circulation in 2019 with Senorise Perry wearing the number that year; as of 2021, it was worn by practice squad cornerback Rachad Wildgoose.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: Number 15 was historically only issued sparingly after the retirement of Jack Kemp, but was later returned to general circulation. Receiver Jake Kumerow wears the number as of 2021.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: Number 1 has also only rarely been used, for reasons never explained. While there is no proper explanation, Tommy Hughitt was a player-coach for the early Buffalo teams in the New York Pro Football League and NFL from 1918 to 1924 and was both a major on-field success and a fixture in Buffalo culture after his retirement as a politician and auto salesman. Hugitt was reported to wear number 1 during this time. Wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders is the most recent Bill to wear the number; prior to his arrival in 2021, it had been 19 years since it had been worn in the regular season, when kicker Mike Hollis wore it in 2002.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Buffalo Bills Radio Network is flagshipped at WGR AM 550 in Buffalo, with sister station WWKB AM 1520 simulcasting all home games. John Murphy is the team's current play-by-play announcer; he was a color commentator alongside, and eventually succeeded, longtime voice Van Miller after Miller's retirement at the end of the 2003 NFL season. Former Bills center Eric Wood serves as the color analyst.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: In 2018, the team signed an agreement with Nexstar Media Group to carry Bills preseason games across its network of stations in the region. As of 2020, WIVB-TV serves as the flagship station of the network, which includes WJET-TV in Erie, WROC-TV in Rochester, WSYR-TV in Syracuse, WUTR in Utica, WETM-TV in Elmira and WIVT in Binghamton. Steve Tasker does color commentary on these games; the play-by-play position is rotated between Andrew Catalon and Rob Stone. WROC-TV reporter Thad Brown is the sideline reporter. Since 2008, preseason games have been broadcast in high definition.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: Beginning in the 2016 season, as per a new rights deal which covers rights to the team as well as its sister NHL franchise, the Buffalo Sabres, most team-related programming, including studio programming and the coach's show, was re-located to MSG Western New York—a joint venture of MSG and the team ownership. Preseason games will continue to air in simulcast on broadcast television.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: In the event regular-season games are broadcast by ESPN, in accordance with the league's television policies, a local Buffalo station simulcasts the game. From 2014 to 2017, WKBW-TV held the broadcast rights to that contest, with the station having won back the rights to cable games after WBBZ-TV held the rights for 2012 and 2013.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Bills' official mascot is Billy Buffalo, an eight-foot-tall, anthropomorphic blue American bison who wears the jersey "number" BB.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Bills currently do not have cheerleaders. The Bills operated a cheerleading squad named the Buffalo Jills from 1967 to 1985; from 1986 to 2013, the Jills operated as an independent organization sponsored by various companies. The Jills suspended operations prior to the 2014 season due to legal actions. The Bills and Jills were previously involved in a legal battle, in which the Jills alleged they were employees, not independent contractors, and sought back pay. On March 3, 2022, a settlement was reached where the Bills agreed to pay the Jills $3.5 million, while Cumulus Media paid $4 million in stock options of the company while admitting no wrongdoing.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Bills are one of six teams in the NFL to designate an official marching band or drumline (the others being the Baltimore Ravens, Washington Commanders, New York Jets, Carolina Panthers and Seattle Seahawks). Since the last game of the 2013 season, this position has been served by the Stampede Drumline, known outside of Buffalo as Downbeat Percussion. The Bills have also used the full marching bands from Attica High School, the University of Pittsburgh and Syracuse University at home games in recent years.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Bills have several theme songs associated with them. The most popular is a variation of the Isley Brothers hit "Shout", recorded by Scott Kemper, which served as the Bills' official promotional song from 1987 through 1990s. It can be heard at every Bills home game following a field goal or touchdown and at the end of the game if the Bills win. The Bills' unofficial fight song, "Go Bills", was penned by Bills head coach Marv Levy in the mid-1990s on a friendly wager with his players that he will write the song if the team won a particular game.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The "Bills Backers" are the official fan organization of the Buffalo Bills. It has over 200 chapters across North America, Europe and Oceania. Also notable is the "Bills Mafia", organized via Twitter beginning in 2010 by Del Reid, Leslie Wille, and Breyon Harris; the phrase "Bills Mafia" had by 2017 grown to unofficially represent the broad community surrounding and encompassing the team as a whole, and players who join the Bills often speak of joining the Bills Mafia. Outsiders often treat the Bills' fan base in derogatory terms, especially since the 2010s, in part because of negative press coverage of select fans' wilder antics. In 2020, the Bills filed to trademark the "Bills Mafia" name.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: Bills fans are particularly well known for their wearing of Zubaz zebra-printed sportswear; so much is the association between Bills fans and Zubaz that when a revival of the company opened their first brick-and-mortar storefront, it chose Western New York as its first location. The "wing hat," a hat shaped like a spicy chicken wing (much in the same style as the Green Bay Packers' Cheesehead hats), can also frequently be seen atop Bills fans' heads, having originated as promotional merchandise by the Anchor Bar, the purported inventors of the modern chicken wing as a delicacy. They are also well known for jumping off of elevated surfaces (often cars or RVs) into folding tables during the pre-game tailgate.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: Despite their known boisterous behavior, Bills fans have also been noted for their generosity; after the Bills received help in breaking their 17-year playoff drought on a last-minute Cincinnati Bengals victory, Bills fans crowdfunded the charities of Bengals players Andy Dalton and Tyler Boyd with hundreds of thousands of dollars as a gesture of thanks. Also in 2020, following a November 8 upset win over the Seattle Seahawks led by one of the best career performances by quarterback Josh Allen, news emerged that Allen had elected to take the field after having been given the option to sit out the contest as he had received news of his grandmother's death only the night before. Fans showed support for their team and community by donating nearly $700,000 to the Oishei Children's Hospital, an organization supported by Allen throughout his time in Buffalo. Following the Bills' defeat of the Baltimore Ravens in the 2020–21 NFL playoffs and an injury to Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson late in that game, Bills fans crowdfunded his favorite charity, Blessings in a Backpack.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Bills are one of the favorite teams of ESPN announcer Chris Berman, who picked the Bills to reach the Super Bowl nearly every year in the 1990s. Berman often uses the catchphrase "No one circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills!" Berman gave the induction speech for Bills owner Ralph Wilson when Wilson was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2009.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: The Bills were also the favorite team of late NBC political commentator Tim Russert, a South Buffalo native, who often referred to the Bills on his Sunday morning talk show, "Meet the Press". (His son, Luke, is also a notable fan of the team.) CNN's Wolf Blitzer, also a Buffalo native, has proclaimed he is also a fan, as has "CBS Evening News" lead anchor and Tonawanda native Jeff Glor and DNC Chairman Tom Perez.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: ESPN anchor Kevin Connors is also a noted Bills fan, dating to his time attending Ithaca College. Actor Nick Bakay, a Buffalo native, is also a well-known Bills fan; he has discussed the team in segments of "NFL Top 10". Character actor William Fichtner, raised in Cheektowaga, is a fan, and did a commercial for the team in 2014. In 2015, Fichtner also narrated the ESPN "30 for 30" documentary on the Bills' four Super Bowl appearances, "Four Falls of Buffalo". Former Olympic swimmer Summer Sanders (an in-law to former Bills kicker Todd Schlopy) has professed her fandom of the team. Actor Christopher McDonald, who was raised in Romulus, New York, is a fan of the team.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: Persons notable almost entirely for their Bills fandom include Ken "Pinto Ron" Johnson, whose antics while appearing at every Bills home and away game since 1994 earned enough scrutiny that his tailgate parties were banned from stadium property on order of the league; John Lang, an Elvis impersonator who carries a large guitar that he uses as a billboard; Marc Miller, whose professional wrestling promo-style interview with WGRZ prior to Super Bowl XXVII (distinguished by the line "Dallas is going down, Gary!" and picked up at the time by "The George Michael Sports Machine") was rediscovered in 2019; and Ezra Castro, also known as "Pancho Billa," a native of El Paso, Texas who wore a large sombrero and lucha mask in Bills colors. Castro was diagnosed with a spinal tumor that had metastasized in 2017; he was invited on stage during the 2018 NFL Draft to read one of the Bills' selections. Castro died on May 14, 2019.


title: Buffalo Bills

text: Several former Buffalo Bills players earned a name in politics in the late 20th century after their playing careers had ended, nearly always as members of the Republican Party. The most famous of these was quarterback Jack Kemp, who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Western New York in 1971—two years after his playing career ended and remained there for nearly two decades, serving as the Republican Party nominee for Vice President of the United States under Bob Dole in 1996. Kemp's backup, Ed Rutkowski, served as county executive of Erie County from 1979 to 1987. Former tight end Jay Riemersma, defensive tackle Fred Smerlas and defensive end Phil Hansen have all run for Congress, though all three either lost or withdrew from their respective races. Quarterback Jim Kelly and running back Thurman Thomas have also both been mentioned as potential candidates for political office, although both have declined all requests to date.


title: Tabby cat

text: A tabby is any domestic cat ("Felis catus") with a distinctive 'M'-shaped marking on its forehead; stripes by its eyes and across its cheeks, along its back, and around its legs and tail; and (differing by tabby type), characteristic striped, dotted, lined, flecked, banded, or swirled patterns on the body—neck, shoulders, sides, flanks, chest, and abdomen. "Tabby" is not a breed of cat, but a coat type seen in almost all genetic lines of domestic cats, regardless of status.


title: Tabby cat

text: The tabby pattern is found in many official cat breeds and is a hallmark of the landrace extremely common among the general population of cats around the world. The tabby pattern occurs naturally and is connected both to the coat of the domestic cat's direct ancestor and to those of their close relatives: the African wildcat ("Felis lybica lybica"), the European wildcat ("Felis silvestris") and the Asiatic wildcat ("Felis lybica ornata"), all of which have similar coats, both by pattern and coloration. One genetic study of tabbies found five genetic clusters to be ancestral to cats of various parts of the world.


title: Tabby cat

text: The English term "tabby" originally referred to "striped silk taffeta," from the French word "tabis", meaning "a rich watered silk." This can be further traced to the Middle French "atabis" (14th century), which stemmed from the Arabic term عتابية / "ʿattābiyya". This word is a reference to the Attabiya district of Baghdad, noted for its striped cloth and silk; itself named after the Umayyad Governor of Mecca Attab ibn Asid. Such silk cloth became popular in the Muslim world and spread to England, where the word "tabby" became commonly used in the 17th and 18th centuries.


title: Tabby cat

text: "Tabby" is also comparable to the Spanish word "ataviar", which means "to decorate or to dress or wear" and often implies luxurious clothing. Use of the term "tabby cat" for a cat with a striped coat began in the 1690s and was shortened to "tabby" in 1774. The notion that tabby indicates a female cat may be due to the feminine proper name Tabby as a nickname of "Tabitha".


title: Tabby cat

text: The four known distinct patterns, each having a sound genetic explanation, are the mackerel, classic, ticked, and spotted tabby patterns.


title: Tabby cat

text: A fifth pattern is formed by any of the four basic patterns being included as part of a patched pattern. A patched tabby is a cat with calico or tortoiseshell markings combined with patches of tabby coat (such cats are called caliby and torbie, respectively, in cat fancy).


title: Tabby cat

text: All five patterns have been observed in random-bred populations. Several additional patterns are found in specific breeds and so are not as well known. For example, a modified classic tabby is found in the Sokoke breed. Some of these rarer patterns are because of the interaction of wild and domestic genes, as with the rosette and marbled patterns found in the Bengal breed.


title: Tabby cat

text: The coat of a cat can be very important. In recent studies, the color and pattern of a cat could impact how long the cat would have to wait to be adopted. The lighter the color, the faster the cat would be adopted. An orange tabby cat would likely be adopted before a classic tabby.


title: Tabby cat

text: The mackerel, or striped, tabby pattern is made up of thin vertical, gently curving stripes on the sides of the body. These stripes can be continuous or broken into bars and short segments/spots, especially on the flanks and stomach. Three or five vertical lines in an 'M' shape almost always appear on the forehead, along with dark lines from the corners of the eyes, one or more crossing each cheek, and of course many stripes and lines at various angles on the neck and shoulder area, on the flanks, and around the legs and tail, marks which are more or less perpendicular to the length of the body part. Mackerel tabbies are also called 'fishbone tabbies,' probably doubly named after the mackerel fish. Mackerels are the most common among tabbies.


title: Tabby cat

text: The classic tabby, also known as blotched or marbled tabby, has the 'M' pattern on the forehead but, rather than primarily thin stripes or spots, the body markings are thick curving bands in whorls or a swirled pattern, with a distinctive mark on each side of the body resembling a bullseye. Most modern-day tabbies have a classic pattern. Black tabbies generally have dark browns, olives, and ochres that stand out more against their black colors. Classic tabbies each have a light-coloured "butterfly" pattern on the shoulders and three thin stripes (the center stripe being darkest) running along the spine. The legs, tail, and cheeks of a classic tabby have thick stripes, bands, and/or bars. The gene responsible for the coloring of a classic tabby is recessive. Many American shorthair cats demonstrate this pattern.


title: Tabby cat

text: The ticked tabby pattern is due to even fields of agouti hairs, each with distinct bands of colour, which break up the tabby patterning into a salt-and-pepper appearance that makes them look sand-like—thus there are few to no stripes or bands. Residual ghost striping and/or barring can often be seen on the lower legs, face, and belly and sometimes at the tail tip, as well as the standard 'M' and a long dark line running along the spine, primarily in ticked tabbies who also carry a mackerel or classic tabby allele. These types of cats come in many forms and colours.


title: Tabby cat

text: It's thought that the spotted tabby results from a modifier gene that breaks up the mackerel tabby pattern and causes the stripes to appear as spots. Similarly, the classic tabby pattern may be broken by the spotted tabby gene into large spots. One can see both large and small spot patterns in the Australian Mist, Bengal, Serengeti, Savannah, Egyptian Mau, Arabian Mau, Maine Coon, and Ocicat breeds, among others, as well as some crosses. Naturally, the most common spotted tabby looks most similar to the mackerel tabby, including the classic marks on the limbs, tail, and head, as well as the 'M' on the forehead.


title: Tabby cat

text: The orange tabby, also commonly called red or ginger tabby, is a color-variant of the above patterns, having pheomelanin (O allele) instead of eumelanin (o allele). Though generally a mix of orange and white, the ratio between fur color varies, from a few orange spots on the back of a white cat to a completely orange coloring with no white at all. The orange areas can be darker or lighter spots or stripes, but the white is nearly always solid and usually appears on the underbelly, paws, chest, and muzzle.


title: Tabby cat

text: The face markings are reminiscent of the mackerel or classic tabby and, with orange/white, an inclusion of a white spot on the face that covers the mouth, coming to a point around the forehead. Because a masking gene is present on white fur, its inclusion is often asymmetrical, leading to more or less white fur on each paw or side of the face.


title: Tabby cat

text: About 80% of orange tabby cats are male. The orange coloring is a recessive gene, found on the X chromosome. Females have XX chromosomes to the male's XY. Thus, both the mother and father cat must pass on the genes to the female, but males only need the trait from their mothers.


title: Tabby cat

text: Two distinct gene loci, the agouti gene locus (two alleles) and the tabby locus (three alleles), and one modifier, spotted (two alleles), cause the four basic tabby patterns. The fifth pattern is emergent, being expressed by female cats with one black and one orange gene on each of their two X chromosomes, and is explained by Barr bodies and the genetics of sex-linked inheritance.


title: Tabby cat

text: The agouti gene, with its two alleles, "A" and "a", controls whether or not the tabby pattern is expressed. The dominant "A" expresses the underlying tabby pattern, while the recessive non-agouti or "hyper-melanistic" allele, "a", does not. Solid-color (black or blue) cats have the "aa" combination, hiding the tabby pattern, although sometimes a suggestion of the underlying pattern can be seen ("ghost striping"). This underlying pattern, whether classic, mackerel, ticked or spotted, is most easily distinguishable under bright light in the early stages of kittenhood and on the tail in adulthood.


title: Tabby cat

text: However, the agouti gene primarily controls the production of black pigment, so a cat with an "O" allele for orange color will still express the tabby pattern. As a result, both red cats and the patches of red on tortoiseshell cats will always show tabby patterning, though sometimes the stripes are muted—especially in cream and blue/cream cats due to the pigment dilution.


title: Tabby cat

text: The mackerel pattern and its "T" allele at the tabby gene locus is dominant over the classic (or blotched) allele, "T". So a cat with a "TT" or "TT" genotype sets the basic pattern of thin stripes (mackerel tabby) that underlies the coat, while a "TT" cat will express a classic tabby coat pattern with thick bands and a ring or concentric stripes on its sides.


title: Tabby cat

text: The ticked tabby pattern is a result of a different allele at the same gene locus as the mackerel and classic tabby patterns and this allele is dominant over the others. So a "TT" genotype as well as "TT" and "TT" genotypes will be ticked tabbies. The ticked tabby coat essentially masks any other tabby pattern, producing a non-patterned, or agouti tabby (much like the wild type agouti coat of many other mammals and the sable coat of dogs), with virtually no stripes or bars. If the ticked allele is present, no other tabby pattern will be expressed. The ticked allele actually shows incomplete dominance: cats homozygous for the ticked allele ("TT") have less barring than cats heterozygous for the ticked allele ("TT" or "TT").


title: Tabby cat

text: The spotted gene is a separate locus theorized to be directly connected to the "T" allele; it 'breaks' the lines and thin stripes of a mackerel tabby, creating spots. The spotted gene has a dominant and a recessive allele as well, which means a spotted cat will have an "Sp Sp" or "Sp sp" genotype along with at least one "T" allele and at least one "A" allele at those alleles’ respective loci.


title: Tabby cat

text: Personality and aggression varies widely from cat to cat, and is multifactorial. A 2015 study from University of California, Davis sought to examine the relationship between coat color and behavior in cats. Researchers ran statistical analyses from 1,274 online surveys completed by cat owners. The owners were asked to rank the cats' aggressiveness during interactions with human aggression, handling aggression, and veterinary aggression. The study concluded that, though aggressive behaviors did show up in different levels between different coats, these were relatively minor. The larger differences in aggression seemed to researchers to be sex-linked, rather than related to any coat pattern or coloring:With all coat colors combined, females were identified by their guardians as more aggressive during veterinary visits compared with males ("X²" = 10.36, "p" = .001). Analyses showed that gray-and-white and black/brown/gray tabby females were more aggressive than their male counterparts at veterinarians’ offices ("X²" = 9.28, "p" = .002, and "X²" = 5.00, "p =" .025, respectively).A similar study also reported no evidence of a link between a cat's behavior and their coat pattern; however, it suggested that any differences were just how they were being perceived, i.e. people perceive orange cats as "friendly" and white cats as "shy," and then look for confirmation of these perceptions.


title: Tabby cat

text: Since the tabby pattern is a common wild type, it might be assumed that medieval cats were tabbies. However, one writer believed this to be untrue, at least in England. Sometime after the mid-17th century, the natural philosopher John Aubrey noted that William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury was "a great lover of Cats" and "was presented with some Cyprus-cats, i.e. our Tabby-Cats". He then claimed that "I doe well remember that the common English Catt, was white with some blueish piednesse (i.e. white with grey parts). The race or breed of them is now almost lost." However, most drawings or paintings of cats in medieval manuscripts do show them to be tabbies. In the first century BCE, Cicero references the distinctive "M" marking of the tabby cat in "De consulatu suo".


title: Tabby cat

text: Due to the pattern being expressed by both pure and mixed-breed cats, a large number of famous cats fall into the "tabby" category. A few of the most notable examples include:


title: George MacKay (actor)

text: George Andrew J. MacKay (; born 13 March 1992) is a British actor. He began his career as a child actor in "Peter Pan" (2003). He had starring roles in the British war drama "Private Peaceful" (2012), the romantic film "How I Live Now" (2013), "For Those in Peril" (2013), for which he won a BAFTA Scotland Award and was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award, and "Marrowbone" (2017). He garnered recognition for his leading role in "1917" (2019) which received critical acclaim and numerous awards.