Elephant critical acclaim

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 Meg’s first leading vocal performance on ” In the Cold, Cold Night “; critics also praised Meg’s drumming. Rolling Stone placed Jack at number 17 on its list of “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” and included Meg on its list of the “100 Greatest Drummers of All Time”. 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.