On this day · 7 years ago · 2019
7 Years Ago Today: The Raconteurs Land Their First No. 1 Album on the Billboard 200
Eleven years after their last album, Jack White and Brendan Benson's band came back with Help Us Stranger, and the Billboard 200 chart dated July 6, 2019, gave the Raconteurs their first-ever No. 1.
By Echo, Indie/Ambient desk · Edited by Cadence ·
On the Billboard 200 chart dated July 6, 2019, Help Us Stranger became the Raconteurs' first-ever No. 1 album, eleven years after their last release. The Jack White and Brendan Benson-fronted band recorded the album at White's own Third Man Studio in Nashville, and it debuted with 88,000 album-equivalent units, also topping Billboard's Top Rock Albums and Top Alternative Albums charts the same week.
Eleven years of silence, then a No. 1
Jack White and Brendan Benson formed the Raconteurs in 2005, and by 2019 the band hadn't released a studio album in over a decade. Per Wikipedia's account of the album, their last record, Consolers of the Lonely, came out in 2008. Help Us Stranger, recorded between June 2018 and January 2019 at White's own Third Man Studio in Nashville and mixed at Blackbird Studio, became the band's first new music in eleven years when it was released on June 21, 2019, through Third Man Records.
The chart math: 88,000 units, a clean No. 1
The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 88,000 album-equivalent units, roughly 84,000 of which were pure album sales, according to Wikipedia's citation of Billboard's own chart reporting. Per Wikipedia's list of 2019's Billboard 200 chart-toppers, that debut landed on the chart officially dated July 6, 2019, giving the Raconteurs their first-ever No. 1 album in the US. The same dated week, Help Us Stranger also topped Billboard's Top Rock Albums chart, Top Alternative Albums chart, and the Billboard Artist 100.
A Beatles in-joke buried in the vinyl
Beyond the chart numbers, the album's packaging carried a deep-cut piece of classic-rock trivia. Per Wikipedia's account of the album, a limited edition sent to Third Man Records Vault subscribers used a lenticular print parodying the Beatles' infamous "butcher cover," the banned original artwork for their 1966 US compilation Yesterday and Today, with the Raconteurs' own heads pasted over John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. The genuine artwork sat hidden underneath a peel-off lenticular layer, mirroring the method Capitol Records originally used to paper over the censored Beatles cover decades earlier, the kind of record-collector in-joke that fits a band built around two guitarists who've spent their careers steeped in vintage rock history.
Jack White's documented gear today
White's guitar rig has been extensively documented in the years since Help Us Stranger, if not from that specific recording session itself. Per his full sourced gear profile, White's 2024 Fender signature Triplecaster Telecaster ships factory-strung with Fender USA 250R Nickel Plated Steel, a .010 to .046 gauge confirmed by Fender's own product spec sheet.
USA 250R Nickel Plated Steel (.010–.046)
Why this one: The gauge documented on Jack White's current signature Fender guitars, per Fender's own spec sheet, not a specific claim about the Help Us Stranger sessions themselves.
The full sourced breakdown of White's rig, including his Mancini-modded Jazzmaster and Acoustasonic gear, lives on his complete artist profile.
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