While Jack White’s untitled, secretly released new album was given out for free, it’s fetching big bucks on the secondary market.
On eBay, sales of the album — which was issued to customers at Third Man Records locations on Friday, free of charge, with any purchase in the store — have reached as high as $1,000, and several more are listed on the site for between $500 and $1,000.
As of Monday morning, 51 copies of the album had sold on eBay, for prices ranging between $299 and $1,000. Of those, 12 of the sale prices were undisclosed. But the 39 with prices publicly available sold for an average of $494.82.
White himself has so far been silent on the release, which came with no advance warning, but caused a stir once fans discovered it and started posting about it online.
“Today you have proven that the quiet rumblings of something mysterious can grow into the beautiful experience of a community sharing the excitement and energy of music & art,” Third Man Records wrote in an Instagram post on Friday.
The album was issued on white vinyl in a white sleeve with the words “NO NAME” written in blue on the record’s label, and was only available at Third Man Records, which has locations in Detroit, Nashville and London.
On Friday, a post on Third Man Records’ Instagram pictured the album with the words “RIP IT” over top, seemingly encouraging fans to rip the album and share it online. (Although some fans surely took the message to mean to rip the label, since White has a history of hiding secret goodies inside of records and inside record labels.)
In a review posted on Sunday, Variety hailed the 14-track, 42-minute album as “a fiery, straight-ahead, just-plug-in-and-let-rip rock and roll album in the vein of (White’s) dearly beloved and dearly departed White Stripes, but without seeming retro or leaning too heavily on nostalgia.
“It’s the freshest and most exciting rock and roll album to come down the pike in years,” the magazine wrote.
agraham@detroitnews.com
