(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still / Third Man Records)
Wed 15 October 2025 4:00, UK
For television junkies of a certain generation, it is difficult to recall back to a time in which Conan O’Brien wasn’t a fixture of late-night programming.
Although his days of Late Night and Conan are now behind him, the current iteration of American talk shows are still very much operating in his shadow, evident in everything from his interview style to the countless iconic musical performances which graced his set week after week.
From the very beginning of late-night TV and talk shows, going back to the black-and-white age of the 1950s, musical performances have been a key part of the format. Whether it was Little Richard introducing The Tonight Show to the rock ‘n’ roll revolution back in the 1950s, or Fear nearly causing Lorne Michaels an aneurysm by transforming the set of SNL into a hardcore moshpit. More so than any of his contemporaries, though, O’Brien always seemed to be on the cutting edge of musical performances.
While you could find stalwarts and legends of the musical world on other stations, Conan’s tenure of Late Night, and his time presenting Conan, were always the place to go to see the most exciting emerging artists of the time. Early performances by the likes of No Doubt, Radiohead, and At The Drive In, to name a handful, helped to put those now-legendary outfits on the national stage for the very first time, and it all happened under O’Brien’s watch.
One particular group which has always remained close to the presenter’s heart is The White Stripes. Emerging in the garage rock revival of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Detroit duo arrived on the scene as O’Brien’s Late Night was arguably reaching its peak, and through multiple expectedly energetic performances on the show they quickly became a favourite of Conan’s. Seemingly, that appreciation was mutual, too.
Famously, O’Brien appeared in the music video for The White Stripes’ often underrated 2005 single ‘The Denial Twist’, reflecting the level of adoration that ran between the presenter and the garage rockers. So, when asked to collate a list of his all-time favourite tracks for the KCRW Guest DJ Project back in 2008, it came as absolutely no surprise that O’Brien held yet another spotlight on the work of Jack and Meg White.
Namely, the Late Night icon highlighted ‘Ball and Biscuit’, the seven-minute epic take from The White Stripes’ magnum opus album Elephant in 2003. “This song contains a lot of what I really like about The White Stripes,” O’Brien said, explaining his choice. “Which is they are not interested in polish. It’s the honesty of what they are doing, and they are really in touch with, you know, the force behind the music, rather than technically, getting the cleanest sound.”
The White Stripes’ lack of polish, as O’Brien put it, was indicative of that early-2000s garage rock sound, prioritising a raw, rough-and-ready, rock and roll sound which caught audiences right in their hearts, rather than spending years crafting a delicate, overly complex, but ultimately soulless sound.
Similarly, Conan O’Brien adopted a similar approach to Late Night, paying little heed to outdated conventions and instead creating something which felt a little more close-to-the-bone for all the right reasons. Perhaps that is why Jack White’s songwriting mastery continues to resonate so heavily with the presenter.
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