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Jack White still upset over Guinness World Records snub

Written by . Published: May 16 2012

Rocker Jack White is still annoyed with Guinness World Record bosses after they denied his attempt at staging the shortest concert, calling the company an "elitist organization".


The 36 year old and his former The White Stripes bandmate and ex-wife Meg White attempted to make history by performing one note - a clash of the cymbal - during a tour stop in Newfoundland, Canada, but the rocker reveals the pair's record bid was shut down by officials at Guinness, and White is convinced they simply didn't want the duo in their famous annual.


He tells Interview magazine, "We'd done this whole tour of Canada, where we played in every province, and almost every day we would do a free show. I would decide each morning what kind of show we would do... So when we were in Newfoundland, the idea that I came up with at breakfast was, 'Let's play one note today...'


"I told Meg as we were getting out of the car. I said, 'Make sure you grab your cymbal (and) when you hit the cymbal, grab it so that the note only lasts a millisecond.' I was thinking that afterwards we could contact the Guinness World Records people and see if we could get the record for shortest concert of all time. So we did it, but ultimately they turned us down.


"The thing is, though, that the Guinness book is a very elitist organization. There's nothing scientific about what they do. They just have an office full of people who decide what a record is and what isn't... Most of the records in there - who has the biggest collection of salt-and-pepper shakers or whatever - are just whatever they want them to be. So with something like the shortest concert of all time, they didn't think whatever we did was interesting enough to make it a record.


"I don't know why they get to decide that, but, you know, they own the book."

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