Week in Music: The White Stripes Break Up, Elton John Gives Billy Joel Tough Love and More

 The biggest news this week was the break-up of the White Stripes, who officially called it quits in a statement released on Wednesday. This sad news inspired a lot of nostalgia at the Rolling Stone office, so we’ve compiled all of our past coverage of the band, including a 2005 cover story.

Photos: The Many Guises of Jack White

Our new cover story about Elton John raised some eyebrows this week, mainly for his frank comments regarding his friend Billy Joel‘s issues with alcoholism. (Joel took John’s criticism in stride, responding with a statement later in the week that “Elton is just being Elton.”) We posted some other highlights from the story, including John speaking of his admiration for Kanye West, reminiscing about his biggest concerts and revealing what he has put on his new child’s iPod.

Plus, Rob Sheffield shared his favorite Elton John deep cuts, we dug up amazing vintage footage of “Take Me to the Pilot” and brought our 1976 cover story about John out of the vault.

Photos: Elton John’s Outfits Through the Years

In other music news, we discovered the details of Britney Spears‘ new album Femme Fatale and Pearl Jam‘s reissued versions of Vs. and Vitalogy, learned about upcoming tours by John Mellencamp, Bob Seger, and Stevie Nicks and Rod Stewart, and checked in with Panda Bear and ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic about their new albums.

Andy Greene looked into the similarities between the Lonely Island and Nicki Minaj’s new video “The Creep” and a viral clip created by students at Carnegie Mellon, Erica Futterman reviewed Melissa Etheridge’s performance as St. Johnny in Green Day‘s American Idiot musical on Broadway and we wondered whether it means much to have a Number One record these days.

Jessica Lea Mayfield was named our latest Band to Watch, and as always, we reviewed all of the week’s hottest albums and tracks.

Exclusive: George Michael Remembers the Recording of His Classic LP ‘Faith’

Over on Rolling Stone‘s video blog, we posted sessions with Patrick Stump, MEN and Ingrid Michaelson recorded live in our office, premiered two new music videos from R.E.M. and shared exclusive footage of the Decemberists and Band of Horses on the Nickelodeon kids show Yo Gabba Gabba.

Classic Super Bowl Moments: Music’s Big Names at Football’s Big Game

On the pop culture front, Peter Travers ripped into the hammy new 3D movie Sanctum, Rob Sheffield wondered why people are getting so outraged about Skins, Halle Kiefer recapped the latest Jersey Shore and Mallika Rao kept us informed about both episodes of American Idol that aired this week. Also, we celebrated the imminent return of Beavis and Butt-Head to MTV by digging up our 1993 cover story about the animated duo.

Exclusive Photos: ‘Women Who Rock’ Exhibit

In the world of politics, Nicholas Dawidoff pondered the riddle of Jimmy Carter, Matt Taibbi assembled his Supreme Court of Assholedom and we put up a taste of Michael Hastings’ in-depth critical look at General David Petraeus’ plan to end the war in Afghanistan.

We also posted a gallery of your Top 10 favorite dead rock stars, as determined by your votes on Facebook and Twitter. Our question for you this weekend is: Who is greatest drummer of all time? You can answer on our website, on facebook.com/rollingstone or on Twitter with the #weekendrock hashtag.

See you Monday!

LAST WEEK: Katy Perry and Bob Seger Plan Big Tours, The Game Drops a Hit Mixtape