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Whitesnake

Group

Whitesnake

From
Middlesbrough, United Kingdom
Active
1978–2022
Rating
★ 4.1 (11 votes)
Releases
128
  • hard rock
  • blues rock
  • rock
  • classic rock
  • glam metal
  • heavy metal

About

Whitesnake were a British rock band formed in London in 1978. The group originated as the backing band for singer David Coverdale, who had recently left Deep Purple. Though the band quickly developed their own entity, Coverdale was the only constant member throughout their history.

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Following the Snakebite EP in 1978, Whitesnake released the albums Trouble (1978) and Lovehunter (1979), which included the live staples "Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City" and "Walking in the Shadow of the Blues". Whitesnake achieved commercial access across UK, Europe and Japan, with their subsequent albums Ready an' Willing (1980), Live... in the Heart of the City (1980), Come an' Get It (1981) and Saints & Sinners (1982) all reaching the top ten on the UK Albums Chart. By the mid-1980s, Coverdale decided to focus on the US market where Whitesnake was largely unknown. With the backing of American label Geffen Records, Whitesnake released Slide It In in 1984, featuring the singles "Love Ain't No Stranger" and "Slow an' Easy", which exposed the band through heavy airplay on MTV. In 1987, Whitesnake released their eponymous album, titled 1987 in the UK, their biggest success to date, selling over eight million copies in the United States and spawning the hit singles "Here I Go Again", "Is This Love" and "Still of the Night". Whitesnake also adopted a more contemporary look, akin to the Los Angeles glam metal scene.
After releasing Slip of the Tongue in 1989, Coverdale took a break from the music industry. Aside from a few short-lived reunions related to the release of Greatest Hits (1994) and Restless Heart (1997), Whitesnake remained mostly inactive until 2003, when Coverdale put together a new line-up to celebrate the band's 25th anniversary. Since then Whitesnake released four more studio albums Good to Be Bad (2008), Forevermore (2011), The Purple Album (2015), Flesh & Blood (2019) and toured extensively around the world. In 2022, the band embarked on a farewell tour that was cut short due to Coverdale and other band members' health issues. He later announced his retirement in 2025, effectively putting an end to Whitesnake.
Whitesnake's early sound has been characterised by critics as blues rock, but by the mid-1980s the band slowly began moving toward a more commercially accessible hard rock style. Topics such as love and sex are common in Whitesnake's lyrics, which make frequent use of sexual innuendos and double entendres. Whitesnake were nominated for several awards during their career, including Best British Group at the 1988 Brit Awards. They have also been featured on lists of the greatest hard rock bands by several media outlets, while their songs and albums have appeared on many "best of" lists by outlets such as VH1 and Rolling Stone.

From Whitesnake on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Heard on the radio

Members

Discography

Albums 14
EPs 3
Singles 28
Live 48
Compilations 28
Other 7

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Also known as

White Snake · Whithesnake · ホワイトスネイク · 白いヘビ

Tags

  • british

Identifiers

ISNI
0000000119417031

Data from MusicBrainz, saved 7 Nov 2026. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, covers from the Cover Art Archive and Apple Music.