White Pony is the third studio album by the American alternative metal band Deftones, released on June 20, 2000, through Maverick Records. It was produced by Terry Date, who produced the band's first two albums, Adrenaline (1995) and Around the Fur (1997). Recording sessions took place at The Plant Recording Studios in Sausalito, California, with additional recording at Larrabee Sound Studios in West Hollywood.

The album marked a significant growth in the band's sound, incorporating influences from post-hardcore, trip hop, shoegaze, progressive rock, and post-rock into the alternative metal sound which they had become known for. White Pony was also the first recording to feature Frank Delgado as a full-time member of the band on turntables and synthesizer; Delgado had previously worked with the band as a featured guest on their first two albums, producing sound effects on some songs. It was also the first Deftones album on which Chino Moreno began to contribute rhythm guitar parts.

Upon its release and retrospectively, the album received generally positive reviews, and was regarded by fans and critics alike as one of the band's most mature outings at that point. The album includes two successful singles ("Change (In the House of Flies)" and "Back to School (Mini Maggit)"), the promotional single "Digital Bath", as well as the 2001 Grammy Award–winning track for Best Metal Performance, "Elite". The album received a 20th anniversary reissue, packaged with Black Stallion, a companion remix album of White Pony, in December 2020.

After a break from touring, the band spent four months in the studio writing and recording White Pony with the producer Terry Date, the longest amount of time they had dedicated to an album thus far. The singer Chino Moreno explained that the majority of this time was spent trying to write songs, and that the writing of "Change (In the House of Flies)" was the turning point where the band began working as a unit.

Despite being pressured to release the album sooner, the band decided to take their time making the album. The bassist Chi Cheng explained, "We didn't feel like we had anything to lose, so we made the record we wanted to make." Moreno did not have an overall lyrical theme in mind, but made a conscious decision to bring an element of fantasy into his lyrics, explaining, "I basically didn't sing about myself on this record. I made up a lot of story lines and some dialogue, even. I took myself completely out of it and wrote about other things. Once I did that I was able to sing about anything I wanted to, I could be a lot more general. There's a lot of stuff on this record that people are going to question me about, and I can just remove myself from it. It's not me. I'm writing a story here." Moreno later claimed in a 2020 interview that his decision to play rhythm guitar on the album caused tensions to escalate with the guitarist Stephen Carpenter during the writing process. Despite the tensions, Moreno and Carpenter found themselves on friendlier terms and found a cohesive songwriting process for most of the album's tracks, with Moreno claiming, "Initially, I don't think the idea was that I was going to actually play on the record, even. Then I remember Stephen specifically saying, 'Dude, if you're going to play it in practice, then you're going to play on the record!' and I was like, 'Oh, okay… If that's cool with you!' I don't think he was too happy about it, to be honest, then [...] I do remember us both smiling at each other when we were sitting listening to the track being made, and the fusing of both our guitars, the sound of it, the way that Terry [Date] produced it."

Although the band initially did not intend to include guest musicians on the album, it features additional vocals by Maynard James Keenan of Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer on "Passenger" and Rodleen Getsic (simply credited as Rodleen) on "Knife Prty". "Rx Queen" also features vocal contributions from the Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, though he is uncredited. Weiland brought Moreno to his studio for collaboration, where he would sing along and suggest vocal harmonies; the result was left in the final version of the song, and credit for Weiland's part was never discussed by either party.

Stylistically, White Pony combines the band's standard alternative metal sound, influenced by bands such as Tool, Faith No More, Nine Inch Nails, and Pink Floyd, with the layered atmospherics of the Cure, specifically their Pornography era. It has also been categorized as an art rock and nu metal album, though several critics also acknowledge that the record moved beyond the latter label. Metal Hammer likened the album to a metal version of Radiohead's critically acclaimed OK Computer (1997).

Lyrically, much of the album centers around "sex and violence", which Moreno considered "a big part of fucking rock 'n' roll"; he attributed some of that to the band's drug use at the time, noting that while he considers "Digital Bath"―a song about electrocuting a girl in a bathtub―some of his favorite lyrics, he doesn't remember writing them.