I believe it was Stephen Malkmus who once posited the theory of mediocre drummer vs great drummers. I agreed 100%
Basically, it was that the better a drummer got in a band, the worse the band got.
Some of the examples Malkmus used was R.E.M. and Husker Du.
Some of my examples are the fact that Rush is one of the most God-awful bands ever. They're in Springsteen range. And Neil Peart is supposed to be drummer god...blah blah blah.
Guns N Roses. Technically, Matt Sorum is a much better drummer than Steven Adler. But they SWUNG with Adler.
I think people who think Meg White is a crappy drummer are ignorant. Because some people think Charlie Watts is a crappy drummer, too.
Brian
this is a load of horseshit. maybe malkmus liked having mediocre drummers -- hello, steve west -- to avoid being upstaged. and i'm saying this as a pavement fan (at least up to 1995 since i'm a hipster who only likes each band's first three albums before anybody else "got them").
husker du's last album didn't suck because grant hart became a better drummer. it sucked because the songwriting was bad, and grant and bob hated each other at that point. musicianship has nothing to do with it. bill berry getting better at drums didn't make REM worse; michael stipe's pretention did.
as for that ignorant rush comment, i don't even know what to say. you might not like rush because of geddy lee's shrieky vocals, but to deny their talents as musicians is downright retarded. i'm not even coming from a technical masturbatory stance, either. it is no question that they are extremely capable musicians; what makes rush's best work (1975-1982) palatable is that they actually know how to write a
pop song within "progressive" contexts. admittedly, i'm a drummer, and for the most part i like what peart does, except for his egregious use of rototoms. the guy can still hold a groove with anybody.
charlie watts (who was a trained jazz drummer, btw) is a terrific drummer because he's like a human metronome, always right in the pocket and never flashy. meg white is the opposite of that. however, for the white stripes, her lack of ability never bothered me too much, though she may have hindered the band from going to certain places. probably why jack formed two other bands, as better vehicles for his songs that wouldn't work in the white stripes.
my take on the stripes is that, due to my blatant hipsterism (confirmed by my love for rush), i liked their first two or three albums but thought they got boring and by 2003 i didn't really care whether they existed or not. i saw them a few times in '99-'01 and they put on a good show. jack has a great voice and he's a decent guitarist. personally, i don't care much for the raconteurs or dead weather, but nothing i've heard from him is downright terrible, it just doesn't hit me. the white stripes were one of the better mainstream bands of the past decade.
as for azaghal's comment, 3000 is excessive. it's probably more like 30 garage bands in detroit and 300 in memphis that are better.
