Naigewron
Platinum Member
Gah, dragged back in!
I'd say that's an extremely one-sided and simplistic way to judge skills. It's also impossible to actually do unless you know the actual circumstances surrounding the piece(s) of music you base your opinion on.
How about their ability to play what's right for the music, to lock in and musically communicate with the other players in the band? How would you quantify that?
What about their compositional skills? Do we know who wrote the drum parts they're playing? Are they just playing parts someone else wrote for them or did they actually write their own parts?
Can they read charts, or did they learn the tracks by ear?
Did they record those songs in one take, or did they have to be punched in every two bars because they kept screwing up?
Have they been told to simplify their playing by a producer and/or band leader, which means they're not playing to their "maximum ability"?
Sure, there are thousands of drummers who could outplay any of the drummers mentioned in this thread, but so what? Being a good drummer is about much more than chops and technical skills, right? Right? There are so many skills that go into playing the right thing for the right band and the right piece of music. Pure technical chops are just one of them, and even they are useless if a player knows when to restrain himself.
So how would you base popularity of a random drummer from the Drummerworld front page? Sure, you may have heard of him, but does that mean that most other people have? What if you have never heard his name before; does that mean he's virtually unknown?
I have a number of drummers and artists I think are massively overrated, but that doesn't mean that I think my opinion has any objective merit. Sure, there are a few extremely lucky guys out there, but most famous people have worked their hands to the bone to get to where they are now, so I can at least respect them for that even if I think the end result sounds horrendous.
Dave Grohl? He'd be the first to tell you he's not a technically skilled drummer at all. But he's been working, touring, writing, recording, gigging and playing non-stop for the last 25 years to get to where he is now. He has a level of dedication to music that extremely few people here can match. Maybe he's overrated as a drummer, but I'd say that 95% of his popularity is due to his total body of work, not because he's played drums on a few Nirvana songs. In fact, I can't remember ever hearing much about him when he was in Nirvana; it's only after he made it big with Foo Fighters that people really started talking about his playing with Nirvana.
...man, why am I still typing?
I'd say that's an extremely one-sided and simplistic way to judge skills. It's also impossible to actually do unless you know the actual circumstances surrounding the piece(s) of music you base your opinion on.
How about their ability to play what's right for the music, to lock in and musically communicate with the other players in the band? How would you quantify that?
What about their compositional skills? Do we know who wrote the drum parts they're playing? Are they just playing parts someone else wrote for them or did they actually write their own parts?
Can they read charts, or did they learn the tracks by ear?
Did they record those songs in one take, or did they have to be punched in every two bars because they kept screwing up?
Have they been told to simplify their playing by a producer and/or band leader, which means they're not playing to their "maximum ability"?
Sure, there are thousands of drummers who could outplay any of the drummers mentioned in this thread, but so what? Being a good drummer is about much more than chops and technical skills, right? Right? There are so many skills that go into playing the right thing for the right band and the right piece of music. Pure technical chops are just one of them, and even they are useless if a player knows when to restrain himself.
Way to drag out some obvious examples there. Cee Lo Green is obviously popular, and Travis Barker is probably one of the most well-known drummers in the world. I have no idea who the other two guys are. Are they actually popular, or were they examples of non-popular people?
So how would you base popularity of a random drummer from the Drummerworld front page? Sure, you may have heard of him, but does that mean that most other people have? What if you have never heard his name before; does that mean he's virtually unknown?
I have a number of drummers and artists I think are massively overrated, but that doesn't mean that I think my opinion has any objective merit. Sure, there are a few extremely lucky guys out there, but most famous people have worked their hands to the bone to get to where they are now, so I can at least respect them for that even if I think the end result sounds horrendous.
Dave Grohl? He'd be the first to tell you he's not a technically skilled drummer at all. But he's been working, touring, writing, recording, gigging and playing non-stop for the last 25 years to get to where he is now. He has a level of dedication to music that extremely few people here can match. Maybe he's overrated as a drummer, but I'd say that 95% of his popularity is due to his total body of work, not because he's played drums on a few Nirvana songs. In fact, I can't remember ever hearing much about him when he was in Nirvana; it's only after he made it big with Foo Fighters that people really started talking about his playing with Nirvana.
...man, why am I still typing?
