Has musicianship left modern popular music? (pt 1)

[Peter_Puget]

When I first started buying records many of the biggest most popular bands had instantly recognizable drummers:

 

The Who – Keith Moon

Led Zep – John Bonham

 

Other less popular but still very well known bands had much more accomplished and still easily recognizable drummers:

 

Yes – Bill Bruford

Mahavishu Orchestra – Billy Cobham

 

Has drumming become a soulless art?

 

 

[olyclimber]

Who can answer that question Peter!!! Why are you pissing in the idiot wind?

[catbirdseat]

Souless, yes, but calling it art is a stretch.

[Peter_Puget]

Who can answer that question Peter!!! Why are you pissing in the idiot wind?

 

Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull,

From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol.

Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,

You're an idiot, babe.

It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

 

 

[olyclimber]

after the jester stole the thorny crown you know it would be all down hill. thats what you get for getting old Peter. at least you have the good days to remember.

[rbw1966]

Neil Pert

[G-spotter]

Hear the drummer get wicked.

[Off_White]

Janet from Sleater-Kinney is a brilliant drummer.

Dave Grohl was a much better drummer than guitar player.

Billy Conway from Morphine played with both great restraint and passion.

 

Huh, guess all those bands are defunct too.

[olyclimber]

Oh, and there we were all in one place, a generation lost in space

With no time left to start again.

[Peter_Puget]

Neil Pert

 

Rush is a 70s band! He is a good drummmer tho.

[Peter_Puget]

Janet from Sleater-Kinney is a brilliant drummer.

Dave Grohl was a much better drummer than guitar player.

Billy Conway from Morphine played with both great restraint and passion.

 

Huh, guess all those bands are defunct too.

 

Only Grohl's band was really popular.

[counterfeitfake]

Recognizable drumming does not equal good drumming, just like recognizable guitar does not equal good guitar.

[Peter_Puget]

Recognizable drumming does not equal good drumming, just like recognizable guitar does not equal good guitar.

 

I dont think I suggested it did, however, the sound of both the Who and Led Zep were in a large sense determined by their drummers.

 

Switching to guitarists Neil Young certily isn’t best technician on the planet but I have seen him perform Down By the River perfectly. He was instantly recognizable and perfect. Larry Coryell, John McLaughlin, Robben Ford, Jimmy Page or any of the thousands of guitarist who could blow him away technically would most likely not have been as perfect.

[mountainmatt]

Dave Grohl was a much better drummer than guitar player.

 

Are you on crack? His drumming was just run of the mill imo. At least now he is playing some nice sounding and powerful licks on the guitar. Plus he has a nice raspy singing voice that really rocks.

[mountainmatt]

If this is part 1, what is part 2?

[Mr_Phil]

Drumming is child's play.

 

BQ0eod3vVcs

[Weekend_Climberz]

Um, Danny Carey and Mike Portnoy.

[Off_White]

Only Grohl's band was really popular.

 

I was thinking of his work with the Stinky Puffs, never knew they were that big a thing.

[Peter_Puget]

I'd agree about atool's drummer. Hes the odd man out. But he's about 45. All the drummers I mentioned in my first post made there mark while they were younger.

Edited December 2, 2006 by Peter_Puget

[Maestro]

Oh, and there we were all in one place, a generation lost in space

With no time left to start again.

Don MacClean used to (still does?) perform with no band--no drummer--just him and his accoustic 6-string. It was exquisite! sickie

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

Neal Peart

 

 

[fear_and_greed]

#1 - Stewart Copeland

#2 - Who cares?

[archenemy]

Stewart fucking rocks. His soundtrack for Rumblefish was beautiful; as was the s.t. pcs. he did for Brimstone and Treacle.

[archenemy]

And Dave Lombardo is my hero.

[pope]

A couple of relevant quotes from my "guitar hero", Frank Zappa:

 

I didn't have to play 15-minute guitar solos, and, really, there's not much of a market for that anymore--the interest span of the audience has shriveled to about eight bars, and in those eight bars, you are expected to play every note you know."

 

"The concept of 'The Rock Guitar Solo' in the eighties has pretty much been reduced to: "Weedly-weedly-wee, make a face, hold your guitar like it's your weenie, point it heavenward, and look like you're REALLY DOING SOMETHING. Then, you get a big ovation while the smoke bombs go off, and the motorized lights in your truss twirl around."

 

Also, from his keynote address to the 1984 American Society of University Composers:

 

Today, just as in the glorious past, the composer has to accomodate the specific taste (no matter how BAD) of THE KING--reincarnated as a movie or TV producer, the head of the opera company, the lady with frightening hair on the "special committee" [the PMRC] or her niece, Debbie.

 

Some of you don't know about Debbie, since you don't have to deal with radio stations and record companies the way the people from The Real World do, but you ought to find out about her, just in case you decide to visit later.

 

Debbie is thirteen years old. Her parents like to think of themselves as Average, God-Fearing American White Folk. Her dad belongs to a corrupt union of some sort and is, as we might suspect, a lazy, incompetent, over-paid, ignorant son-of-a-bitch.

 

Her mother is a sexually maladjusted mercenary shrew who LIVES to spend her husband's paycheck on ridiculous clothes--to make her look "younger".

 

Debbie is incredibly stupid. She has been raised to respect the values and traditions which her parents hold sacred. Sometimes she dreams about being kissed by a lifeguard.

 

When the people in the Secret Office Where They Run Everything From found out about Debbie, they were thrilled. She was PERFECT. She was HOPELESS. She was their kind of girl. She was immediately chosen to become the Archetypical Imaginary Pop Music Consumer & Ultimate Arbiter of Musical Taste for the Entire Nation--from that moment on, everything musical in this country would have to be modified to conform to what they computed to be her needs and desires.

 

Debbie's "taste" determined the size, shape and color of all music broadcast and sold in the United States during the latter part of the twentieth century. Eventually she grew up to be just like her mother, and married a guy just like her dad. She has somehow managed to reproduce herself. The people in The Secret Office have their eye on her daughter at this very moment.

 

Now, as a serious American composer, should Debbie REALLY concern you? I think so.

 

Since Debbie prefers only short songs with lyrics about boy-girl relationships, sung by persons of indeterminate sex, wearing S&M clothing, and because there is Large Money involved, the major record companies (which a few years ago occasionally risked investment in recordings of new works) have all but shut down their classical divisions, seldom recording new music.

 

One of the GOOD THINGS that happened in the sixties was that at least SOME MUSIC of an unusual or experimental nature got recorded and released. So, who were those wise, incredibly creative executives that made this Golden Era possible? Hip young guys with Perrier breath? No-they were old cigar-chomper guys who listened to the tapes and said, "I DUNNO. WHO KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK IT IS? G'HEAD--PUT IT OUT THERE! WHO KNOWS? I DUNNO.

 

Why does today's music seem to be performed by talentless and anonymous artists? Because today's audience demands nothing more.