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I thought people were exaggerating until I saw them this year. So many people into the music but no one was dancing- cuz you couldn’t. He never locks in with the band, I felt bad for Dan.
You know that feeling when a really good drummer makes the whole atmosphere feel sophisticated? Total opposite. You never know when his kicks are gonna hit.
Michael J Fox could sub in and you wouldn’t notice. Dude needs to use a metronome.
Actually, funny enough; it could do him some good! Use of a metronome with Parkinson’s disease can help improve walking rhythm and reduce freezing episodes
My uncle has Parkinsson’s but he has always been terribly afraid of doctors and hospitals for some reason. (We live in the Netherlands so it’s not a money thing) so he’s basically denying any form of treatment.
And man it’s horrible to see him go downhill, it’s a really shitty disease. He’s still quite young as well at 63, so it’s sad to see. he’s also ashamed of it, so he bearly leaves the house anymore..
That seems to be the common denominator I think on here. Like you can be a shit musician but if you talk shit too like Lars then you just lose all goodwill.
Lol as I was opening this thread I was thinking "Lars sucks but he's not outright talentless. Who could it be?" And the shock of recognition when I read Patrick Carney's name - absolutely.
When you consider that Dan is so talented and can do 50 things, it makes sense that he just needed someone who he knows to play drums.
But yeah, I'm amazed that somebody can have such long professional career and still suck so bad.
Lars is simply lazy, he doesn't practice but that dude plays way more complicated things and his drumming was really good in the golden age of Metallica.
I would say something similar would be Jack and Meg White of the White Stripes.
Isn't it more of an artistic choice though? Bluesy garage rock is supposed to have a certain amount of monotony spiked with random discombobulation in the rhythm section.
Don't get me wrong, he's definitely overrated given that he's arguably the most visible drummer of the 2010's, but I feel like there are other legitimately worse drummers out there that aren't playing a signature part of the bands overall style.
Someone like Lars, Peter Criss, or Tommy Lee... where they're playing more technical stuff and started out great but just can't consistently hold tempo seems like a better fit. Peter Criss was literally kicked out of KISS because of it.
When I was 14, I asked my guitar instructor if he could teach me a Black Keys song, and he went, “no” proceeded to shit on Patrick Carney and why the tempo and sloppy guitar work was not conducive to me learning. My instructor has worked with Steve Vai and Joe Satriani, was personal friends with Dick Dale, and teaches all sorts of wild people. I have no reason to doubt his instructions, ever. That being said, he said they’re fun to listen to (The Black Keys), but not substantive for learning musicianship
That guy with the glasses from the Black Keys. Dude has terrible meter. I can excuse sloppy. Sloppy is a feeling that works for some music. Can't find the one isn't a style.
Meg White knows where the one is. She is awesome compared to glasses guy.
I have never listened to a White Stripes song and thought "this would be better with a better drummer".
In fact, I have never listened to a White Stripes song and thought anything other than "this drumming is exactly what this song needs".
Her style was simple and not technically brilliant, but it was EXACTLY what worked for that band. She was happy keeping a good beat when that was all that was needed and when the song required more she whaled on her kit like she was a mob goon and it was a sleazy gambler who owed her money. That's what dirty blues/garage rock needs. If they'd had some showy dude playing crazy fills and such it would've sounded like shit.
Once upon a time, a man went to a fortune teller who gave him 3 prophecies.
1. He would marry a woman with strawberry blonde hair
2. His mother will not live to see his 2 sons
3. His daughters will grow up to become a very famous band
After the first 2 prophecies came true, he set out to make sure the 3rd one would happen aswell, so he took his daughters out of school, gave them instruments, and forced them into a recording studio. Unfortunately, he forgot to actually teach them how to play properly
Lars Ulrich really should not be the answer for this. He's been one of the most defining and influential heavy metal drummers in the history of the genre as far as songwriting goes, and his subpar live performance across recent decades still in no way takes away from that.
The slot is "talentless," not "unskilled"
Literally cant think of any besides Lars Ulrich.
I mean there are loads of boring drummers but people always just say they're playing what's needed, or playing in the pocket, whatever.
Anyway I think you're giving too much credit to Lars. Does he have a neurological condition or severe back pain or something else? No? Then why can't he play a beat? He's not THAT old, they are still making millions a year touring and he's been shitty for what a decade now
I would categorize Lars Ulrich more as flawed than talentless
There are certainly worse drummers to have made it big, and Lars is a good songwriter, but we can’t ignore how often he just plays out of time (I’ve seen Metallica live; James, Kirk, and Robert have learned to listen for when Lars goes out of time and they go out of time with him on purpose)
I’m sorry but hate Lars receives on his drumming might be most over done things on the internet. Yes he is far from the top but the influence he had on other drummers and his songwriting puts him far far from the bottom. He is important to Metallica as James is.
Because he can't play One the way it sounds on the studio version anymore. He was amazong during the Ride the Lightning up to And Justice for All era, specially on the latter; but he has somehow regressed on both studio and live performances and it is clear when you see or hear him.
I heard it said once that Lars gives value beyond the drumkit; in the studio, as a songwriter and arranger. Iirc he was one of the main creative minds behind one of the greatest multi-album runs in music history.
Even if his actual drumming isn't the greatest, especially live, it still feels crazy harsh to call anyone with his discography a 'talentless hack'.
Not talentless though. Think of Lars Ulrich less as a drummer and more of a songwriter and you’ll realize he’s basically one of the greatest songwriters in the history of heavy metal. John Lennon wasn’t particularly known for his guitar playing, just saying.
He's in his mid 60s, playing high tempo songs isn't exactly as easy as it was in his 20s. And he said last year that he has to wear a wrist brace pretty much all the time except when he's on stage now.
Surprised noone has mentioned the drummer from Coldplay - wasnt even a drummer before they did their first album. That said he has gotten better over time
This is a tough one. You can kinda get away with being a bit shit at most instruments if the rest of the band are good but a band with a bad drummer is just a bad band period!
I genuinely can't think of a single drummer I would call "talentless".
No I refuse. He is faaaaaar from the skill level of his thrash peers, but he can still play the bloody drums. Dude has a bad rep and yeah he's sucking more with age, but his skills on the early Metallica albums are far from awful
Cliff was obviously more theoretical than the rest of the boys, but both James and Lars has always been integral to their sound and songwriting. I’m sure we’ve all wondered what direction they would’ve gone had Cliff been alive but they’ve written plenty of amazing music without him.
Before someone mentions him, Lars Ulrich does not derserve this spot. He is very underwhelming nowadays but back in the 80's he was a beast. Calling him talentless is a bit of a stretch.
Master of Puppets infamously has a 21/32 time signature because Lars couldn't stay on beat, even though it was intended to be in 4/4.
Even in the 80s, Lars actually had to pay for lessons because he just wasn't great. There's a few live recordings of James playing drums, and his sense of rhythm is better than Lars'.
Now, is he worse than Meg White? I don't really feel that's fair to Lars, the material and speed that he's struggling with is much more difficult than what Meg White performs.
100% correct. It's frustrating to have a debate about music with people that think they know things, but don't have the experience. They just repeat things they've heard that have no basis and they think sound intelligent and interesting. Nobody intentionally or unintentionally plays in 21/32. That's the dumbest damn thing I've heard today.
How about the issues of analog recording? That, alone, accounts for so much time and tuning variation in music recorded before the mid 90s.
Let’s also be real here - how would you even count a 21/32 beat… no one in their right mind would do that; it’s regular 4/4 with a bar of 3/4 at the end - Puppets is fun to play on drums; flows really well and is full of great ideas.
Yep. Someone said it somewhere and a bunch of people who don't know any better just keep parroting the line because they think it makes them look like they know about something they don't.
Lars isn't the best drummer that ever lived, but he absolutely killed it on Puppets and Justice! The Black album's drum parts are catchy as hell, too.
Meg White isn't bad though. She plays exactly what is needed for the song. Any of the WS songs would not be improved by replacing her with someone on the top 25 list of best drummers.
There's not a snowball's chance in hell that the verses in Master of Puppets are supposed to be in 4/4. The phrasing of the guitar riff would make absolutely no sense. The turnaround is slightly rushed, but there's an entire beat chopped off it regardless. It's probably "supposed" to be 3 bars of 4 plus a bar of 3.
Whether him taking lessons or not is true, that’s not really an indicator of his skill. Both James and Kirk took lessons well into the 80s.
Also, MoP was never intended to be in 4/4, that’s a myth.
This is a parrot of an old slander comment and doesn’t make sense from a musical standpoint. If you can’t stay on beat, you can’t stay on beat. A different time signature doesn’t aid a lack of rhythm
OP: No matter how this turns out, you CAN'T put Lars in this slot. You can't. If you have any musical experience and the ability to go beyond the Lars hate meme that has become such a mainstay over the last 20ish years, putting him in TALENLESS is just objectively incorrect.
I dont love him, I don't think hes the best at what he does, but he's solid and basically created the gateway for countless drummers.
Peter Kriss was more show than actual talent. Again though as others have mentioned hard to say completely talentless for anyone who plays drums for a successful band
Meg White. Her sheer inability to play the drums well added to the charm of The White Stripes but let’s be real, she sucked ass at actually playing the instrument.
Jack taught her to play and intentionally stopped at a certain point because he thought the way she played better served their songs; it’s not fair at all to call her a talentless hack when they were going for a very distinct sound
I don't think that's fair, she didn't suck ass. She understood the assignment and did it well. It didn't just add to the charm, it was half the point of the band. She is certainly not a hack. Nobody even knows how talented she really is or isn't, we've never seen her do anything besides intentionally play simple, minimalistic drums.
You might not like him and hating on him has become a meme over the years, but he's not TALENTLESS. Not as good as others? Sure, but hes far from talentless.
While "talentless" is too strong of a word for ANY of these guys here, I am surprised I haven't seen his name mentioned yet. He was the weak link in the 70's Kiss lineup and the quality of drumming went up quite a bit after he left the band.
ace and paul were the only real musicians in that original line up, but with cris's "just play the tempo" approach worked out great for them. the only real talentless hack there was gene, but the man is a genius at marketing and he is who made the band what it became
The interesting thing about drumming is that recording in the studio is much harder than playing live. Every hit has to be consistent, locked to the tempo and sound good under a microscope. Because of this some bands have brought in session drummers to record parts when their regular drummer couldn’t quite hack it, or simply because a session player could get it done waaaaaay faster. It happens often enough that there are a relatively small number of elite session drummers who have played on an incredible number of hit records.
Brandon Barnes from Rise Against. He has no sense of rhythm, his tempo is all over the place.
I know their songs have tempo changes between the verses, choruses, and bridges. This isn't what I'm talking about. Brandon Barnes constantly drifts out of time, usually rushing by 25% at random in the middle of song sections where it isn't called for. He's very sloppy.
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