These views are mine only but I am putting them out there to either get shot down in flames or to encourage others to provide their own examples.
I am of the belief that Keith Moon was not a particularly good drummer and Brian May is not a particular good guitar player (Both better than me obviously but not the best examples of their trade).
Moon seemed to use the same drum patterns ad infinitum and the same goes for May who aside from the solo in Killer Queen seemed to use the same tone and the same notes thrown into the mix.
I find both of them very dull and their reputations far bigger than their talent.
Nope I have thought the same all my life. He sounds like an octopus with a decent ear for rhythm who just constantly over plays on every track.
Brian May however is excellent. Guess you like who you like and twas ever thus.
I’m with you MC. Moon’s clattering about irritates me enormously these days. I used to like it but now less so.
BM is a terrific and very individual guitar, yes he has a signature sound but don’t all great players? Just picking a few popular hits shows that’s not all he’s got. The solo on Bo Rap is a masterpiece and quite different from Crazy Little Thing, for example.
BM plays in the same key most of the time, and it’s all rinky-dink Echoplex. He wasn’t good enough for things like “The Prophet Song’s” freakout. KM played with verve in the “animal” style, but there was no finesse. I think that Rick Wakeman is a far better accompanist than he is composer, and he has a tragic taste in modern keyboard sounds.
I love Rick Wakeman on piano. He plays with real finesse. On any other kind of keyboard, he seems to think it’s the speed of his fingers that counts.
Yeh but he’s a fabulous raconteur. I saw him at a Prog Festival just him and his piano. He was playing and talking about his err, playing with Yes however he had us rolling in the aisles with his tales.
I read something yesterday about Life on Mars taking ages to record because Rick was on great form that day (possibly a euphemism for being a bit pissed) and kept breaking off into funny stories and so on. They finally get it right with take 27 and – d’oh! – a telephone rings.
It’s the deputy head of Greatfield school, begging Mick to come back because the grass on the playing field is up to their shoulders and they’ve lost fifteen footballs. And five second-years.
He talks at length about the Bowie sessions on the Rockonteurs pod. No mention of this story mind, and I think he saved the boozing for after the session work which he took very seriously, not least because at the time he was broke and grabbing a session every day meant eating and paying the rent. Well worth a listen.
on the upcoming HD boxed set there’s an extended version of Life on Mars where it’s not faded out. Some top swearage from Ronno apparently.
“I am not cootin’ your fookin’ grass!”
“Err nerr, the pherrn’s ringin’!”
Daal narn narn narn!
With you on that Baron – we saw him last year and he was very funny.
I think when Keith Moon died he should have been replaced by Klaus Dinger.
I agree with your assertion of Brain May – technically brilliant, but not exactly innovative as a player (at least not since about 1978)
I also think Eric Clapton has latterly (actually, for about the last 20+ years) fallen back on the same licks and sounds.
Keith Moon though – solid timekeeping, but always giving the impression he was all over the shop. He treated the drums as a lead instrument, but still held the beat in time
Apart from waking up a bit during From The Cradle, I think EC has been on autopilot since about 1979. He played better when he was a drunk racist.
EC would have been better as Steve Winwood’s guitarist, so as to let someone with real chops and soul take the lead. Never understood the mystique about EC. I recall hearing “461 Ocean Boulevard” and thinking “is that supposed to be impressive?”. I was left cold. But then i never saw much in “Derek and the Dominos” or “Blind Faith”.
There is a good case to be made that Diane Allman was the best guitarist in the Dominos.
Well I for one would be intrigued to hear that case. If it’s true, how come she has never got the recognition she deserves?
I’m seriously angry with the predictive speller on my Kindle. Its vocabulary is limited and it can’t think beyond one word at a time.
Having said that, Diane is a very fine Blues guitarist. Maybe not quite as good as Duane. And, as we all know, the seventies were misogynistic.
Yeah but, also, let us not forget, I was being a smartarse dick.
An extremely lovable and charming smartarse dick.
👍
Duane was a good lead player but listening to a lot of him you hear the same ideas all over the place. Heresy I know, but fact. Mind you he could have been extraordinary had he not been taken so young.
Regarding Eric, having made one of the greatest guitar albums of all time in his early 20s, done Cream and Derek I don’t think he was bothered about impressing anyone. Au contraire, he wanted to make relaxed melodic music and 461 is a lovely album.
I agree with you Twang about 461 Ocean Boulevard and the next album.
Clappers say around 461 onwards only ever pulled his finger out when there were other top guitarists to challenge him
Clapton always worked well as a hired hand – he was playing as well as I’ve seen him when on Roger Waters’ Pros and Cons tour…then something occurred (we assume) and he left the tour.
Some of the sameness is due to the limitations of open-tuned slide playing, where the same few licks fall easily under the fingers.
Lowell George is one of my favourite slide players, but he also has a very small trick bag which he applies very well. Listen for the slow rise from the b7 to the root.
Sure, and I too love Lowell. My first exposure to slide guitar was Rory on “Bullfrog Blues” off “Live in Europe” and I didn’t even know what it was, just that it sounds amazing. Now I can play slide, again, that opening lick in the solo is quite easy but it sounds awesome. So I’m a bit of a slide snob.
Duane is obviously a fab player but he has a thing that he does, a little octave and a half jump which I first heard on “Statesboro Blues” but he does it everywhere, which is quite annoying once you can’t ignore it.
Is that that “duh derder derrrh” one? Love it.
Is anybody else now singing “Flesh Is Burning”….?
….nope just me
There is a category of musicians and artists who got sober and got dull. It’s a fine line. They get to a peak when they are out of it but can function before their addiction takes charge and nothing works anymore.
I am, however, going to put Greg Dulli up as the counterpoint.
He very definitley allegedly had a cocaine phase, and the only difference in his output is that he puts weight on when he’s off the marching powder. His music remains uniformly excellent.
Moon was the best drummer for The Who, which is all that counts. He was a ‘lead’ rather than a ‘rhythm’ drummer, and was pretty unique in style and impact.
Which is why Kenney Jones – a good drummer himself – was a bad fit for The Who.
Either (or both) Rog and Pete have said that playing with Zak Starkey in recent years is the closest Moon replacement they have found
(and it was Moonie that taught Zak to play – his dad might’ve helped a bit too)
I think you’re wrong there. His dad was mechanic and certainly didn’t play the drums. And probably died years before Zak was born.
Talking of which, Julian tweeted this today:
Macca looks tired, probably been up all night counting his money.
Julian’s so rich he can afford a blue tick.
Possibly being in his 80s might have something to do with it too.
He hasn’t slept a wink and he’s feelin’ so oopset. And curse Sir Walter Raleigh, his bikes are fookin useless.
But that’s Julian’s dad not Macca
Oh thanks, I didn’t know that 🙄
Play nice now lads. Moose, remember Dai is a literal kind of guy
Doktor Avalanche was better than Echo.
Today’s tea/keyboard moment – well done, BT.
I was listening to a The Hustle podcast with Tony James while I was in the garden yesterday. The reason all Sigue Sigue Sputnik records sound so similar is they got an 808 drum machine and switched it on, but didn’t know how to change the drum pattern or tempo.
Depends what you want from your drummer. Moon was awesome for the Who, and dovetailed perfectly with John Entwistle. You couldn’t imagine him playing with anyone else though which maybe proves your point.
Disagree about Brian May, I think he can play any sort of style. He’s no Hendrix though but a good guitarist.
The Edge is similar, can only play U2 type licks which are great but other than that?
When you don’t like a band, it’s very easy to think that the guitarist always plays the same tune. I’d say that Roger Waters falls in that category but I’m sure others would disagree.
If Waters was a guitarist I might. Are you saying that about RW’s bass playing. If so, I seem to recall David Gilmour saying that he played bass on most of the recordings. Might not be true, of course.
Oops. Shows how much I care about Pink Floyd! It’s the guitar playing I was talking about.
I do like a bit of Keith but someone who is massively overrated (by himself as well) would be Ginger Baker
good call. as well as another “animal” drummer, a prize knob. Why were we supposed to be in admiration for a junkie thug?
You’re besmirching Animal there, who is as sober as a judge and spends most of his downtime volunteering in soup kitchens.
Makes hell of a mess, but he means well.
Well, the conversation is about drumming ( in this case) not about his personality or habits.
Being a sociopath is not a habit…. But, yes
the thug part was the personality; the habits was the junkie.
FFS an accomplished “jazz” drummer. Ie real drumming. Not to mention his African collaborations. Have a listen to the live album with Fela Kuti and his band. The rock stuff was just a pay cheque.
I’m not so sure about his jazz chops, take the example of a more straight forward jazz gig like the one below.
Yes Ginger has swing but his playing is a bit heavy handed, his tom rolls in particular. Oddly for someone who kept referring to himself as a jazz drummer playing rock, he sounds here like a rock drummer playing jazz.
Played a lot with guys such as Phil Seaman on the Brit jazz scene before playing rawk.
Ok so he was an odious junkie ,I dont see that as relevant at all.
I am mot a drummer. I have friends who are who rate him highly. And anyone who could play Afrobeat all night tandem with Tony Allen in Lagos in Fela’s band has my respect.
Agree that his African influenced drumming is great, that’s what I hear more in his rock drumming as well and in the Air Force days, there are some great Beat Club clips with that band with Graham Bond on sax.
Have you seen this doc of Ginger in Africa in 1971?
Yep. His book was pretty interesting on that part of his life. Drove his Jensen across the Sahara to Ghana.
I think KM was effective. He was on the edge of chaos which created a tension. Townsend had to add his rhythmic element to keep everthing anchored. It was always veering off then coming back, which kept things interesting. Wouldn’t have been The Who otherwise. So many bands could do with a less predictable drummer to avoid the usual tropes of rock. I think Daltrey is the ordinary one. The other three were the remarkable ones.
The bonus disc to the deluxe Live At Leeds. They sound like they are careening out of control and just manage to get the car back on the road before going over a cliff. And Moon right in the thick of it.
Brian May: Mostly pedestrian playing but wrapped up in a tone that most guitarists will recognise, however reluctantly, as having been quite magnificent.
Keith Moon: As with Mitch Mitchell, far too many cymbals for my comfort.
I’m no musician, but while I can recognise how nimble he is I can’t get past that wasp-trapped-in-a-bottle tone.
His singing isn’t as good as that.
BM too neat and clean sounding a lot of the time though things like BoRap are exceptions. I guess he evolved in that smooth direction. It’s a 70s tendency to sound over polished, in many cases.
Golden Age (slap bang), good looking, great hair, fabulous clothes, girls liked him – not sure I’d change anything about the High Numbers/Who run of 45s from 64-67, least of all Keith Moon.
How do you improve I Can’t Explain; Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere; My Generation; Pictures of Lily; Disguises; The Kids Are Alright; Circles; I’m A Boy; I Can See For Miles?
Answer. You can’t.
Brian May likes badgers, and as I’m in no danger of ever listening to Queen, that makes him a great guitarist in my book.
Quite right. You can’t.
I have love for Keith Moon if only for “Happy Jack”…A riot of drumming on a bloody great single. Oh and spot on re Clappo…Derek and The Dominoes is Duane’s album really.
But Derek and the Dominoes live isn’t and there is heaps of wonderful playing by Eric on that.
And on side 1 of the Layla album. Duane doesn’t show up until side 2.
All Duane does, really, is his standard set of slide licks, the title track apart. I wish he played more non-slide TBH. I haven’t played it for a while but that’s my recollection.As here, for example:
With the ABB he’s much more interesting when he plays lead.
No. Just listen to Live a Leeds. Probably the greatest live rock album ever and a lot of that is down to Moon.
May is fine for what Queen want to do
As much as I love Keith in full Octopus mode I don’t think he get enough credit for how well he could play around a click track as well – mainly on the stuff underpinned by Pete’s synth work.
The main thing – and one reason I love Keith’s drumming is he sounds like he’s having the absolute time of his life when he’s playing
https://youtu.be/KOeAe_LXrt0
The sound The Who made was never the same (as good) without Keith Moon. Every time I play a classic Who tune in my head K.M.`s drumming is out front, a joyous sound.
Brian May? Isn’t he the one who made a fireplace out of his guitar? Or was it the other way round, he threw his guitar on the fire? Anyhow I don’t know never listen to Queen.
No, he was famous for matches. That’s where you got the fire bit from.
Making a guitar out of a fireplace is impressive though. The solo on Killer Queen is a mantelpiece.
The solo on Fat Bottomed Girls is absolutely arse.
The solo on Innuendo is a very long one.
His playing on Bicycle Race is a real Tour de France.
I liked the solo on It’s A Kind of Magic…but not a lot
There are many killer Queen solos. He clearly just repeats himself.
It’s Debbie McGee’s fave, too – it cuts right through her.
Lovely.
It was good enough for me too.
Oh I say 🔥
I have to disagree about Brian May. Maybe not to everyone’s taste but I love those creamy, fuzzy, high pitched harmonies he comes out with. The entirety of A Night At The Opera, for me, has guitar playing to die for, especially when he gets the ‘guitar army’ going on full flight on stuff like The Prophet Song and Sweet Lady.
Night At The Opera was the last truly great Queen album
(apart from Live Killers)
If you have seen that Classic albums one about Whos Next where Glyn Johns analysed Moon’s drum patterns then it makes sense but, as others have said, he was perfect for the Who. As luck would have it, a couple of days ago I played the Live at Leeds version of Tommy and cranked it up loud…I couldn’t help think that the drumming is amazing, as is the sound of the band…drums, bass, guitar…nothing else besides vocals. It is astounding.
I agree re Live at Leeds and perhaps as a live drummer it is he who stands out most on that album and makes it the great record it is.
On record for me it just sounds like he repeats himself and so too Brian May (except for Killer Queen)
Repeating themselves is a tough benchmark. Most musicians have their tropes.
Trying to think of myths I would like to debunk:
– David Mcalmont is not a good singer
– None of The Stone Roses could play their instruments that well
– Party hip hop is better than political hip hop
And to flip it around:
– Lennon was a great guitarist
– So was Elvis
– Demi Roussos was a brilliant and underrated singer
– The Dooleys at their best were as catchy as Abba
The Dooleys were certainly the chosen few
I had a quick peek at Wikipedia to learn the creation myth of the Dooleys – Mrs Dooley features heavily – and learned that they were invited to play in the Soviet Union in 1975, and that their Dooley Family in Moscow album sold two million copies there (the ‘chosen few’ being a core principle of bureaucratic collectivism).
Bloody hell, imagine queuing all week for bread and getting that.
Indeed, Guitar Man was a better song
I don;t have much of Mr McAlmont’s oeuvre, but he owns “Yes” and makes it a great song.
When I am Emperor of the World, I will have Butler and him (he?) on standby to play that for me whenevr I feel down.
The best stuff Lennon did post Beatles was his guitar on Yoko’s songs. Wanna keep saying she held him back? He held himself back.
Can I ask how many of the contributors here are musicians? Are our views informed or strictly an aesthetic experience based on preference? I was listening to the Rock’s Back Pages podcast and one of the contributors made a reference to a producer making a guitarist sound like ‘f8&%ing Mark Knopfler’. Upon questioning, he might have made a slightly more nuanced critique and I do recall that in the 1980’s a lot of records wanted to emulate the Dire Straits sound. But actually, Knopfler’s sound is in his hands mostly and ( my point really is) most players would love to be able to play as well as he does. I am not a fan of Queen at all but May’s playing is remarkable for its precision, melody, energy ( sometimes speed) and overall for its compositional quality. I am not a drummer so my feelings are a little different about Moon. A few years ago I asked a question about John Bonham whose playing I do not really enjoy at all. But I am not about to claim that he was a bad drummer. Doubt that the others would have tolerated that.
Anyone recall that Whistle Test clip where RT showed the Knopfler style?
Aah, that’s the one!
Thanks Retro!
And then, not, accepted, his finest writing
I rather prefer the Bill Kirchen guitar takes during his version of Hot Rod Lincoln.
Talking of, here’s an updated and better filmed one than the one I usually put up…..
Thanks @retropath2 I’ve just found out it was seven years ago today that I saw him after a forty-two year wait.
He’s good, innee? It was about 42 years BETWEEN the times I saw him, if you count Commander Cody in 1976. One cool dude. Curiously, he walloped thru’ Hot Rod Lincoln midway thru his first set, a speeded up 8 minute version, seeming even a little embarrassed by it. Manning his own march stall, from a suitcase, in the interval, he agreed to play Mama Hated Diesels in the second set, making a grown man cry when he did.
I’d only seen him before with the Commander, Reading 75.
Bet Mark Knopfler can’t do Richard Thompson
Well, to tell the truth, RT played only a lick so he didn’t do MK either.
“Here comes Geordie….”
Was going to say, that was a rather feeble attempt at Knopfler.
Here it is. 2 minutes in
Whenever he’s being interviewed Richard Thompson always looks like he’s just heard a noise from the kitchen and thinks the house is being burgled.
He is a stammerer, who has learned to control it.
Never a problem when singing (as with most other stammerers) but he needs to take care when speaking.
I didn’t know that. This hits home with me because my cousin has it and I know it’s really held him back in life.
I recently discovered that Robert Peston is a stammerer and his idiosyncratic delivery is him controlling it. I wish I’d known that before I ripped the piss out of him for 10 years. Not that what I say or write has much impact on Robert Peston, but hey let’s be careful out there.
I think you make a brilliant point.
I’m not really a fan of either (or a musician) & I don’t particularly care for either, but there’s no doubting that they are both *singular*. Moon was definitely the right drummer for The Who & the sheer beef of their sound would surely not have evolved without him. I’m always taken without how little high hat you hear on his stuff, it’s almost as if he ignores it in favour of ride cymbals & yet more fills. A very good friend of mine who’s been drumming for 40 odd years- & very good- is very much of the mind that there’s no point trying to isolate one element of a successful band, when it’s the combination- sometimes initially accidental- that is required to make a band work. Classic example is Ringo. Put next to Buddy Rich or Elvin Jones he same seem ‘ unimpressive’ technically, but I don’t know any drummers who don’t rate him as right up there, especially after they’ve tried to imitate what he does.
As for BM, you always know it’s him – he’s distinctive, which is what most musicians would want, surely. The rest is purely a matter of taste.
I really think it’s just preference- very few incompetent musicians can hack for very long , year after year but but we like is down to what we like – better or worse doesn’t really enter into it.
Who’s the better guitarist, Stevie Ray Vaughan or Ry Cooder? ( or Jimmy Vaughan for that matter). There’s no correct answer, but I know who I’d rather listen to any day of the week.
Jimmie Vaughan, obviously…
A good excuse to copy & paste this joke.
In the summer of 1969, a mail sorter at a New York post office received a letter addressed “To The Greatest Drummer in the World.” There was no address or return address and the sorter wasn’t sure what to do. Fortunately, there was a former drummer who worked the front counter of the Post Office who promptly found Max Roach’s address and forwarded the letter. Max Roach received the letter and said, “Oh no, I’m not the greatest drummer in the world.” Max then promptly forwarded the letter to Gene Krupa, who said “Somebody must’ve made a mistake.” Gene then forwarded the letter on to Buddy Rich (known for his incredible ego and abuse of his band members for every little mistake they made). Of course, Buddy had been waiting his entire life for that moment. He read the words “To The Greatest Drummer in the World” and smiled from ear-to-ear as he ripped open the envelope.
He began to read the letter, “Dear Ringo…”
Have an ‘Up’!
👍
That really is hilarious.
Serves him right for inventing paradiddles, the sadistic bastard.
I am not a musician. I can read music, but that’s about it. I have zero technical knowledge. I don’t appreciate the technicalitoes of players, nor the singers.
And that doesn’t matter. Because it isnn’t about how technically good you are, it’s about whether or not it sounds good, and that’s the ultimate or only, test.
Take Grant Hutchison, once of Frightened Rabbit and Mastersystem, and now The Twilight Sad. I will bet hard cash he isn’t especially technically brilliant. But the way he played the drums was integral to how the first two bands sounded. This is especially true on Mastersystem’s ‘Dance Music’, which was my album of the year in 2018. I’m tempted to say “No Grant, no album”. He knows when to hit the skin hard to import the urgency of the music. If you watch the Quay Session with them, you’ll see what I mean.
I didn’t say that he was a bad drummer I was trying to debunk the myth that he was a great drummer.
I did also say that I was not a musician and as such this was my view not one based on technical knowledge.
However Brian May cannot be mentioned in same sentence as Mark Knopfler who i believe to be one of our best guitarists.
A pedant writes: you have just demonstrated that he can.
Gotta love a pedant.
‘Got to…’
I’m a guitarist, and can confirm that MK is a superb musician with an extraordinary ear and feel. I’m not really a fan of much after Making Movies, but I can appreciate his playing.
Ditto. He’s not harmonically that interesting in the sense that, say Robben Ford or John Scofield or Larry Carlton are, but in his niche he’s unbeatable. Nice bloke too from what I can see. I’m surprised he struggled with Steely Dan mind.
Any fool can tell he’s a very good musician. You don’t need to be a guitarist. The question is whether one likes his music and style of playing. Same for May. Both are kind of slick and polished. May could rock out a bit early on then the mannerisms take over somewhat. We hear that it’s May right off. No one else has that sound for a reason. No one else wants to have it. Knopfler did some pretty good things. Tunnel Of Love is an example of him at his best. He’s good at film music also. Creating an atmosphere. In other cases he is too restrained. He won’t let rip when he needs to. He succumbed to a certain blandness.
In a case of life imitating art, Brian May actually had a “bizarre gardening accident” a few years ago. I seem to remember the phrase “lacerated buttocks”.
Lacerated bottomed guitarists they make the rockin world go round.
If you’ve never been in the same room as Keith Moon going about his trade with The Who then judging his abilities as a drummer solely by listening to recordings is akin to judging Diago Maradona’s footballing abilities by watching a grainy video of him playing ping pong.
I have no opinion about Brian May apart from maybe it’s time he availed himself of a man’s haircut.
But then how would he and Anita find each other in crowded places?
In my imagination their dogs have that hair too, like characters in Dogtanian and the Muskehounds.
I think it’s time he went bald, myself.
Like all the properly handsome blokes do.
The thing I like about threads like these is that they give Afterworders the chance to let everyone know that they are Not A Fan Of Queen.
This could be the Afterword Blue Tick: charge people £8 a month to have “Not A Fan Of Queen – Verified” next to their username.
Saucecraft, is that you?
I’m the Asian time zone franchise of Bob Numbers.
If you introduce the same scheme for Springsteen, I’m in.
100th post, `ave an `amper @SteveT
My AU$0.002 worth:
I’m no lover of Queen but Brian May is a fantastic guitarist. He composes his solos melodically and has a readily identifiable style and tone. He never showboats and his playing serves the song.
Moon is a more interesting question. I’m coming at this as someone who thinks that Live at Leeds (the original version) is the greatest live album of all time and that Who’s Next is the perfect 70s rock album.
Moon’s style is barely-controlled chaos, and that works fantastically well when it works. Like juggling chainsaws, however, the margin for error when playing like this is tiny. After the early 70s, Moon just couldn’t maintain this margin, and his playing turned to plodding, the antithesis of what it had been a few years earlier. Watching the live footage from Shepperton, recorded just a few month before Moon’s death, is embarrassing.
So was Moon a ‘good’ drummer? Not in the way that Jeff Porcaro or Simon Phillips were, but for a brief period he was the perfect drummer for The Who.
“The perfect drummer for…” usually means not much cop in any other context, I think. There’s another example we are not allowed to mention.
At least Mr Starr discharged himself admirably on sessions for other artists over the years. I’m not aware of Moon playing on anything other than Who tracks. He didn’t even play on his own solo album!
Moon played on “Beck’s Bolero”.
I was thinking that and listened to BB yesterday out of interest. In fact you can barely hear him other than a signature roll round the kit in the rocky bit.
Didn’t Moon do something weird like tune all his toms the same? I know he didn’t have or rarely used a high-hat.
A high hat? I saw him in a topper once or twice…
God I love that song.
Ringo didn’t play on too many other albums I think, outside his circle of musician friends but he is clearly a great drummer, pretty easy to see/hear that. He would be great for any number of bands.
Ringo’s best non-Beatles work is on All Things Must Pass. Obviously having a good time on there, bless ‘im.
He is absolutely amazing on Plastic Ono Band, my favourite Ringo album alongside Revolver.
Here is one his most recent efforts. He makes you wait for his entrance.
He always makes you wait. His phrasing is almost Sinatra-esque.
I think we have fundamentally different ideas about what constitutes a good drum part. Which is fine. 🙂
I didn’t choose that example, Heads Gonna Roll, for its quality. To be fair, he was 79 when he recorded it. Recognisibly him, though.
Agree, superb on POB
Not sure of this will make sense. I’ve been recently enjoying King Crimson (In the Court of… and Discipline) for the first time. Most recently listened to Fripp’s Exposure and, for some reason I couldn’t place, the playing struck me as smug and self-satisfied. I am a musician, but I know they aren’t musical terms.
In a similar way, I find Brian May’s playing generous and very giving. I think he finds playing guitar delightful (although he’s very disciplined) and he obviously loves playing. Again, despite not being musical terms, these qualities inform how I hear his work. I think he’s inventive and highly musical.
Not sure if it’s mentioned above, but Townshend was famous for saying “You’re the best…Keith Moon-style drummer in the world!” I love Moon’s early playing, and Live at Leeds of course, but the later Shepperton footage is a little sad.
Because he was a drunk and a drug addict. If he had turned that around I am sure there would have been more incredible drumming from him
Interesting choice of words re Fripp, Dan. Funnily enough, I don’t agree.
For me, Fripp’s playing can sound “academic” or dry rather than “free”, sometimes – but I wouldn’t have chosen Exposure to demonstrate that side of his playing. As it happens, I’d have picked Discipline.
I don’t hear “smug and self-satisfied”, certainly not in Exposure…but everyone’s perception is unique and I wonder what you’re hearing that I’m not…
I actually wonder if a part of isn’t the meta dialogue excerpts with Eno where they appear to be talking about the record they’re making? I don’t know. It just felt “intra” rather than “inter”. Maybe it was easier for me to hear the band interacting in Discipline? (I do love Eno’s work though)
I think this all goes back to the non-musical aspects of music that colour our perception rather than an innate ‘musicality’ of a piece. I notice it now after listening to music after a smoke (after being off it for many years). A lot of things we enjoy about a particular song or player are the narratives that go along with the music. Now, after a few tokes, I sometimes get a different sense music at a more fundamentally sonic experience. Some songs I’ve loved forever are a little diminished by being slightly stoned; other over-familiar songs sound newly interesting when some of the ‘meaning’ accompanying the music is stripped away.
All of which to say, I think our assessment of a ‘good’ musician is coloured by some many of these narratives that sit alongside the sonic aspects of the music rather than ‘musicianship’.
“ I think our assessment of a ‘good’ musician is coloured by some many of these narratives that sit alongside the sonic aspects of the music rather than ‘musicianship’.”
I agree to an extent: the other half of the puzzle is how our OWN narratives colour our perception of the music. I guess the views on Moon and May (and Springsteen on the other thread) are as much about the viewers’ narratives as the players’. I don’t think it’s impossible to listen to the pure musicality of a player – but maybe we’re not as good at it as we like to think we are.
Having said that, I don’t believe that the interlude bits of Exposure affect MY perception of the music 😉. Have you tried programming them out on your player, or is it too late to ‘unhear’ them?
Never too late to try to unhear Exposure.
So far it’s been on vinyl, so programming is a very analogue experience!
Arf!
The phrase “musician’s musician” should strike fear into anyone with a heartbeat… it’s the pop music equivalent of “Gary Webster stars alongside George Cole.”