LOUDER: The 12 greatest prog drummers ever

Ummm, Bruford is on the list.

Lewian wrote: But Bruford is there, isn't he?

It's an ok list (No Bruford???).  I also think that Billy Cobham, Lenny White and Chester Thompson should be somewhere on that list (but I understand the fear of the jazz drummer label).

no Bill Bruford 

Edited by Cristi - February 10 2021 at 03:22

Too many great drummers to fit on a 12 man list. Alan White at his best (Relayer through to Drama) was an insanely good drummer as was Brian Davison of The Nice. Keith Moon could play anything he wanted to when he was anywhere near sober. Jon Hiseman (as mentioned) was a fantastic drummer. Jurgen Rosenthal (Eloy) deserves a mention as does Stewart Copeland for his very brief time in Curved Air. 

Logan wrote: Tatsua Yoshida is great. By the way, I guess being LouderSound, it favours louder bands. I just notice a lot of hard rock and metal types in the list and I suspect that the writer is not a big fan of the more Avant Prog ones. Not surprising to focus on the more mainstream ones when doing “greats” generally.

I'll go with the guy who drummed on Thick as a Brick, A Passion Play, Minstrel in the Gallery and Songs From the Woods.

Grumpyprogfan wrote: Logan wrote: Tatsua Yoshida is great. By the way, I guess being LouderSound, it favours louder bands. I just notice a lot of hard rock and metal types in the list and I suspect that the writer is not a big fan of the more Avant Prog ones. Nick, Phil and Bill, metal? Hardly.

If you want to argue that there are not a lot of hard rock and metal types in the list, then I'm ready to learn.

I never said or implied those were (I didn't say all and I said hard rock and metal). I meant that it lists many "louder bands" with drummers who played in hard rock and metal bands, or made hard rock and metal music. I think they are going for drummers who play harder or flashier rather than the more subtle generally, but perhaps I'm wrong (Mason is not a flashy drummer). Of course I'm playing on the word louder for some humour (my humour rarely works), and that was what I most going for.

A reason why one of my brothers doesn't like King Crimson is because he finds it too hard rock (of course it depends on the piece). I mentioned jazz, and Bruford does come from that jazz tradition as they note, but an album like King Crimson's Red is definitely on the hard rock side (King Crimson might well be called a "louder" band by many even if it isn't always). Interestingly, they choose a jazz performance from Bruford as the video to highlight him (so my earlier jazz drummer comment does not seem true based on my first look). Neil Peart, the number one, played hard rock, influenced metal drummers, and Rush influenced progressive metal. Mike Portnoy, progressive metal. Gavin Harrison, they reference In Absentia and I would call that hard alternative rock with metal qualities. Marco Minneman has a hard rock/ metal pedigree in bands he has worked with. Danny Carey of Tool, involved in metal. Pat Mastelotto has been pretty varied, but the video they post sounds metal influenced to me. Mike Mangini, involved in Prog Metal.

They cover quite a few post-classic era ones, and there especially I do seem to see a hard rock or metal bias (heavy prog) in terms of the kinds of projects that the drummers have worked in. Frankly, I would have stuck with the classic era ones.

For more soft Prog drummers playing really quiet music see softersound.com

And here's some heavy duty Pink Floyd for you:



Edited by Logan - February 09 2021 at 16:07

Tatsua Yoshida is great.

By the way, I guess being LouderSound, it favours louder bands. I just notice a lot of hard rock and metal types in the list and I suspect that the writer is not a big fan of the more Avant Prog ones. Not surprising to focus on the more mainstream ones when doing “greats” generally.

Edited by Logan - February 09 2021 at 15:16