Say what you want about McCartney’s personality, but he’s had sold out shows at Lambeau Field in Wisconsin and at the Texas Rangers’ ballpark in Arlington, and he’s scheduled to play at Dodger Stadium in two weeks. I don’t see where his popularity is fading if he’s still selling out major stadiums.
Metallica.
Yeah, but in the same time period, he has recently played booming cosmopolitan hotspots like Moline, Ft. Wayne, Bossier City, Duluth and Fresno. (compare that the smallest city the Rolling Stones are playing right now is New Orleans)
Selling out Dodger Stadium, located in a city with a metro-area population of 12,000,000 doesn’t seem like such a big deal.
Look. At no point did I equate these two things.
Ringo was a great drummer. He was the best drummer the Beatles ever had. He was the best drummer they could have had because band fit is important.
Now watch me perform a mind trick. Everyone who reads the above sentence will forget reading it after they read the sentence below.
Ringo was also the least talented musician in the Beatles, and he was not the most talented drummer in history.
…which is more than you can say for George.
“…but he knew how to have a good time, and in Hamburg, that was more important.”
Good grief, all this Beatles talk and no one thinks to mention The Monkees?
Mickey Dolenz was a worst choice for drummer than any of the other three!
From Wikipedia: “producer Chip Douglas also had identified Dolenz’s drumming as the weak point in the collective musicianship of the quartet”
The best thing that ever happened to Rush was having John Rutsey quit the band.
Not a fan (“Phan”) of their music, although I have seen them play live several times, but Jon Fishman, drummer for Phish (probably the most popular “Neo-Jamband” around) is pretty awful, at least compared to the virtuoso keyboardist Page McConnell or the (reasonably talented, but nothing special) guitarist Trey Anastasio.
Agree on both, and also think Ringo’s general coolness and decency contributes a bit to his favorable standing among musicians- no one wants to shit on a real good guy. But geez, this guy is actually in the Rock Hall of Fame as a solo artist!
100% the idea of a rock and roll hall of fame is beyond stupid (imagine a movie star hall of fame, who is more deserving this year, Lee J. Cobb or Seymour Cassel! :rolleyes:). Ringo had five goofball hits and three gold albums in the early 70’s (so did Bobby Sherman), I would bet 99% of the world couldn’t name one album, or a sixth song. He has no AOR hits, no AC hits, no cult hits or albums, nothing outside of this besides his All-Star touring band, which is a glorified oldies revue. So yes, likability helps in his current assessment I think.
Naw, 100% disagree. Fishman holds things together tight. I’ve only seen them once, back in 1994, but, man, he lit up the place, IMHO. (He was my favorite part of seeing the band live.) And Trey is great. I grew up playing piano/keyboards, and I do like Page quite a lot, but I wouldn’t call him a virtuoso. He’s a solid player, but I don’t find him particularly exceptional.
Hell, the Grateful Dead needed ***two ***drummers to sound as raggedy-assed as they did.
I wish I was that unpopular. The man can still mount an extensive tour and draw the fans, in spite of your personal opinion of him.
Or fired.
Rumor has it he was (more or less) fired, but everyone agreed to say he quit to avoid embarrassment.
Sonic Youth had a string of mediocre drummers during their early years. They finally got a good (very good) drummer in 1985 (Steve Shelley).
I would like to throw out The Doors and see what folks have to say. I always thought Densmore was a complete Putz.
Genesis post-Gabriel.
But Phil Collins is a fantastic drummer (quite under-rated, I think) so how is he the weak link?
(pause)
Because he was also the singer. He was pretty good at that, too (for that music)
but the band was very strong musically so the singing was the weakest part.
Don’t know about him personally, but, for me, the weakest musician technically was Ray Manazarek – but, the Doors just wouldn’t be the Doors without the sound of those keyboards, so it’s impossible for me to call him the weak link. He was most responsible for their hypnotic sound. I always thought Densmore was a very good drummer, but you could probably swap him out and not hurt the band’s sound too much. Reluctantly, all things considered in the context of the band and their sound, he probably is the most replaceable. But, musically, Krieger and Densmore are my favorites over Manazarek and Morrison. Then again, I don’t like the Doors, so what do I know?
He was unable to tour due to health reasons (diabetes). My understanding is that he left the band so they could hire a drummer capable of touring. Quit, or fired, same difference really. But there’s no arguing that hiring a new drummer was a turning point for the band.
He’s a better drummer than Davy could play maracas. 
Or than Peter could pretend to play bass.
They wanted Davy as the front man because he was cute (and short - he’s have been lost on the drums!) so they had to do something with Mickey.