In baseball, the Mendoza Line is a term for the level of talent at which a player is considered to be barely qualified to play in the majors. It was named for Mario Mendoza, who’s batting average usually hovered around .200.
Let’s set similar lines for the level of talent at which a pop or rock musician is just competent enough to be in a band. Keep in mind that this is not the worst musician on their respective instrument, but someone who has just enough talent to keep them employed. So for example, we would not set a “Linda McCartney Line” for keyboard players because she had no business being in a band in the first place. But a “Meg White Line” for drums could work. She wasn’t great, but wasn’t awful. (Note, I’m not picking on the ladies, those are just the first examples that popped into my head.)
I’ll start by setting the “Rutherford Line” for bass players, named after Mike Rutherford from Genesis.
Why not call it the Vicious line for Sid’s “work” in The Sex Pistols? Rutherford’s a much better bassist. And Vicious only got his job (and kept it, amazingly) because Glenn Matlock couldn’t work with Lydon and McLaren.
The White Stripes wouldn’t be half the band they were with a different drummer. Meg White may not be flashy, but she’s the best drummer that The White Stripes could have ever had.
I started a thread a while ago about this topic particularly for drummers. I called it the “Micky Dolenz” line, because he was not cast because of drumming (or musical talent except singing), but was the drummer in concerts and on some tracks, in addition to being the Monkees’ nominal drummer.
In my mind, if you can’t drum as well as the guy who just happened to be placed behind the drum kit, you have no business being in a band.
I don’t really wanna be “that guy”, but here goes.
Music just isn’t sports. You can be terribly skilled at it and still have no business being in a band. Yngwie Malmsteen would be the prime example of this. If it were sports, he’d be something other than irritating.
I suppose you could also have a Malmsteen line for musicians who are incredibly skilled, but still are largely un-listenable. I think it’d probably end up more like Venn diagram.
Ok. I said my piece. Back to your regularly scheduled thread.
Judging from the article on the Mendoza Line, my understanding is that the person the line is named after is professional level. They just happen to be at the lowest possible section of that level.
Sid Vicious or other people who weren’t pro level, wouldn’t be correct examples.
The thing is, the Mendoza line is an objective measurement that can be applied to everyone. If a player goes below the Mendoza line there’s no argument about it. That’s why it works. You can’t do that with music in any repeatable fashion unless you go into objective measures like record sales.
I always thought of this as the Roy Buchanan line. Not that he was unlistenable, but that he was technically brilliant but a weak songwriter and singer.
As a drummer alone, Paul McCartney would fit. Luckily, he could play other instruments.
Jim Capaldi is a special case. He was a decent drummer in the early Traffic albums, but he deteriorated after John Barleycorn. He couldn’t be fired since he was Steven Winwood’s songwriting partner and sung harmony, so they replaced him on the drums and gave him a tambourine. I remember Winwood saying that they had to do it because Jim just couldn’t keep a beat for life concerts any more.
Obviously we don’t have any measurable stats here, just opinion. We always have threads about best or worst X, I’m just looking for people who are more or less minimally adequate.
I don’t know a lot about the Sex Pistols but in my opinion Vicious would be down there with Linda McCartney, far below any line we set for minimally competent. He didn’t even know how to play when he joined the band, right?
Dude, Mike’s a better bass player than 80% of all bassists who actually get paid to play bass I’ve heard. He’ll never make it to bassist Heaven, but he almost never dissapoints (Ok, discarding Abacab and Turn it on Again).
You need to go lower than Mike. Dire Straits’ John Illsley for example.
I’m a bass player myself so it pains me to say this, but, if you’re a bass player and not the lead singer, and we know your name, you’re above the Mendonza line.
Some bands have people who don’t even play instruments or sing. They just dance, or rile up the crowd, or wear costumes, or do media, or whatever. Just like in professional wrestling there are guys who are good in the ring but horrible out of the ring, these guys get “managers” or whoever that can work the mike and talk for the guy.
The rock world is full of people who really just can’t sing, but they write good songs that work well with what they have for a voice. Neil Young, Tom Petty, Dylan, Springsteen. The Sex Pistols and The Ramones couldn’t play, but they recorded stuff that was interesting nevertheless, that people liked.
In other words, there isn’t a bar in rock (or pop). If you can make a pleasing enough noise, someone will buy it.
We call that the Bez: his onstage job for the Happy Mondays was to play maracas, flail like a dervish in a bouncy castle, and stare wildly at the punters.
