Really tight bands from the late 70s: The Attractions (as mentioned earlier) - Elvis Costello was their weakest link musically, though a talented lyricist and frontman. The rest of the band could have sat in with Led Zeppelin and held their own. XTC - excellent interplay between bass and drums, and always with a focused and compelling groove. The Police - likewise. Squeeze - on the poppier side of things, but drew from the best influences of the Beatles and other early British Invasion bands, keeping things very tight both with the instrumentals and the vocals.
I consider Zeppelin to have been extremely tight, with Bonham’s drumming more than making up for any amount of slack from anyone else. The main wild card for me was John Paul Jones, who always had a certain amount of sloppiness in his bass playing, even though I think it sounded right for their songs, with a somewhat off-the-cuff feel that was a good counterpoint to the vocals.
I heard that Steely Dan didn’t tour because they wanted perfection. I found this:
The “group” would come apart after this album, more out of distaste for the road for the brainchild than for the usual musical preferences/differences. Skunk Baxter left to infect the then-superb Doobie Brothers, only for him to induce that Country Rock and Dan-esque feel that started with their Stampede album and ended up in their disastrous Minute By Minute. With Pretzel Logic ends the “group’s group phase”, and they will simply refuse to tour from then-onwards, thus enforcing the studio rats image of the band.
http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=19397
Thing is, you can do as many takes as you want until you get it perfect and then commit it to the record you’re releasing? Is that really “tight” or not? I think not. The results are great, sure…like here’s a great, crisp, tight one from Donald Fagen’s solo album:
I think “playing live” has to be included.
Excellent selection. And it was a sign of the times, the punk/new wave revolution, that bands got tighter after all the worn-out improvisations/noodlings of corporate mid-70s rock.
I never saw them in person but judging from their “All Access” live DVD, Crack The Sky was really tight. For example, here’s Nuclear Apathy.
The early 80s lineup of King Crimson (Fripp/Belew/Bruford/Levin) was extremely tight.
I understand you were just taking the piss but yes The Who were for all their greatness (
) not tight. John Entwistle was capable of playing time but Keith Moon was too busy being a crazy-but-genius wildman, and Pete Townsend was never much of a guitarist.
James Brown’s bands, all of them, are tight.
Tight has to do with all being on the same page, rhythmically as well as structurally. It also has to do with how perceptive each musician is to what their fellows are doing. As someone said upthread, a band is tight when it sounds like one entity making that noise, as opposed to a bunch of entities working together. The difference can be subtle but once you know what to look/listen for, it becomes more and more obvious with each new group that you see/hear.
Steely Dan on record surely sound as tight as can be, but it’s a different animal than to be tight on stage. I think to be considered a real tight band, you have to deliver the tightness in the studio and on the stage. Which bands like AC/DC, the Attractions or Booker T and the MG’s have proven. It was also impossible to recreate Steely Dan’s studio perfection on the stage. Which brings me to the Beatles, who also couldn’t do their studio output justice on stage in their times, but nonetheless they were a tight band, in the studio and on stage. Ringo helped that a lot.
I think of U2 as being more 80’s than 70’s although technically they started in '76.
Clayton and Mullins are tight as hell. And actually the essence of their sound is an extremely tight rhythm section that holds everything together leaving Edge very free to do whatever.
I agree, and I think that a tight band is likely one who:
- have played together for a while
- practice together a lot
- are all dedicated to playing well, and playing together well
Thanks to that, they can anticipate what each other will be doing during a live performance, and even improvisation will be something that the others can expect (or easily react to).
While watching Ken Burns’ Country Music documentary series this afternoon, I was reading about Gram Parsons. The Wikpedia entry noted that, on one of his tours with Emmylou Harris in 1973, the backing band was formed soon before the tour started, and they didn’t play well as a group on the tour’s early dates; but, by the end of the tour, as they had had the chance to play together more, their final few performances went extremely well.
Oh, good, that clears up some confusion for me, as was struggling about what “tightness” meant in relation to that song 
I’m not a Talking Heads fan (or more correctly, I’m generally not a fan of Brian Eno’s production work regardless of band), so not familiar with their non-hits.
They had to be, or he’d fine them.
Id listen to the B52s over tha Talking Heads anytime. Their music was a lot more fun and it was meant for partying. Also, David Byrne is an asshole.
My understanding of “tight” is that the band is perfectly in step with each other in terms of rhythm, particularly bass, drums, and rhythm guitar. Who ever is doing a solo or singing the lyrics doesn’t need to be locked into the groove, but the bass, drums, and other rhythm instruments do. There are many bands that are great who are not tight and bands that are tight who are not great (IMO).
IMO, you barely need to say “IMO” on this comment. You have to take a very narrow view of “great” to come to any other conclusion. I think you would have to do a “no true Scotsman” and define “great” by reference to tightness to conclude otherwise.
I guess I was just allowing for “greatness” to be subjective.
We are in furious agreement there.
IMO, the evidence suggests that he is at that threeway corner of asshole/interesting talent/mental illness where so many great artists reside.
Great, and tight: The Beatles.
Great, not so tight: The Rolling Stones.
I heard that the reason the Rolling Stones prevented viewing of " The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" for so long is because The Who, just getting off a tour, came off very well-rehearsed and ‘tight’ in the film, and upstaged the Stones, who supposedly came off as much more sloppy and loose (and, let’s say, a different definition of ‘tight’) than The Who.
To me, when I watched it, it was just The Who being The Who and the Stones being the Stones. Nobody watched the Rolling Stones live to marvel at the musical tightness of the band (other than maybe Charlie Watt’s drumming).
Yes, tightness is a good thing, but it’s not the only way of being good; and it can’t make an otherwise mediocre band great.