Who is the best drummer of all time?

[Turk February]

The white stripes

 

[guyincognito2.0]

This is a tough one, genuinely. If the criteria is who is the most technically talented drummer then you would be changing who the greatest is every couple of fucking years, the access to the internet has blown open the doors of musical talent over the last 20 years.
There's so many styles out there too, it's hard to compare across platforms.
For example my old man grew up a rush/Peart guy, I grew up a DT/Portnoy guy. Peart may be the more recognizable name and bigger legend because he came first, but Portnoy took the north american prog rock beat and evolved it past Peart ever did, he is the more technically advanced player. After Portnoy you got guys like Blake Richardson from BTBAM, Bran Dailor from Mastodon etc that took the torch and ran with it. Now you have drummers like Richie Martinez from arch echo, troy wright from Plini creating crazy shit.

You also have to compare drummers to their styles and eras.
Mainstream 70's rock - Bonham, Peart, Moon etc. Of the big band drummers from this era the Zappa drummers like Vinnie Colaiuta, Terry Bozzio, Chad Wackerman and Bill Bruford from Yes/KC were the most talented technically even though nobody knows these guys unless you're a fucking drummer or have an educated ear for music and everyone sucks off the big 3 of moon/peart/bonham even though they are technically inferior.

And there's so many monster players out there over the last few decades that will drum circles around your favorite band drummer but they just never stuck to a band that achieved success for whatever reason. Mike Mangini, Virgil Donati, Thomas Lang, Marco Minnemann as examples

It comes down to picking favorites and not bickering over whose better. My favorite drummer of all time is Mike Portnoy, at one time I was foolish and thought he was the best drummer ever and no drummer will ever be on his level. All 4 of the names above are technically superior players. If I were to name "the guy" of drumming history it's Vinnie Colaiuta for his incredible technicality, longevity, versatility. That dude truly is the drummers drummer. But if I were to get my old kit out of the storage and picked up the sticks again the drummer I want to play like is Gavin Harrison from Porcupine tree, incredible drumming.
I know... be more wordy faggot.

Right on with Vinnie. Dude is an animal (pun intended?)

 

[Zeroman]

Kris Myers from Umphrey's McGee:

 

[HipTuckerCumia]

Right on with Vinnie. Dude is an animal (pun intended?)

He dresses like Joe. Similar physique too.

 

[Meownaw]

The white stripes

You fucker you beat me to it.

 

[TorqueWheeler]

Are we talking best at what they do, or most versatile? It's hard to argue with the versatility of all the old session and prog guys like Steve Smith, Vinnie Colaiuta, Portnoy, Steve Gadd, etc.

I saw Gadd live with Michael Landau in the band not so long ago and I was absolutely blown away by how good he is at this age.

 

[WifeStoreWill]

Phil Collins, obviously

 

[Ladynyahh]

Winger gets a bad rap to be perfectly honest witcha but they are technically great musicians. Drummer drum pretty good

 

[guest]

Someone who never gets mentioned, but is underrated us Clem Burke

 

[ThePepsiColaRapist]

Bill Bruford
Brian Downey
Brendan Canty
Bill Stevenson

 

[Dusty Dan]

Bill Bruford is one of my all time favourites. Not that fast and showy, but really tight and well thought out.

All of Zappa's drummers that weren't Jimmy Carl Black.

All of the drummers from Death were decent. Nick Barker and Adrian Erlandsson from Cradle of Filth were great drummers back in the day. Nick did some stuff with Dimmu Borgir too, speaking of which Hellhammer of church burning fame was pretty good too.

I like the current drummer of Dying Fetus a lot. Can't remember his name. Jazz and death metal drummers are pretty much the best imo.

 

[Dusty Dan]

And if we count percussion in general, Ruth Underwood and Evelynn Glennie are probably my two favourite female musicians and pretty handy with a pair of sticks.

 

[diabeetus]

Artimus Pyle
Bill Ward
John Bonham
Richard Christy

 

[Juschippinyababe]

Winger gets a bad rap to be perfectly honest witcha but they are technically great musicians. Drummer drum pretty good

Rod morgenstein is probably the most under appreciated player ever

 

[ChimpanZ]

Lars

 

[Smeckler's Powder]

Artimus Pyle
Bill Ward
John Bonham
Richard Christy

Love Artimus. I'd love to be able to see him live but he's like never out west.

 

[Queefer Sutherland]

World's most recorded drummer and inventor of the Purdie Shuffle (which Bonham and everyone else ripped off)...

 

[RaggotFetard]

Elvin Jones.

But this guy rips too.

 

[IGotATreeOnMyHouse85]

The best would be someone Jazz influenced, maybe Ginger Baker or Buddy Rich I would say is the best. John Bonham is up there since he influenced so many people to try and sound like him.