Neil Peart

Neil Peart is...

  • God

    Votes: 43 61.4%

  • Overrated

    Votes: 24 34.3%

  • Crap

    Votes: 3 4.3%
  • Total voters
    70
E

Elton Bear

Unregistered Abuser
Yay or Nay? Previous threads seem to be in favour but I think he's very good but seriously overrated.

Joey Jordison and Jojo Mayer are faster than him,
Steve Gadd and Bernard Purdie have more feel,
Stewart Copeland and Vinnie Colaiuta are much more innovative...

What am I missing about Peart? I don't understand why he's so popular among drummers...
 
he's a really good drummer, but i heard him trying to play some swingy stuff, and man he sounded like a robot trying to play it.
 
I think one of Peart's - and Rush's - main appeal is how 'tight' they are as a band while playing some ridiculous fills and time sigs. Peart makes his rolls fit in perfectly with what Geddy Lee and Alex are doing, and vice-versa. Like them or not, they are a pretty fucking tight-nit unit as a band. Combine that with Peart's precision and all the other whacky shit he does back there - like play glockenspiels and shit - and you have instant legendary status.
 
Right! Neil Peart rules. Thats my opinion of course. Sure there are more innovative and faster drummers but ..... it all boils down to taste. I personally think Joey Jordison is highly overrated as well as Travis Barker. Neal Peart is highly technical (some may say no groove) but that IS Neal Pearts' style ... to be technical. Rush is technical. Rush rules. :)

Maybe you have not heard the right songs? Take a listen to anything off of Grace Under Pressure, in particular a tune called Kid Gloves. There are a lot of Rush tunes that did not get radio play that are much, much better than the tunes that were on the radio (drum wise in this case).

I guess my point is that some peeps favor drummers that are all about speed. Others favor ones that are original. I think Neal is very original is his own right. I have heard a million drummers sound like most of the popular ones mentioned. But (and I am mentioning my faves) I have never heard any drummer sound like Neal Peart, John Bonham or Stewart Copeland. There is your technical, groovy and innovative :)

Word.
 
Neil Peart is...

...getting into voice-overs from what I hear. I played golf this weekend with a friend of his from DW. Told me that Neil is playing a character in an animated movie due out this year, but I can remember the name. I will find out.

As for why Neil is considered by so many to be so great is basically that he is the average drummer's first foray into better (great) drumming. To really know truly great players you would have to venture very far from most mainstream music to hear them and not a lot of people are ready to go that route. Rush's music is fairly palatable to most rock listeners and their discography and record of being very inventive is what gives Neil his reputation. He has never played an average beat and he's good at what he does. Does that really make him a great drummer?...yes! Is he over-rated?...yes! He himself would tell you so. The guy realized enough about how his playing was stagnating that he went to Freddy Grubber, for God's sakes. (Freddy's just...weird.) I take my hat off to him for that.

He has his weaknesses, and until you DO venture into the realm of really great players you don't hear them. I myself considered Neil to be the greatest drummer of all time...until I knew better. Now I can hear every error in his playing...and I still LOVE his playing.

I give him all the accolades he deserves! He has added richly to the art of drumming and taken it places it has never been before. We owe Neil a great deal of gratitude, same with many others. I consider him to dwell among the very best.

Anyone who considers him the best in the world really needs an education, though.
 
errr314 said:
Maybe you have not heard the right songs? Take a listen to anything off of Grace Under Pressure, in particular a tune called Kid Gloves. There are a lot of Rush tunes that did not get radio play that are much, much better than the tunes that were on the radio (drum wise in this case).
Click to expand...

A great example is the instrumental "La Villa Stragiato", (which pays homage to Looney Tunes near the end) but is fantastically emotional and dynamic!
 
Neil is considered a great drummer because in the 80' he was doing things that had other drummers in awwww but now you have drummers doing what he did but better, dream theater and and techy type bands like that just took what rush did to another level
 
It was actually the 1970's that Peart was dominating. It's always easy 30+ years later to say, oh, he's not that good, but if you were around back then, you thought nobody could touch him. We all learned from him, and drummers today SHOULD be better because of him. Does anybody really think Larry Bird could compete in todays NBA?

Doug
 
Yeah I agree. It wasn't until fairly recently with these 500bpm death drummers that people started to question Peart's awesomeness. In the 70's, 80's, and very early 90's noone in rock could touch him. I didn't know how to play drums in 1983 (and still barely do today) but I remember listening to Rush records and noticing the drumming. I didn't notice that shit on other records. I was just listening for guitar solos. Not with Rush. If rock drummers are "better" than him now, its because he helped show them the way. Give the man his props. Rush is a pretty unique band, has gained worldwide popularity while not playing a very popular style of music, and Neil Peart is the heart and soul behind it.
 
Neil Peart is a great musician, not only (but also) a technical drummer.
I don´t know almost nothing after "Signals" (80) but what he did in the 70´s are enough to me (Hemispheres is the best example). In my opinion ...
 
sure, he's a great drummer.

but no one's touched on the fact that he's a fantastic lyricist as well (as well as prose writer--his books are excellent).

my guess if you "don't get" the appeal of neil peart, you probably "don't get" Rush either. they seem to go hand in hand.


cheers,
wade
 
I saw an impressive "alive" performance (maybe not for an audience,but on "stage" and "real" played, not playback) by a Hemispheres song (La Villa Strangiatto, almost sure),circa 1978/79, and they played the song exactly as recorded.Fabulous.
 
Neil Peart is great partially because he is part of a great rock band.

If you put him with another band his "thing" wouldn't work so well.

Rush is a fucking machine.


The options suck in this poll.
 
all those other guys are good..

but they aint rush!

neil peart is god because he is part of the elite mixture of talent that created rush.

geddy lee is as much of a god as him... and the uhhhh other guy too!
 
TragikRemix said:
all those other guys are good..

but they aint rush!

neil peart is god because he is part of the elite mixture of talent that created rush.

geddy lee is as much of a god as him... and the uhhhh other guy too!
Click to expand...
hes mostly forgotten now, but back in the early 80's alex lifeson was highly regarded as a guitar hero.
 
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