On musicradar.com (which claims to be the #1 musicians website), they have Tommy Lee and Carmine Appice ahead of Billy Cobham and Elvin Jones. Are they sharin' a smoke with the chimp?! Then there's gigwise.com - they have the guy from Smashing Pumpkins ahead of Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich and Al Jackson Jr.
WHAT?
Are they f*#@king kidding?
You should see this list, it's mind-boggling who's NOT on this list. (The guy from The Yea, Yea, Yeas is on this list and Jack Dejohnette isn't - that's like putting Pauly Shore on the greatest comedians list and not Richard Pryor!)
Not all of the lists are that ridiculous. The Rolling Stone List is good - though exclusively rock drummers. Even though I disagree with the order and some of the choices (that's the beauty of personal opinion), it's pretty respectable.There are a couple of decent lists on the web, but they're hard to find. So, why don't we come up with our own.
We'll start with the top 10 in rock, jazz and funk/soul/r&b respectively.
Let's make the criteria: talent, taste, influence and originality.
Rock
John Bonham, Keith Moon, Charlie Watts, Ringo Starr, Stewart Copeland,
Earl Palmer, Ian Paice, D. J. Fontana, Bill Buford, Mitch Mitchell.
Jazz
Gene Krupa, Elvin Jones, Tony Williams, Chick Webb, Jack Dejohnette,
Peter Erskine, Buddy Rich, Max Roach, Billy Cobham, Steve Gadd.
Funk/Soul/RnB
David Garibaldi, Carl Stubblefield/Jabo Starks, Al Jackson Jr.,
Bernard Purdie, Ziggy Modeliste, Steve Gadd, Benny Benjamin/
Richard Allen, Roger Hawkins, Earl Palmer, Robbie Macintosh.
This is all up for debate, so...........
