The Arcade Fire’s success at The Grammys got me whistling to myself today. What a victory for them in the best album category and an enormous upset considering the competition. Now, I don’t claim to be a music guru. Far from it I merely have an intense fondness for great sound. Being an eager, albeit mediocre, guitarist I was intrigued to browse through Rolling Stone’s greatest guitarists of all time. That list includes some of my idols from when I was a teenager and even now as an older version of a teenager.

Page, Hendrix, Hammett, Young, Richards, Slash and Berry were those that I built shrines for, had  posters of and tried (with little-to-no effect) to copy. It was something about the sonorous wail of their licks and the fact that these guys could play 12 notes in a second. It blew my mind.

One of my pals is a drummer and he would perpetually tap his fingers on the desk in class, on the Anglican Prayer Book in school chapel and on the steering wheel of his 1L Daihatsu Charade. It was a drumming thing but he would always allude to the guys he thought were the best. It took his fondness for percussion to rub off on me.

So here is the Rolling Stone readers’ list of the ten greatest drummers:

John Bonham – Led Zeppelin

Keith “Moon the Loon” Moon – The Who

Neil Peart – Rush

Dave Grohl – Nirvana

Ringo Starr – The Beatles

Buddy Rich – Played with Tommy Dorsey, Benny Carter, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

Stewart Copeland – The Police

?uestlove – Roots

Ginger Baker – Cream

Michael Shrieve – Santana

To my mind the greatest drum solo I have ever seen was courtesy of the late John Bonham, featured on Zeppelin’s DVD, for the track Moby Dick. The great man is deserving of top spot.

Moon the Loon was certainly the most reckless talent and one of the most entertaining to watch. His work was incredible. What’s more he would blow toilets up by flushing down explosives and tales from tours gone by have it that he caused $500 000 worth of damage in total to toilets and plumbing. Befitting, when you consider his premature demise.

If it were my list I’d have Lars Ulrich of Metallica and Joey Jordison of Slipknot bordering around the edges, but that is spoken from somebody who never grew up after the heydays the virtuosos listed above. For everybody interested, Rolling Stone provided footage for each of the great men.

[Source: Rolling Stone]

Main image via drummerworld.com