Was Prince really a good drummer?
When considering the world’s best drummers, names like Taylor Hawkins, John Bonham, or Ringo Starr likely come to mind. Prince, however, probably doesn’t feature on that list. Despite being universally celebrated as a musical genius, his drumming skills aren’t often at the forefront of discussions about his talents. While Prince did play the drums, the extent of his proficiency remains more open to debate compared to the other elements of his artistry that solidified his star status.
Of course, for the Prince diehards who worshipped the ground he walked on, everything was golden. It goes without saying that his Midas touch was wide-ranging—all areas of vocals, piano, guitar, and bass that he covered rightfully deserve their own place in history. Such was his astonishing mastery of the craft, having been inspired by a string of absolute legends and heroes. However, his ability as a drummer was a bit more, dare we say, middle of the road.
To be fair, let’s cut him some slack; we can’t all be good at everything, and his existing talent was certainly more than enough. Let’s also be really honest – we can sit here all high and mighty to dissect his musicality, but the truth is that even if his drumming was slightly less polished, it’s still probably far better than anything the rest of us could ever achieve. It’s the mark of a true artist how far he could extend his instrumental wizardry.
However biased their opinion could potentially be on the subject, the view of the Prince mega fans is still important to consider. At worst, the aficionados think he was pretty passable in the drumming hot seat, but others go to the extreme of regarding him as a god of the instrument. In many ways, there’s no objective answer – how good Prince was as a drummer depends really on who you speak to.
Take the album Parade, for example, his eighth studio effort and third, which also featured The Revolution, released in 1986. In actual fact, the record’s first four tracks – ‘Christopher Tracy’s Parade’, ‘New Position’, ‘I Wonder U’, and ‘Under the Cherry Moon’ – all had their drum tracks recorded live by Prince himself, and even more impressively, in just one take. Maybe he wasn’t quite as sub-par as people make out after all.
It seems that much of the misconception could be rooted in the fact that on many of Prince’s other songs, the drumming was electronically programmed. The real instrumental snobs might see that as a bit of a cop-out, but again, the lengths of his musical ability were already stretching to stratospheric heights.
Where Prince did drum, especially on the first four tracks of Parade, he is credited, if not for his innate talent, for his general ‘feel’ of the instrument. In that respect, it does fall into line with most of his other talents – being able to have such a strong and innovative grasp of sound was what truly made him unique and cemented his legacy as a genius, for which he will always be remembered. Who really cares whether he was the best drummer or not? Let’s be real; the criticism probably wouldn’t have worried him too much.
