The Pop Corporation

It’s a storm in a teacup, but it all kicked off on Twitter recently, with some guy wheeling out a tired old take about Meg White being a terrible drummer. He said: “The tragedy of the White Stripes is how great they would have been with a half decent drummer. Yeah yeah I’ve heard all the “but it’s a carefully crafted sound mannnn” takes. I’m sorry Meg White and no band is better for having shitty percussion.“

Before you start searching anyone’s name to join in the pile-on, the person who said that has since said he was wrong and “why did I actually write that? It’s not what I really think, and I like to think I’m not the asshole it made me out to be, or at least I try not to be” adding “I think the answer, in part, is that sort of vicious sniping is something that we—us online folks—tend to reward with eyes and clicks. And I think I got caught up in that implicit incentive structure with a needlessly inflammatory, downright mean, and most importantly false Take.”

While we’re not going to pile-in on that guy, we are going to talk about this whole thing. Is Meg White a terrible drummer? Does it matter if she is? Does all music have to fit a certain skill level before it’s deemed good? Do all those sales and headline shows the White Stripes attained mean that everyone is wrong because the musicianship wasn’t quite so?

Well, the first thing you think of is the Velvet Underground, right? Mo Tucker’s playing was primal as hell, giving the band that insane tension on record and it’s obvious that Tucker’s style actively added a magic ingredient to VU that another drummer absolutely wouldn’t. It’s interesting that Mo and Meg are both women as well, because people were always quick to have a pop at Meg, while completely ignoring other drummers in primitive rock ‘n’ roll bands of a similar skill/vibe, because they’re men, and it’s not a great leap to think that Protestant Rock Guys would assume that Rock Drummer Man made a choice, while Rock Drummer Woman had no choice and that was the best they could do. Right?

One Twitter user said: “Meg White’s drumming is a rorschach test for for how you feel about women musicians.” It’s a good point. The only people you hear complaining about the drumming style in White Stripes songs unequivocally suck. And, if we’re agreeing that Meg White wasn’t a good drummer (which we’re not) and she slots into the ‘feel’ category, then you have to acknowledge that feel is everything, and with that in mind, you have to agree that Meg White is utterly irreplaceable in the White Stripes. Replace Meg White with some steady, average session guy, and you lose the chaos and groove of the White Stripes, thereby making them a pretty tedious blues band.

Ever listened to a Jesus & Mary Chain LP and loved it? It isn’t exactly virtuosic drumming on those things, but by god it lends that magical something that makes them so great. Mary Chain gigs would end in a riot, which in some respects, is worth a million 20-minute drum solos from your fave progger.

As an aside, it’s strange to write an article in defence of a band we barely have any feelings about. Sure, they’ve got a couple of alright songs and ‘Seven Nation Army’ has been adopted by the world and their Auntie – even managing to get the ultimate accolade of becoming a terrace chant (that’s when you know you’ve hit on something and it basically becomes something passed around like a folk song) – but we’re not here to say the White Stripes are amazing, but rather, those who dismiss Meg White’s contribution to the band are at best lazy, and at their worst, something more insidious.

And let’s look at another very clear and obvious point – we’re over a decade away from the White Stripes being a thing, with Jack White playing with a host of other musicians and drummers and, honestly, have any of these records hit the heights of those he made with Meg? Putting a band together is like playing with volatile chemicals and it’s difficult to find something combustible that won’t immediately burn your house down, and it’s insultingly obvious to point it out, but Meg White wasn’t just sat on her drumstool waiting to be told what to do – it wasn’t Jack White Solo And He Let His Ex Wife Play Along For The Sake Of It, was it? It speaks volumes to those who think there was only one influence and talent in the duo.

And other drummers – prompted or otherwise – have given White praise. Dave Grohl said Meg is “one of my favourite fucking drummers of all time. Like, nobody fucking plays the drums like that.”

This is the thing – it’s just as boring to pit jazz and prog against punk, just as it’s supremely tedious to expect garage punk bands to be more slick. Listening to a Daniel Johnston record is no better or worse than listening to Ella Fitzgerald LPs. They’re just different. The garage punk revival of the ’00s was a celebration in getting the music out of bones by any means necessary. The Dirtbombs – Detroit natives a la White Stripes – are rough and ready, and that’s the way we like it. Around the same time, you could have been listening to something more rehearsed by someone else too. It’s all good. Whatever, Meg White is a pivotal figure in the revival of garage punk, and the White Stripes would have clearly been a lesser outfit if it wasn’t for her input.

Does it matter that Meg White was a bad drummer? Not really. Does it matter if someone says she sucks? Well, kinda. People’s can criticise however they want, but the tired old discourse of VER WHITE STRIPES WUD AV BIN GUD WIV A PROPER DRUMMER needs to go away. It won’t and like clockwork, someone will either start trolling or ultimately be made aware of their prejudices (maybe it’ll shock them to find they had them in the first place), but it’s pretty obvious that, in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll, one of the shyest and most anxious to ever do it will reluctantly be dragged into the spotlight again, and cool people will be in her corner and slapping down boring people who think they’re the first person to offer up the searingly tepid take that Meg White isn’t worthy of the kit she sat behind.