What decade is this?
That was my first response upon learning Tuesday that an online debate had erupted about former White Stripes drummer Meg White’s musical abilities — or lack thereof.
Why this would merit widespread conversation, let alone debate, 12 years after the duo of Meg and guitarist/vocalist Jack White announced White Stripes had disbanded is a mystery.
Or, rather, it would have been a mystery in the pre-internet area. You know, back when at least some topics with real-time relevance actually merited civil discourse and people could agree to disagree, without constantly hurling outraged insults at each other.
Now, the long-retired Meg’s drumming has become a thing. The reason for this sudden, decades-leaping focus on Meg White?
Take a bow, Lachlan Markay, who is currently a writer for the National Review and is a former investigative reporter for the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation.
On March 10, his fellow scribe Dan McLaughin wrote a piece for National Review. In it, McLaughlin hailed the 2003 White Stripes song “Seven Nation Army” as, quite possibly, “the best song of this century thus far.” (Take that, BTS and Taylor Swift fans!)
McLaughlin expended all of eight words about the drumming on “Seven Nation Army,” a song that has become a worldwide staple at sporting events. He credits “Meg White” for “holding down the simplest of beats.”
Then again, that description could apply to virtually any White Stripes recording, since the songs Jack White wrote for Meg and himself were nothing if not celebrations of no-frills simplicity.
But never mind that.
Markay, a 2015 William F. Buckley Jr. Award-winner, was unable to restrain himself when McLaughlin declined to slam Meg White for playing “the simplest of beats” on “Seven Nation Army.”
With steam almost coming out of his ears, Markay fumed in a since-deleted, poorly punctuated Twitter post on Monday: “The tragedy of the White Stripes is how great they would’ve 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 was terrible and no band is better for having (crappy) percussion.”
After the predictable online backlash, Markay — who has more than 90,000 Twitter followers — offered an apology so convoluted it suggested someone trying to tap dance while wearing ski boots.
Rock Hall of Fame nominees
The fact that White Stripes are among the current nominees vying for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame may have helped spark further controversy about Markay’s comments.
Either way, a majority — although not all — of the online responses have been in defense of Meg’s bare-bones drumming style.
Some posts praise her “feel” and the simplicity of her playing. Others contend she is being attacked anew because she is a woman in a percussive world that continues to be dominated by men.
That is a sad statement, especially given the often dazzling drumming of Cindy Blackman Santana, former Prince band members Sheila E. and Hannah Welton, Beyoncé band drummer Kim Thompson, former Jeff Beck band drummer Annika Niles, 2023 Grammy Award-winner Terri Lyne Carrington, Parlour Game co-founder Allison Miller and dozens more.
Many of the online comments about Meg White include — surprise, surprise! — name-calling and insults directed at anyone who dares to disagree with the previous post.
Almost no one seems to note that Jack and Meg were married to each other for a few years in the late 1990s, or that they claimed to be brother-and-sister (ostensibly because a sibling music duo was somehow more acceptable or authentic than a married or divorced music duo).
In defending Meg’s drumming, some comments take aim at “know-nothing/do-nothing” music critics. This conveniently ignores the fact Markay writes about politics, not music, as a quick look at his Linked In bio attests.
Jack White’s second ex-wife, Karen Elson, tweeted: “Not only is Meg White a fantastic drummer, Jack also said the White Stripes would be nothing without her. To the journalist who dissed her, keep my ex husband’s ex wife name out of your (expletive) mouth. (Please and Thank You).”
Also weighing in was Oscar-winning filmmaker Questlove, the excellent drummer in The Roots. His tweet referenced the skittering beats employed by the groundbreaking hip-hop producer J Dilla, who died in 2006 at the age of 32.
“I try to leave ‘troll views’ alone but this right here is out of line af,” Questlove wrote in response to Markay’s original post. “Actually what is wrong w music is people choking the life out of music like an Instagram filter — trying to reach a high of music perfection that doesn’t even serve the song (or music). This is why I walk that Dilla path and play like a drunken sloppy af amateur because them flaws is the human element in music that is missing. Real film >>>>>>> IG filter photo.”
In all fairness, I question Questlove’s assertion that his crisp, propulsive, right in-the-pocket grooves in any way suggest he is a “sloppy amateur.” I know from the interviews I have done with him over the years that Questlove takes music and the art of drumming very seriously.
On Wednesday, Jack White posted a poem on his Instagram page in an apparent defense of Meg. Without citing Markay by name, the poem denounces “demons, cowards and vampires out for blood.”
Varied viewpoints are healthy
But what I find especially frustrating in the online barrage about Meg White’s drumming — and the internet in general — is the single-minded insistence that only one point of view is valid. To even suggest that varied viewpoints are welcome and healthy increasingly seems like heresy. So does the healthy airing of differing opinions, values and perspectives.
As a lifelong music fan who began drumming in bands at the age of 12 and writing about music at 15, I have learned a few things about both. As a listener, writer and a drummer, I have come to savor how vitally important is for music to breathe — and that (as Questlove noted) imperfection and spontaneity can be essential components.
Some of my favorite drummers play with great spirit and fire, some with great subtlety and finesse, and some with jaw-dropping technical prowess and imagination. Some of my favorite drummers display all of these attributes, albeit not necessarily all at once, depending on the musical setting and requirements.
Equally enjoyable and important for me is how a drummer phrases and inflects, accents and punctuates. So are the colors and textures they bring to the music, their ability to drive a song or reign it in, the dynamic tension and release they create, the way they interact with other musicians to create something that — in the moment — transcends the moment.
That said, I don’t think it’s all black and white (no pun intended). There is no sound reason that drumming must be either simple and rudimental, or oozing technique and virtuosity, with no middle ground.
A talented drummer will play what’s best for the song and can perform simply, even though they are capable of doing more when needed.
A case in point: The late, great Hal Blaine was a very good jazz drummer. But he is best known for the work he did on myriad classic pop and rock sessions as a member of Phil Spector’s Wrecking Crew studio band.
Or consider the Modern Jazz Quartet’s late, great Connie Kay. He was an exemplary jazz drummer whose credits included recordings with Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and (a few decades later) Van Morrison. But Kay also nailed everything he did as the house drummer for Atlantic Records on classic R&B sessions with Ruth Brown, Big Joe Turner and other rousing vocal dynamos.
That brings us back to Meg White, whose thuddy, minimalist drumming didn’t strike a chord with me 20 years ago and still doesn’t now. As Karla Peterson, my former Union-Tribune colleague, wrote in a 2003 White Stripes album review: “Meg White can’t drum her way out of a Krispy Kreme bag.” (And Karla, unlike me, was a White Stripes fan.)
But Meg’s lack of ability doesn’t mean she wasn’t an ideal foil for Jack White.
Indeed, the playing of a more accomplished, less ham-fisted drummer could have proven detrimental by laying bare Jack’s limitations as a songwriter, guitarist and singer. This holds true regardless of whether said limitations were real or self-imposed, since White’s concurrent work with the four-piece band The Raconteurs saw him spread his musical wings with far more varied and impressive results.
Either way, I’m mildly intrigued that Meg White’s drumming in White Stripes is again a matter of debate, 12 years after she retired from music.
A decade from now, will people be arguing — or agreeing to disagree — about now-12-year-old Nandi Bushell’s drumming on her recent online version of Duke Ellington’s “Caravan?”
Or how YouTube sensation Greyson Nekrutman’s drumming in the band Brand X compared to Kenwood Dennard’s pre-YouTube drumming in Brand X?
Or the strengths and weaknesses of whoever replaces the late, great Taylor Hawkins as the new drummer in Foo Fighters?
We’ll have to wait and see. In the meanwhile, as bemused as I am by the Meg White brouhaha, I am reminded yet again what a very dull, boring world it would be if everyone shared the same tastes and opinions about drumming, music, art, food, politics or the pros and cons of sped-up songs on TikTok.
Or, to update the lyrics Ira Gershwin wrote to the music in his brother George Gershwin’s 1937 classic, “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”:
You like vanilla and I like vanella/ You saspiralla and I saspirella/ Vanilla, vanella, chocolate, strawberry/ Drums good, drums bad/ More Meg, less Meg/ Let’s call the whole thing off!
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