Yellowcard Band • Page 38

And the fact that the first words said after the long hiatus were "Hello you, how was the rest?" Is also awesome.

 

I can't think of a single instance where I thought good drumming made bad songwriting sound good.

 

But I can think of plenty of instances where boring drumming made good songwriting sound bad.

 

I can't think of an instance of either

 

Mind naming a few? I can't think of any. I remember bunch of people saying that War Paint was worse than Reach for the Sun primarily because of the "boring drumming," but I never heard that at all. I think the majority of the songs in the Yellowcard discography would be great even if you stripped them down and rearranged them so that they had no percussion at all. The band's melodies, lyrics, and other instrumentation are by far strong enough to stand without a world class drummer.

It's just like...in the vast majority of cases, the drums are added to the equation relatively late in the writing process, right? Unless you have a band that hashes out entire tracks in the studio together? So if a song's good, it's good before the drummer gets involved, and if it's bad, it's bad before the drummer gets involved, and I don't think the drummer fundamentally changes those value judgments. Of course, an extremely talented drummer can elevate a song to another level, and a really bad one could theoretically make something sound out of tempo and just super awkward to listen to. But Nate Young is a perfectly decent, workmanlike drummer. He doesn't shine like LP does, but he doesn't get in the way either.

 

Yep, totally agreed. That's why people calling him untalented and saying he ruins YC is highly melodramatic and frankly just unreasonable.

 

Even if he is a weak drummer, I think he was worth bringing on board if only because we got "MSK" out of the deal.

 

Absolutely, love that song.

And again, the style people have heard from LP wouldn't fit with the music they're making now. Someone mentioned that he can adapt to any style and while I'm sure that's true, I think people would be surprised how similar his drumming in their current music sound a to Nate's.

 

One of the best vocal melodies that Ryan Key has ever sung.

There's just not a lot of room for showy drumming on Lift a Sail. It's a very midtempo record, with a lot of spacier, more ambient influence. Someone said Nate's work sounds like an electronic drum machine. In a lot of spots on that record, I'm sure that was intentional. Maybe the argument is that, with LP, they wouldn't have gone that direction in the first place? That they would have made another pop punk record, maybe? Frankly, I really wouldn't have wanted that. Southern Air was a very fitting capper for that era of the band.

 

I am a drummer and Nate Young is an above-average rock drummer. Lift a Sail is not his greatest performance, but it is a very good album.

Mic drop

 

Yeah, that I don't agree with at all.

 

I'm standing by my comments.

 

As a drummer, he ruins them for me. I don't really care if that's reasonable or not. (I know it isn't, it's a real problem I have with multiple bands and I don't really know why)

 

Drums are very important to me, especially in the genre they're doing, and Nate's drumming is so hugely boring.
I tried to find Anberlin songs where it wasn't, but I couldn't. I really hate his style and that's fair game for me to say.
Also I said he was untalented (which is of course harsh, but it comes out of disappointment - I admit that's not a cool thing and unfair to say, so I'm apologizing for this) because he just seems to play an electronic pattern everytime, it sounds so easy and standard, I don't even need to explain this to anyone because this can't be overlooked.*
Saying "bringing him to the band was great because of MSK" is also so highly subjective, because there "might be" a lot of people that can't enjoy this album and think this song is boring as hell. And one song doesn't make up for an entirely bad record.

*One thing I have to disagree with though is the production of the drums on the new song. On Lift a Sail drums were tamed to death. Here it's really nice, I just wish it was another one drumming. Even though his drumming on this one is way better than on any Lift a Sail song, So I got a tiny bit of hope. There are some really fast songs on the new album and I wanna see what he brings to the table on these songs. I'll at least give him a chance and will admit if I was wrong in the end if that's the case.

Mind showing me this?

 

I must be weird because Lift A Sail has become my favorite album and the drums never bothered me.

 

Yeah, I definitely never suggested that my opinion on "MSK" wasn't subjective.

It is absolutely fair game to say that you hate Nate's style. It's also fair game for someone to say that LP's "vicious fills" would have ruined the melancholy personal intimacy of Lift a Sail, which I tend to think is true. Everything I have heard from him suggests he was either the wrong guy for that record or that he would have felt cheated and underused on an album with slower tempos and spacier atmosphere.

Also, this is completely discounting whatever reason the rest of the band had for splitting from LP, which all signs have indicated was less than amicable.

 

Just a hypothetical, like I'm not convinced LaS with LP wouldn't sound similar to the way LaS actually turned out.

 

I think we can all agree LP is the better drummer but I feel like with Lift a Sail, Ryan already had the song types and styles in mind. I don't think Nathan had any or much say in the song styles as a hired hand. If they had wanted to go their old sound, Nathan would have played fast. I thought I remember reading that they brought Nathan in because they wanted to go a certain route and liked the electronic/synth parts he had done in Anberlin, so I wouldn't say he's to blame for how LaS turned out.

 

oh that's who you are!!! haha

 

I didn't even know LP wasn't on this final album until now. That's kind of a bummer. I just assumed he returned for their farewell album/tour.

 

Lift A Sail is not a "bad record". It's cool to not to like it but it's not a bad record by any means.

 

What killed the vibe for Lift a Sail for me was that all the front end of the album was released prior to the album's released so when I spun it from front to back for the first time it felt like two different albums entirely. I love Lift a Sail though, phenomenal record.

 

They did do a terrible job with pre-release tracks for that record.

 

the tracks they released were great it just was the entire front half of the album

 

Yeah, I hate when bands do that. I don't even really like when the opener is the single.