Today’s Modern Drums Sound Like ’80s Pop Drums

A lot of ’80s pop songs had a drum machine taking care of the beat, usually something like the Linn LM-1, the Oberheim DMX, or the Roland TR-808 and TR-909. There were plenty of recordings that had real drums on them too, but electronic drum machines were very widely used.

Over the past few years, a similar trend has emerged in modern rock. I’ll start with an example. Check out West End Girls by The Pet Shop Boys and pay attention to the kick drum. It’s clicky, punchy, and impeccably consistent. Now take a listen to Borderline by Madonna and Don’t You Want Me by The Human League. Consistent, mechanical kick and snare. Fast-forward to 2007 and Paramore’s Misery Business. The kick and snare are as solid as can be, perfectly spaced, with no variation in dynamics. Another example is Relient K’s Come Right Out And Say It, also from 2007. The kick is particularly punchy and robotic.

So, what’s going on here? There are a few factors that have brought about the shift towards drum-machine-type drums, and I believe the main one is the huge advance in recording technology. Not too long ago, the only way to get solid electronic-sounding drum track was with a drum machine, or a robotic drummer. Since there aren’t many Josh Freeses among us, the drum sounds of the ’90s weren’t nearly as robotic. You could hear the distinctive sounds of a human drummer: variation in snare and tom hits, slight tempo changes, and normal inconsistencies that come about from real acoustic drum playing. Drum triggers were available, but they still sounded fairly unnatural.

Enter Pro Tools and computer recording. All of a sudden, the editing limitations of tape and even early digital recorders were out the window. An engineer could go in and fix a late snare hit, or a strange-sounding kick drum hit. Pretty soon, engineers realized they could make every drum hit sonically perfect – and that’s how we arrived at the modern drum sounds of today. How? Line up the drums so they’re perfectly in time. Then, take a snare drum hit from the song, or pull one out of the various drum libraries available for sale, and replace every single hit with that sample. Do the same with the kick and toms, and all of a sudden you have “perfect” drums (and by “perfect” I mean “accurate”). There are many who wouldn’t agree that the modern drum sound is musical. I happen to think it’s awesome. It’s safe to say that the majority of music you hear on popular radio, whether it be rock or top 40, has “hyper-edited” drums.

I should be clear that when I say modern rock drums sound like ’80s pop drums I am referring mostly to the timing and feel. There is obviously a huge difference in tonal quality between the two. But the accuracy of the drum machine has been replicated by having a solid drummer (or even some not-so-solid drummers!) tightened up by modern recording techniques.

Here are some more examples of modern rock with “perfect” drums:

• Bleed American – Jimmy Eat World
• Gotta Be Somebody – Nickelback
• Move Along – All American Rejects
• The Kill – 30 Seconds to Mars

What do you think? Do you like this modern drum sound? Had you noticed the trend towards roboticism?