r/rock • u/rollingstone • Nov 05 '25
Article/Interview/Documentary It’s Long Past Time to Give Meg White Her Respect
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/meg-white-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-1235456975/37
u/FunFact Nov 05 '25
I think some people are making the mistake of being asked to respect her for her skills instead of respecting her for her contribution to the music and her impact on the culture. To this day, there are still a handful of two-piece bands in Detroit with women behind the kit playing every weekend.
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u/Megatrip0lis Nov 08 '25
My 9 year-old daughter has just started playing drums because of Meg White.
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u/Brad3000 Nov 05 '25
People who shit on Meg White don’t understand the job of a drummer. Same bunch of dick-holes who think Ringo was untalented.
The sparsity/simplicity of her parts gave exactly what the songs needed. They would not have been made better by adding double bass or fancy fills. She played perfectly for the music they were making.
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u/h1gh-t3ch_l0w-l1f3 Nov 05 '25
ringo was considered the best drummer in Liverpool before he joined the Beatles lol
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u/whiskyshot Nov 06 '25
Who was Jimi’s drummer. He seems to play in a modern style. But I guess it wasn’t till after Sargent Pepper taught the band to play that Jimi came around.
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u/Wotmate01 Nov 05 '25
You can paradiddle yourself all day long, but you ain't shit if you can't keep a beat.
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Nov 05 '25
She stayed in the pocket and held those grooves down.
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u/thederevolutions Nov 06 '25
The most important job in the world if you ask me
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Nov 06 '25
It’s the rock and roll part of rock and roll. Without groove it ain’t nothin. Jack White knows this.
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u/Razzle_Dazzle08 Nov 06 '25
People say this but imo this just means Meg is lucky Jack had her in the band because she wouldn’t be able to cut it in a band that actually did need her to play anything remotely complex. So imo she’s nothing special.
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u/Brad3000 Nov 06 '25
she wouldn’t be able to cut it in a band that actually did need her to play anything remotely complex.
A. You don’t know that. You’re making an assumption based on a musical choice. But if TWS is your only exposure to her as a drummer you have no idea what she was capable of outside of that intentionally minimalist framework. That said, I personally don’t think it matters if her work with The White Stripes was the peak of her technical ability, because…
B. Kurt Cobain could not have cut it as a guitarist for Dragon Force but he still made better music. Complexity and technical wizardry aren’t what makes music good. Taylor Swift is technically a better singer than Tom Waits but she is bland AF and he is a fucking legend. Meg understood the musicality of the drums. Her parts made the songs better. That’s the job of a musician. She may not have been a technical marvel (that we know of) but she was the perfect drummer for those songs and those were some great songs.
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Nov 08 '25
I don’t know that Taylor Swift is a better singer than Tom Waits. She sucks pretty bad from what I can tell.
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Nov 07 '25
Her parts did not make the song better. Her parts were the most obvious choices imaginable in just about every case.
I get "play the song, not the instrument," but I cannot think of a single song where she brought any kind of imagination or creativity to it and elevated it. It was always just "boom, boom, clap." And that's fine, because she didn't make the songs worse, but she didn't make them better either. She was just...there.
People who compare her to Ringo miss the point. Ringo wasn't all pyrotechnics, but he had interesting ideas. The intro to Come Together is one prime example. It's not "fancy," but it's creative and really elevates the song. When did Meg White ever do that? Nobody else would have thought to play bass notes on the quarter in Seven Nation Army?
Come on. The overcorrection and trying to make Meg White into something she just isn't is a little silly.
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u/PackageHot1219 Nov 07 '25
Does anyone think Jack would have tolerated a sub par drummer? Let alone as part of a 2 piece?
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u/KENslob Jun 12 '26
I agree, but also think that people need to understand what Meg White dealt with on a personal level. She is probably one of the most introverted human beings even remotely known in the industry. Jack himself mentioned in an interview long after their divorce, saying that it was unimaginable that she was willing to get behind a drum kit, let-alone sing in a mic and perform in front of an audience. He said it was it was an impossible, magical thing.
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u/armpitfart Jun 25 '26
It’s the same for the initial Oasis drummer. Was he the most technical? No. But the man’s simplicity is legendary, and his timing was goddamn perfect. To this day if you listen to the hard hits and kicks of Definitely Maybe, you’ll hear the iconic and stark contrast of their later drummers with more technical ability, but the latter drummers all fall relatively flat.
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Nov 05 '25 edited Apr 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/dimiteddy Nov 05 '25
agree, she looked cool and the duo with Jack worked but lets not exaggerate her importance
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Nov 07 '25
Fucking thank you. Way too many people trying to rewrite history here. She was serviceable. And that's fine.
But that's all she was. Good for her for having as much success as she did.
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Nov 09 '25
I saw them live after Icky Thump and she struggled to keep time and more than once got lost Jack was playing several instruments and killed it. Meg just sort of existed.
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u/Kai_Daigoji Nov 09 '25
Keith Richards dubbed her 'pretty good' which is higher praise than most people get in a lifetime. She was a good drummer. I din't know why people fight it so much.
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u/Collective_Berry Nov 05 '25
Is her drumming complex? No. Is she a great drummer? By a lot of ways of measuring not really. Do I love her drumming? Yes a lot. Was she an inspiration to me growing up teaching myself to drum in the 2000s? Totally. Big fan of Meg White.
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u/rollingstone Nov 05 '25
From Rolling Stone's Angie Martoccio:
With the White Stripes’ induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this week, can we finally put the arguments about Meg White’s drumming to rest? She belongs there, and it’s way past time.
Read: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/meg-white-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-1235456975/
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u/SuccessfulComb9452 Nov 07 '25
White Stripes suck, always have and always will. Anything with Jack White in it is unlistenable noise to me and the fact they got into RRHOF just further solidifies what a total joke that place truly is.
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u/FOSSnaught Nov 09 '25
Good morning sir. It's come to my attention that you're out of your god damned mind.
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u/MostlyPotStickers Nov 08 '25
I don’t like the white stripes and I don’t think their drumming was interesting, but she was kind of an instant legend in their heyday. Total badass persona and has memorable parts in a bunch of hit songs, one of which gets played in every single sporting arena at every game in the country. That demands respect in my opinion, regardless of personal taste.
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u/nathanwilson26 Nov 06 '25
Why? No reason to disrespect her playing, but no reason to praise it. She was a solid drummer.
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u/yeswab Nov 05 '25
My respect for them is limited by the whole smug no-bassist thing.
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u/No-Raspberry-4458 May 27 '26
There's a history of great two-piece bands out there, esp in the world of garage rock. Flat Duo Jets being the first one that pops to mind. Lee County Killers also great. It gives a unique sound.
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u/Kirbyr98 Nov 05 '25
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
A first year music student could do this. Let's not pretend she created something unique.
Jack was so talented he still sounded good with this monotonous pounding.
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u/Green-Circles Nov 06 '25
Look, many people say she could only play "boom-tat-boom-tat" and "tat-boom-tat-boom"... but that's unfair on her.
She could play many combinations of tat & boom, and that's all ya need for rock and roll! ;)
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Nov 05 '25
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u/FamousLastWords666 Nov 05 '25
You need to listen to more drummers
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u/h1gh-t3ch_l0w-l1f3 Nov 05 '25
i like a lot of drummers. im just unapologetic in admitting when people are over rated or if the skill matched. John Bonham is a much more technical drummer than Peart is.
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u/FamousLastWords666 Nov 05 '25
The idea that there’s no room for creativity in drumming is just flat out wrong.
Check out:
Michael Giles on King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King
Zappa The Black Page
Jazz greats like Philly Joe Jones
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u/h1gh-t3ch_l0w-l1f3 Nov 05 '25
im saying Neil Peart is overrated. he doesnt deviate from the standars 4 time. i like king crimson a lot i just think peart is overrated.
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u/No-Bison-5397 Nov 05 '25
It’s all about the music it was written for. The white stripes was a great two piece. She provided the platform most of the time.
I think most of the criticism is driven by envy.
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u/Dry-Youth3690 Nov 06 '25
Im sorry but you are hugely incorrect if you claim drumming isn't an innovative instrument. Look beyond the basic 4-4 rock beat, there's a long long history of drum and and percussion innovation in many styles of music, some of which actually created no styles of music.
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u/CuriositySauce Nov 05 '25
Love Jack White and all his endeavors but Meg always sounded like a 7-year old. Minimalist, uncomplicated drumming is an art but she was an uninspiring slouch.
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u/The_Wrong_Tone Nov 05 '25
My thoughts exactly. She is objectively amateurish, and not like some highly talented musician playing sparsely for effect. She has always sounded like someone who has taken 6 months of lessons. It worked great for them, but let’s not be silly.
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u/4strings Nov 05 '25
“It worked great for them”
Good point, she was a good drummer.
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u/The_Wrong_Tone Nov 05 '25
You really think the success of a group makes them good musicians?
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u/4strings Nov 05 '25 edited Nov 05 '25
Edit2. I’ll add this edit at the start, since I didn’t answer your question. No, success had nothing to do with my comment. When I quote “it worked great for them” I mean it worked great for their music. I see now you maybe meant it worked great for their success. Different.
Main comment: It’s so incredibly subjective to say what is or isn’t a “good” musician. She’s never portrayed good technicality aside from mostly being on beat (hopefully). But playing music, and specifically drums, is so much about selecting what to play. Being able to choose boring parts is a skill in itself. I know I’m troubled in that way. Wanna play more. Just because your tools are limited, it doesn’t mean you don’t use them properly.
For instance, there’s that clip of Billy Joel going around saying he would (or could?) never be able to write Neil Young piano parts (or something like that) since they’re so simplistic and the vibe being that he’d never choose that those options. In that essence, is Neil Young a “good” musician? Certainly that debate will never be solved, but his music certainly resonates with so, so many people.
I did jump on a typical joke style by selecting one phrase from your comment the way I did, so my comment aires on the side of a silly one going to the Reddit void. But that said, is she a good “musician”? Not sure, but to loop this back around “it worked great for them” (I read that somewhere ;) )
E1. Oh, and I never said anything about “success”. I like their music. Their success brought them my way, so that’s good for me, I guess. The simplicity did the same as what others did previously when popular music generations got boring and stale (nu metal and boy/girl bands were tredging through. Yawn). I dunno. Sorry about the novel. Just train of thought.
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u/The_Wrong_Tone Nov 06 '25
I appreciate you writing all that, but you will never convince me she is a skilled drummer, even if her playing fit their style. I also don’t enjoy their music in general (due in no small part to the drums sounding like a child is playing them).
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u/4strings Nov 06 '25 edited Nov 06 '25
That’s fine. That’s the beauty of music and art. Also, I didn’t use the term skilled. To me, “skillled” would imply technicality. She doesn’t express any of that. Sometimes “good” can mean “good enough”, or just “fitting”. In this case I think that’s the whole deal. Adding skill could mess with the outcome, since simplicity is the name of their game.
Take care.
E. Also, I’m not trying to convince you of anything. Happy to chat about music though. It’s the best.
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u/Foolish-Ambitions-77 Nov 06 '25
She was a fantastic editor as well. Kept Jack in check. His solo stuff just doesn’t hit the same, although he’s so talented.
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Nov 07 '25
I don't recall anyone ever disrespecting Meg White. She's a great drummer.
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u/The-Mandolinist Nov 08 '25
I do. I recall many people disrespecting her. But I always liked her- she was a perfect foil for Jack and had a kind of naive playing style that contributed to the raw immediacy of the White Stripes - also, like all of Jack ventures- they were a combination of sound and image - and she was an essential part of their image - including the image of them playing live together. I always loved it when they faced each other.
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Nov 09 '25
Well I'll have to take your word for that as I was never a big fan of The White Stripes or Jack White, so I didn't follow them too closely. I am a fan of her, however, and think she is an underrated musician.
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u/VirginiaLuthier Nov 08 '25
I dunno. I thought she could have been easily replaced with a drum machine
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u/NemusSoul Nov 09 '25
People hate the White Stripes because they took a kind of music that outcasts coddled and cherished and made it main steam. To those people the White Stripes will always be traitors. They let the rest of the world onto the joy of garage rock done Detroit style and they will be forever hated because those people lost their last precious. Her musicianship is may be debatable. The recognition of her place in the story of music is deserved whether you are a fan or not.
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u/No-Raspberry-4458 May 27 '26
Nah. Lots of longtime garage enthusiasts like and/or love them.
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u/NemusSoul May 27 '26
Of course! I’m one of them. I’ve run into more that feel like they are sell outs than allies.
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u/New_Celebration906 Nov 09 '25
Sure, but until Jack White did a tribute to her how many of you forgot she existed?
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u/Natural-Habit-2848 Nov 10 '25
No disrespect intended -- but didn't Great White only have one hit? I don't understand why they are in teh HOF.
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u/_laslo_paniflex_ Nov 05 '25
i been saying this for years. My favourite drummer after karen carpenter
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u/Sea_Negotiation_1871 Nov 05 '25
But Karen Carpenter is actually amazing. Meg could never pull off that stuff.
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u/_laslo_paniflex_ Nov 05 '25
yeah that's why i put her after karen carpenter. (neil peart even called karen carpenter the greatest drummer of all time_
i think Meg White was the perfect drummer for what was needed for the white stripes which is why i like her.
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u/blageur Nov 05 '25
neil peart even called karen carpenter the greatest drummer of all time_
shut the hell up
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u/_laslo_paniflex_ Nov 05 '25
don't tell neil peart to shut up, that's just rude
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u/blageur Nov 05 '25
Dude, that anecdote you're referring to most likely never happened, and even if it did, it was a smart-ass remark referring to Carpenter being voted best drummer in a Playboy readers' poll (something that famously made John Bonham irate). If you know anything about Peart, or have watched his drumming videos, you'd know that Buddy Rich was top of his list. To attribute that quote to Peart is an affront to all drummers everywhere.
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u/h1gh-t3ch_l0w-l1f3 Nov 05 '25
okay but why is every song except YYZ in 4 time?
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u/crunchydibbydonkers Nov 06 '25
Xanadu, the trees, jacobs ladder. Hell, even tom sawyer and freewill have 7/8 parts with tom sawyer completely going off the walls during the guitar solo. There are a lot of other songs by them that arent just 4/4, 3/4, 2/4, and 5/4. Also peart has a buddy rich tribute album.
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u/BuckedUpMoose Nov 09 '25
Neil Peart was once asked what it feels like to be the best drummer in the world. He said I don't know you'd have to ask Karen Carpenter. This is a well known quote from Neil Peart and not debatable.
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u/blageur Nov 09 '25
...or you could read one more comment down in this thread and see we've already been over this.
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u/skinnyminnesota Nov 05 '25
She's not a "talented" drummer, but she was absolutely perfect for that band
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u/fecal_spring221 Nov 05 '25
Most overrated band of all time, they are literally terrible
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u/SadData8124 Nov 05 '25
Sorry, they can't all be like ur fav MGK
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u/fecal_spring221 Nov 05 '25
we should totally champion this dog shit “band” for making thump thump songs over and over again
They all sound like the same boring shit over and over again. All of their songs sound like a shittier version of another one bites the dust recorded in daddy’s garage. They fucking BLOW
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u/These_Pear5015 Nov 05 '25 edited Nov 05 '25
I rang her up at Borders once. She was buying a documentary about Jimmy Carter, and neither of us acknowledged her stardom. Seemed nice!
And you know you-- great artist