I love to revisit the classics. I felt like putting together a list of the most iconic drum fills in all of popular music, and then seeing if anyone has anything to add or debate. These fills must be instantly recognizable and portable (you’d recognize them even on a different-sounding drum set.) And furthermore they must have helped define the song they are a part of – not just a passing thing but a key moment in the shape of the song. Here are a few I came up with (titles and drummers linked to Wikipedia entries):
Don’t You Forget About Me – Simple Minds – played by Mel Gaynor – Near the end of the song this 5-beat fill takes you out of the more atmospheric bridge and into the big singalong outro. One of the greatest.
In The Air Tonight – Phil Collins – played by Phil Collins – After a few minutes with no drum kit at all, those huge gated-verb drums come in and the intensity jumps by orders of magnitude. They help underscore and amplify the anger that Collins says is part of the sentiment behind this song.
Kid Charlemagne – Steely Dan – played by Bernard Purdie – So simple, just a quick press roll into a bar of sixteenths around the kit, but it so perfectly sweeps you from the vampy, off-sounding end of the bridge back into that incredible groove and ending. Steely Dan may not have been the biggest pop band, but so many musicians count them as an influence that I couldn’t leave this out.
Hound Dog – Elvis Presley – played by D. J. Fontana – That bar of rushed, hugely energetic triplets, straightforward as can be, wraps up each chorus and ends in a silence left open for nothing but the voice of the King.
Wild Thing / Jamie’s Cryin’ – Tone Loc / Van Halen – played by Alex Van Halen – As the introduction to Van Halen’s “Jamie’s Cryin’,” Alex’s tumbling fill on those huge drums makes me lean forward, waiting for a groove to catch me. Oddly enough, slightly truncated and repurposed as the fill at the end of the drum loop on Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing,” it makes me lean back & nod with the groove. What would either song be without it?
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Brick House – The Commodores – played by Walter Orange – Orange lays down a sloppy dirty slappy tom fill to start the song, and it comes back again near the end. The fill alone gets people out of their seats and onto the dance floor before the groove—famous not for the drums but for its bassline—even enters. In other news, Orange also sang lead vocals on this song. I find it surprising and intriguing that two of the best drum fills in all of pop come from drummers who also sing.
Tommy the Cat – Primus – played by Tim “Herb” Alexander – One of the greatest intros to any song anywhere ever. It starts arrogant and slow and accelerates through to the aggressive groove the trio lays down until Les starts singing. Not exactly a mainstream tune, but a heck of a fill.
Bizarre Love Triangle – New Order – played by Stephen Morris – On paper it looks more like an exercise or warmup, but featured in the middle of the big synthy soundscape of “Bizarre Love Triangle,” it seems to stand up and defend itself and the whole genre (and decade) as fun, funky, and worthwhile in its own way.
Rock and Roll – Led Zepplin – played by John Bonham – Can the four-bar intro to this be called a fill? I think it has to be. But it’s perfect how it entirely leaves out the kick, using just hi-hat and snare both to build in intensity and to harken back to the small drum kits of rock’n’roll’s infancy. That wide-open hi-hat and the syncopated accents set the whole thing spinning and sizzling right from the get-go.
Hella Good – No Doubt – played by Adrian Young – Am I the only drummer who has any respect for Adrian Young? Why do I have the impression that I am? That man can groove. “Hella Good” is one of the best renditions of boom-tap-boom-tap I’ve ever heard, and the one-bar fill coming out of the bridge leading to the final chorus is so open and so powerful and so GROOVY.
One Angry Dwarf – Ben Folds Five – played by Darren Jessee – Not as known as most of this list, but so good I couldn’t omit it, is a fill leading into the second verse of Ben Folds Five’s “One Angry Dwarf.” If drum fills were surf, some (like “Hound Dog”) would be the frothy light part rushing ahead of the wave; some (“Kid Charlemagne”) would be the crest; and some (“In The Air Tonight”) would be the swelling mass of water pushing the whole thing forward. Somehow, this fill is all three at once. So good.
Two Princes – Spin Doctors – played by Aaron Comess – If ever there was a time for tons of grace notes & open rolls in a pop/rock song, it’s when you’re doing a one-bar solo introduction to a funky song on a piccolo snare. Whatever you think of the song or the group (or the recording, for that matter), this is one tight fill.
I just noticed a few more interesting things about that top 5 list:
• One (Jamie’s Cryin’) is basically just straight eighth notes with a little ruff on the beginning.
• Three (Jamie’s Cryin’, Kid Charlemagne, Hound Dog) are straight notes with no rests (eighths, sixteenths, and eighth note triplets, respectively).
There is beauty in simplicity.