Which one the album that changed the way Ringo Starr played: “Getting better”

Ringo Starr was never meant to play any song the same way twice whenever he got behind the drum kit.

It’s easy to look at any drummer as the person who keeps time in a group, but whether it was with The Beatles or his All-Starr Band, Starr always approached his drumming style as an art all its own, which means playing a different fill every time he plays or making the track lift ever so slightly when he performs. That approach has remained tried and true for years, but it wouldn’t have happened had he not had other artists who were willing to grow up with him over the years.

Before Starr even got to play with The Beatles, though, he was in for an uphill battle. The entire process of them bringing in Starr instead of Pete Best didn’t sit well with George Martin when making ‘Love Me Do’, and while there are pieces of the song that work well on its own, it’s like night and day when listening to Starr play on ‘Please Please Me’ after the fact, to the point where he sounds completely frantic bashing away behind everyone.

But Starr wasn’t looking to play the same setup every time he went to the studio. The band were already progressing by the time they started work on A Hard Day’s Night, and while Beatles for Sale is far from everyone’s favourite Beatles record, it’s easy to see where Starr was changing things up, whether that was getting back into playing a few shuffles, bringing in a timpani for ‘What You’re Doing’ or simply recording him slapping his knees on ‘Words of Love’.

How Ringo Starr’s drumming evolved on Rubber Soul and Revolver

Not all the setups were glamorous, but they all gave people something new to listen to than the standard 4/4 groove everyone was familiar with. But if Rubber Soul was the moment they started flirting with different studio techniques, Revolver was the moment they didn’t bother trying to make music that people would want to hear live anymore. They were now technicians, and that meant finding the right sound to suit whatever strange idea they had.

From one song to the next, it’s impossible to predict where they were going across the album, whether that was Paul McCartney making stunning ballads like ‘Here There and Everywhere’ or John Lennon making acid-soaked daydreams come to life on tracks like ‘I’m Only Sleeping’ or ‘She Said She Said’. But outside of the songs, Starr felt that the album drastically changed how he approached recording.

The drums had been off to the side on many of their records, but getting new technology led to him playing with a lot more punch, saying, “I think we decided we could finally hear the bass drum on our records. If you listen to the early ones, there’s no sign of the bass drum, just like the snare and cymbals. So the recordings were getting better, and you would play differently because you could hear it.”

And while everyone and their mother brings up ‘Rain’ as the moment where he truly changed his approach, ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ is a better showcase for his talents. Outside of being a human metronome leading the band through Lennon’s spiritual adventure, Starr also created one of the most unqiue grooves that he ever played, to the point where it sounds like a precursor to the kind of loops you would hear in early hip-hop.

But whatever style he played or what fill he threw into the mix almost didn’t matter in the long run as far as Starr was concerned. He played with the singer before anyone else, and he was more than happy to keep time and wait for his moment to fly off the handle and wow the crowd a little bit.