Songs with great drums

In the air tonight by Phil Collins.

Rush? YYZ

Nirvana - Smells like teen spirit

The Police? Message in a bottle

Red Hot Chilli Peppers? Give it away

Slayer? Raining blood

Bat for Lashes ~ Glass. A top track and the drumming is complex and very interesting, i use it as a demo track as it takes a well balanced system to get the drums and the soaring vocal right. The whole album is excellent if you get a chance.

Anything from Joey Waronker on Becks ~ Modern Guilt album, another of my demo albums or the new Norah Jones for something more mellow but with definite Beck traits, top notch drummer.

Over the Mountain - Ozzy Osbourne

One Thing Left To Do - Del Amitri

Anything off Moving Pictures - Rush

Rainbow - All night long

The Jam - Funeral Pyre

Good question.

Drums are rarely well recorded IMHO.

Personal favourites are:

Indiscipline on the King Crimson Discipline album. The drumming at the beginning of this track puts most recordings to shame.

The Dance on the Volcano/Los Endos twin drum solo on Genesis Seconds Out.

Billy Cobham is a superb drummer - his work is well recorded on Stanley Clarke Live at the Greek

Paul Simon - Late in the evening. Great percussive drumming.

Diana Ross - I'm coming out. Great drums if you can get past the stigma of listening to it loud!

Thin Lizzy - Emerald/Don't believe a word. (from the live album) Awesome fast, powerful drumming with great solos.

Edgar Winter Group - Frankenstein. Good examples of pretty much every rock instrument!

All noble but predictable suggestions.

How about somethign that has been often copied (and sampled) but never bettered?

Funky Drummer by James Brown et al.

I don't know if it's particularly difficult or impressive but the drumming on this sounds pretty good to me, not least because it's carrying the entire track for large parts of the song:

Primus – Tommy The Cat

Rock 'n' Roll by the Mighty Led Zeppelin. 

venetian snares - integraation from "my downfall"

the drums are all sampled but it's a great track to check your system's PRAT.

I'd like to add, Metallica-Enter Sandman, Unforgiven 2----Needless to say the drummer is fan-freakin-tastic. Also, Staind-Outside, not the most complex drum performance but its well recorded enough to enjoy immensely.

Oops, I meant Thin Lizzy "Warriors" from the Live and Dangerous album. That's the one with the great drum solo, after Don't Belive a Word on the album.

John Bonham - MobyDick isn't too bad for a drum solo, no?

And So I Watch You From Afar - Eat The City, Eat It Whole

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9cuqezmOh4

Battles - Atlas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ7dDlkYUkI

Tortoise - Crest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNRY1JmGtvw

The post rock scene has some of the most unusual, imaginative drumming I have heard, a mix of rock and jazz.