every instrument is important but the guitar is what makes the difference between a rocking song and a ROCK song... you can replace/remove any other instrument but the guitar HAS to be there in order for it to be rock...

You need drums more energy= better music
IF you didnt every single band would sound like Neil Young

how much guitar is there on radiohead's kid A? now, some may disagree here, but kid A is one of the greatest albums of our time. and if need a more specific example ofa song that "rocks" without guitar, try kid A's "The National Anthem".

As chrisarclark said, I think it depends on the type of music being played. Some bands just wouldn't be the same without their vocalist, whilst for others, the musicians behind the vocals are what make the band unique.

If pushed, I'd go for drums, then bass. From playing in a couple of bands its my experience that an inconsistent drummer can really do damage in a live situation. Without a good drummer and bassist to keep the music chugging along, the rest of the group will sound dodgy at best. In any case, guitarists are two a penny

while the national anthem is a rocking song it doesn't ROCK... it's so close... but they held back... johnny greenwood chose to make funny sounds with random electronics instead of his guitar... it sounds cool and all but in terms of pure rock fury... it could have been so much better...

and the rest of that album (while good) is hardly what i'd call a great rock album...

whatever, its as fookin rock as any stoopid jimmypage noodling or whathavyou. and iknow that this is the "Rock" forum and that kid A isnt the most "rockin" album in the world, but it is one of the best and songs like 'Anthem' and 'Optimistic' and 'Idioteque' rock juste as much as anything, if not in the traditional trodden sense.



perfect. its like yure speaking through me.

but see... read the initial post not just the topic title... this is about TRADITIONAL rock... as much as i like radiohead... their newer stuff isn't what i'd call traditional (especially not Kid A)...

and it's not about musicians (or their abilities) it's about the instruments themselves... yes a shitty drummer will kill a band faster than anything else... but ANY shitty musician is going to kill the band...

you can get extra fucking close but you will NEVER be full on ROCK without a guitar...

drums are more important. if we do want to talk traditional rock [and apparently we do] than live performance is key and it is impossible to fora rock act to perform without drums. you can hav bands [the inbreds for one] who perform juste drum and bass and vocal and though they dont necessarily rockout ala zepplin and the like, they can create a rock performance. now, take away the drums from a live rock act and what do you get? thats right country or acoustic rock which is not "rock" at all.

really, its juste a silly argument. you can say one instrument is more important than another within a song- its the song that matters. thats why bands like van halen suck so much- they think its the instruments [specifically the lead guitar solos which completely exist apart from the actual song and ruin anything they ever do as they end up juste writing God-awful tunes around ridiculous eddie posturing].

Come on now, how can these instruments you keep bringing up even hope to compare...

...everyone knows that the Didgeridoo rules all!

The whole point of a band is for all the sounds to blend together, to form one sound. You can't have a rock band without a guitar, just like you can't have one without a bass or percussion. Without the rhythm section, the guitar would be lost chords and solos. Without a lead part, the rhythm section would just be a series of repeated beats. Same goes with vocals; without a band to back them up, the sound doesn't appear to be complete.