10 Greatest Drum Performances In Rock Music History

10. One - Metallica

There are normally two schools of thought when it comes to Lars Ulrich's drumming in Metallica. While many people may cite him as one of the titans of thrash metal, he's not exactly the most stable of drummers of the era, and the test of time has not been kind to his steady rhythm if you watch the live videos of his more recent stuff. As much as James Hetfield gets more credit as the timekeeper with his rhythm guitar, Lars could bring the intensity when he wanted to.

As much as And Justice For All gets labelled as the more progressive metal album by Metallica standards, One is about as thrashy as it gets, blending the ballad style that you got on tracks like Fade to Black and ramping it up in intensity across 7 minutes. Although what Lars does is serviceable for the first half of the song, the moment that the song turns a corner is when he strips everything out and brings out the double bass pedal, with the guitars following his lead right behind him.

Since this song is meant to tell the story of a man suffering from multiple casualties of war, the sound of those kick drums could practically be the machine gun fire, as he recalls the memories of being on the battlefield and being physically torn apart. Even when the tempo increases slightly during the solo section, it's almost like you're getting a peek into this man's state of mind. It might not be the most consistent thing in the world, but being this unhinged is what the human heart rate does when terror fully consumes it.