Of course they all 'played a role'. That doesn't matter; it's very seldom where bands have members that contribute absolutely zero to the sound. Even the most out-of-the-know drummers typically formulate their own patterns.
What matters is, that when Cale LEFT the band, the band became less inventive, more reserved, and 'worse'. And it's not coincidental. He was obviously the driving force behind what made them so great. So what if everybody else did their share? His share was clearly the most important in making the band an original force to be reckoned with. If that weren't the case, their next 2 albums (3 if you count that Doug Yule trainwreck) would have carried equal merit to the first 2. Moe clearly could drum like a monster at times ("Sister Ray"), so why is it that she never even came CLOSE to doing anything remotely mindblowing/original on their 3rd/4th album? Without Cale's presence, they were perfectly fine with settling down to writing pop tunes, even though they were capable of far more amazing things. Nothing wrong with that, but give Cale credit where credit is due.
And I personally find their self-titled to be a great album, too, but I'd be lying if I said it were up to par with WL/WH and & Nico in terms of original sound and generally awesomeness.
|