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My comment was meant mostly in fun. I am a big fan of 80's music, even Flock of Seagulls who were famous for using drum machines.

I guess the knock against drum machines is that they are too perfect. If you listen carefully to a song and try to block out everything but the drums, there is a distinct difference between pop and rock.

Rock drumming sounds more like jazz drumming where the drummer sometimes lags a little behind or gets a little ahead of the other instruments. This generates a certain amount of tension which can add to the emotional impact of the music.

Pop music can sound a bit sterile with everybody completely in-sync all the time.

Of course you could program a drum machine to drop a little behing or step a little ahead of everyone else, but then even that could get a bit programmatic.

Particular performances can be particularly great because the musicians made the perfect adjustments at that time and that place.

Programming any of that ahead of time and expecting to pull it off would be near impossible IMHO.

Thanks for your answer. I'm not sure that my ear is trained well enough to detect the difference between a talented drummer and a drum machine.

Funny you mention the tension created by the drummer being a little out of sync. I was listening to the Guess Who last night and I thought the drummer and the musicians were not quite together but I thought that sounds neat. I'm guessing that it was done deliberately and wasn't an accident.