good examples of artists who don't really play an instrument very well

http://kelston.org.uk/assets/images/troggs.jpg

By very well do you mean obviously flawed playing, or simple playing? If it's the latter, you're going to get about a thousand answers. If it's the former, I really think it's a question of either texture (broken sounding folk music like Islaja) or the personality of the player (Jandek). Then again, I've seen bands who purposefully play loose to give an affect of amateurism, which doesn't make sense to me.

u kno, i would go with simple/flawed. maybe not obviously, but i do think i would like to include both those domains.

This isn't exactly related to the thread topic, but drone and ambient music don't necessarily require (technical, playing) skill as much as a good ear. For that reason, it's hard to explain to people what's good about it without saying "I like how this sounds." You might end up getting a lot of that here, but not as much because of the sound, but because of an emotional connection to the candor of making music even though you're not totally proficient.

Kurt Cobain

oft. cited as not a very good guitar player, technically speaking, but his style was absolutely essential to Nirvana, can't imagine it any other way.

btw, i'm not even a fan.

oft. cited as not a very good guitar player, technically speaking, but his style was absolutely essential to Nirvana, can't imagine it any other way.

Nirvana is a great example of where skill as a limiting factor contributed to a somewhat unique and effective aesthetic. I also think that his lack of proficiency kind of polarizes people towards or against Nirvana (especially people who obsessively read Guitar World magazine and refuse to listen to it because it doesn't meet their standard of technicality). I don't think that means they don't like the sound of it, it just means it doesn't suit their ego to listen to something that's been described as simple, even if it's also been described as amazing in the same stroke.

brian eno
sandy denny

Brian Eno

Is there anywhere that it specifically says Eno wasn't proficient? I'm just curious. It seems like none of the stuff he made really required chops, but I find it difficult to accept that the guy has played music for so long and not developed, particularly since he has such a good singing voice.

actually, i think he's always exaggerated his lack of chops

The Edge

sandy denny

Sorry, I don't understand this one, her piano and guitar playing are perfectly proficient.

Obvious answer = Lou Reed

Meg White

The Raincoats.

bernard sumner springs to mind.

The Kinks. There's an article by Lester Bangs where he says that their dire performance on Shindig, in particular Dave Davies' guitar playing, put him off buying their album for a few months.

Early Pete Townshend - an example of an asthetic coming out of a musician's limitiations in technical ability.

Noel Redding - was a guitar player who played bass, his simple bass style was as much a part of the Experience's sound as Mitchell's drumming.

Thelonious Monk.

the lads in bush

The real issue here is how to define competency. Every style of music has its own technical needs, with roots in social as well as musical aspects of the form.

Sure you probably wouldn't want to hear Kurt Cobain try to play like some prog-rock god (or, at least, most prog fans wouldn't want to), but you also wouldn't want to hear an album of, say, Segovia playing rockabilly hits. In both cases, they don't have the requisite chops or sensibilities to perform convincingly.

Consider most crossover projects. Most big voiced operatic singers don't have a clue about singing pop music, most classical instrumentalists can't swing their way into an Ellington tune, despite the long history of fusion projects, most (older) jazz players don't have a clue about how to play rock.

Many musicians who are rightly considered to be great in their chosen field are great largely because of their understanding of how to use their technical limitations to their advantage. You don't put on a Miles Davis record when you want to hear someone play like Maynard Ferguson. Davis' trumpet tone is small, his pitch is often off, he can rarely play very fast or very high, he can rarely hold a note steady for a long time, but no one could do what Davis actually did better.

Keith Emerson is a great boogie woogie pianist though.

Bob Dylan has a technically very limited mastering of all of his "instruments", including his voice.

cat power maybe

Thelonious Monk.
You're on crack.

Nirvana
you're on crack.

Is there anywhere that it specifically says Eno wasn't proficient? I'm just curious. It seems like none of the stuff he made really required chops, but I find it difficult to accept that the guy has played music for so long and not developed, particularly since he has such a good singing voice.

Kind of impossible to judge in his case, since he doesn't play live. No way to know if his parts on a record are taken from the 200th take, or tweezed together from 200 takes, or caught in one. But as said above, he doesn't really deal in arrangements that require flashy playing.

Herb Levy OTM. If you can play your instrument in a compelling and interesting way, you can play it "well." If anything, musicians who can do this are much harder to come by than musicians who can play with extreme proficiency.