Sven wrote:John was once asked in an interview if Ringo is the best drummer in the world, to which he replied "...he's not even the best drummer in this band!"
Also, I think the guitar solo in WMGGW is perhaps the worst guitar solo ever recorded. It sounds like the tape got stretched or something, as well as just really sucking. Also, I hate Eric Clapton very much.
Ringo really deserves more credit for some things, and less for others. I think his drumming is pretty solid. He was an early proponent of the back beat. As far as I know, he's basically the godfather of rock drumming. He set all the standards for rock drummers. Arguably, some were set too low. He never showed much in the way of being a songwriter, and wasn't part of the Beatles harmony team, despite singing lead once in a while, or more rarely, contributing a song. As a result, drummers these days rarely make a lot of musical contributions, or even know theory, and don't sing very often or very well. The standard being set where it was, someone like Dave Grohl looks very impressive. Not only is he arguably a better drummer than Ringo, he does some other things too, and quite well. You know, like fronting a hugely successful band. But then he still gets drum gigs like nuts. (Tenacious D, QOTSA, NIN, anyone?) But not everyone can be a badass like that. A nice thing about music is you can do as much or as little as you want to do. I only began to learn to sing and play drums when I realized that I didn't have a band, and wouldn't have one in the foreseeable future, and that nobody wanted to listen to rock instrumentals that didn't even feature a full rock band. But I think it's nice to be versatile.
As far as the solo goes, I believe they put it through the automatic double track, at Clapton's suggestion, because it "didn't sound Beatley enough" at first. That's probably why it sounds all wobbly and gross to you. That said, it is by no means the worst ever. It doesn't stand out as great, but at least its coherent. There are a ton of worse solos out there. Listen to some grunge or something. But if you don't like Clapton, I guess you don't.