The Police’s “Walking on the Moon” has an infectious bassline.
I’ve always LOVED John Paul Jones’s work on Ramble On.
The Cure is a great place to start, just because the bass is very prominent in the mix, and the bass lines really drive and define those songs, which makes it more fun to play than, say, Ramones bass parts.
A fun one to learn, which sounds harder than it is, is “Detroit Rock City” by Kiss.
Bernard Edwards’ bassline on, well, just about anything. “Thinking of You” by Sister Sledge, for example.
Two groups - Joy Division and Pixies. Also, thirding The Cure.
For Joy Division - Twenty Four Hours, Dead Souls or Atmosphere. The last is the greatest melodic bassline I’ve ever known. Bar none. Peter Hook is king.
For Pixies? Bone Machine, Gigantic or Planet of Sound. That last…just ROCKS man, like Nitrous to the bloodstream. I wanna have Kim Deal’s babies.
The offspring of Kim and Hooky would be, like, the Jesus of Bass!
Two groups - Joy Division and Pixies. Also, thirding The Cure.
For Joy Division - Twenty Four Hours, Dead Souls or Atmosphere. The last is the greatest melodic bassline I’ve ever known. Bar none. Peter Hook is king.
For Pixies? Bone Machine, Gigantic or Planet of Sound. That last…just ROCKS man, like Nitrous to the bloodstream. I wanna have Kim Deal’s babies.
The offspring of Kim and Hooky would be, like, the Jesus of Bass!
Yeah, the Pixies have some great, simple bass lines. And the bonus to “Gigantic” is that if you can play the bass part and sing it, you’ve basically got the whole song there. There aren’t many songs where you can just sing and accompany yourself on the bass and not have it sound lame.
Apostrophe from Frank Zappa’s Apostrophe CD
2nd/3rd/4th? for Victor Wooten - Flecktones
I second Peter Hook, but would also like to add pretty much any of Andy Rourke’s (The Smiths) stuff.
Absolutely, as is the Night Court theme, though I know some people who dismiss it as “Spyro Gyra jazz.”
I like the beginning of Conan O’Brien’s theme song.
Atomic Dog - P-Funk
Birdland - Weather Report. Jaco’s bass gets way up in the high registers to play lead, then drops down to do rhythm when it’s called for. Still a great song.
“Rock Lobster” is the song that turned me on to the B52s, and it was that amazing bass line that did it.
Captain Beefheart’s bassist did some amazing stuff. I’m blanking on the title, but I saw them perform live once and the bassist went out there and soloed for five minutes to start their set, and it was amazing.
The intro to “Halo of Flies” by Alice Cooper is incredibly catchy.
Almost all of Atlanta Rhythm Section’s stuff has wonderfully lilting bass lines. There’s also a nice bass solo in “Champagne Jam.”
Thank you for putting that song in my head! I just youtubed it, and I am jammin’ now.
Is that a bassline, though? I think now that I don’t really know what a bassline is.
A couple of my favorites are:
Sisters of Mercy’s “Lucretia (my reflection)”
The Cure’s “Fascination Street”.
Here’s a second for that. When we did this song in my college a cappella group, we had to split into 16 parts to cover the craziness at the end of the song. As a bass singer it took me almost two hours to learn to sing the part properly – I suspect you’ll learn to play it about as quickly. Enjoy!
Fantastic. Sample here, but it doesn’t include the bass solo. And it is Nilsson, not Nillsson. Nitpick hat off.
Fantastic.
Wow. Very good.