I honestly find locking into a groove to be overrated. Not in the sense that it isn’t good. It is. But it’s just one of the many ways to arrange music and often can sound boring if that’s all that is done. I’m a songwriter who is very into developing interesting arrangements and I like the bass to carry some kind of melody. Bass lines that anchor to drum beats are often root notes and they bore me after a while. I honestly prefer steady eighths (U2, Pixies, etc.) if you’re going to do a bass trope because at least then you hear the bass and it becomes the pulse of the music. Maybe that’s because of the genres I like, but I like to hear the bass outside of the beat. The drummer already has a beat. I don’t really see why the bass needs to follow it unless the bass needs to disappear for a while.
Ok I get it. It works in some genres, especially in genres where the drummer plays syncopated. But it fails in many others. Can you imagine how ridiculous disco or house would sound if the bassist played four to the floor? In these genres, the bassist almost needs to stay out of the bass drum’s way in order to establish the dance beat. Can you imagine Beatles if Paul locked into Ringo’s groove? It would sound ridiculous.
There are many indie and alt rock songs where drummers play complicated beats inspired by electronic or dance music but the rest of the musicians need to carry a rock groove. The absolute wrong approach in that kind of music is for anyone in the band to even acknowledge when the drummer changes a groove. Radiohead songs are this way.
Locking in with the bass drum, it’s just like one of what I think of as three basic ways to play. You can lock in with the drummer. Or you can set your own steady rhythm independently of the drum beat. Or you can establish your own melodic center that perhaps is not rhythmically based. I think of those three as equally preferable in music.
