Is fretless decreasing in popularity?

[darwin-bass]

I believe it has declined is popularity with the music audience. Probably peaked in the 80's. There seem to be few fretless offerings these days.

I play fretless but honestly I'm simply choosing to play for my own enjoyment rather than because the song or audience demand it.

 

[Klangfarbe]

I don't know what you guys are talking about.

 

[Sloppy Hack]

I think there is more interest in fretless, but it is short-lived.

Players are lured by the challenge of playing fretless, but don’t invest the time necessary to play up to their fretted proficiency , and simply give up.

Some aren’t attracted to fretless at all.

It’s the same with acoustic bass guitars; some love them, some don’t.

Different strokes.

Mike

And I like fretless acoustic.

 

[Sloppy Hack]

Duplicate post. Whoops.

 

[imurrx]

Fretless players are like SAAB owners. If you owned a SAAB and a Fretless, then you understand.

 

[micguy]

Fretless hit a pop music crescendo during the mid 80s....after that, it became a flavor punctuated here or there

There may have been a crescendo of sorts, but one guy was getting most of the fretless gigs in that period. Does that count as popularity? Not sure what to make of that.

 

[djero44]

I played fretless bass primarily for a long time. Due to some hand issues I stepped back from playing strings in general for a number of years (focusing on drums and percussion), but thankfully I am doing much better now. I've switched to short scale and recently bought a 31" fretless that is a really cool and fun instrument. I will always keep my fretless Corvette, which I have performed with a lot and love to record with.

As a sound engineer, I'd say out of 1000 bandsI maybe have seen one or two fretless electric basses? I do work with a lot of upright players, mostly bluegrass and folk.

I have to agree that the fretless is a relatively specific sound, and if I am going to play it intending to sound like a fretted bass I will generally take the easier route; especially if I am singing.

I am using my new fretless exclusively for a gig coming up. As four musicians we are accompanying a silent film from 1926 that is considered one of the first fantasy films: 'The Adventures Of Prince Akhmed' It's an awesome project, and the fretless is necessary because one of the players is using microtonal instruments, as well as some that are just tuned wonky. There's a lot of percussion and effects, it's going to be very fun! (Edit- technically it's not really a silent film, and we are definitely not playing the original score, lol)

The Adventures of Prince Achmed - English Subtitles : Lotte Reiniger : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

 

[sid sonic]

feel the force Luke...I call them "foolish frets" for a reason...oops, sounds like a saab story to me !...ss

 

[thewildest]

And if everything was as you described nobody would play those instruments because they're too hard...especially men.

Well, if nobody played them, there would be no way to classify adoption by gender.

 

[bikeplate]

Love mine but dont think they were ever all too popular

 

[bass.slinger]

Does not help that the average music lover cannot tell the difference between fretted, fretless, and keyboard bass…

 

[swarfrat]

Man this thread is depressing me. Not because i want it to be popular. But because it makes me feel like I got no business messing around on fretless. Yeah, i got a ways to go but its fun, i like it, and its not like I'm aiming to play in a bar band.

 

[Rib 13]

There may have been a crescendo of sorts, but one guy was getting most of the fretless gigs in that period. Does that count as popularity? Not sure what to make of that.

- Brad Lang did all the fretless on ABCs "Lexicon Of Love" album and he also played fretless on ABCs hit single "Be Near Me" from the How To Be A Zillionaire album
- Sting had a period of playing fretless on some songs live with The Police. There are a few recorded too but I dont remember which ones
- Mick Karn did a lot of fretless for the band Japan: a lot of 80s UK pop producers were trying to pick up where Japan left off
- John Taylor used fretless on a few Duran Duran songs like "Lonely In Your Nightmare" in that mid 80s time period but hasnt touched it since I dont think
- Nick Beggs uses fretless on a few of the post-"googoo" Kaja albums from that time period
--Theres many more......

Fretless bass (along with saxophone) was a mid-80s flavor that added an air of class and sophistication to pop music

Not to mention Tony Franklin was adding fretless on a lot of rock songs in that time period with The Firm

 

[Matthew_84]

its fun, i like it

You have every reason to play fretless right here

 

[BadSanta1281]

Fretless players are like SAAB owners. If you owned a SAAB and a Fretless, then you understand.

I used to be a sales manager at a SAAB dealership.

Pretty sure I'm picking up what you're putting down.

 

[2thAche]

Well, before the 50s there was no fretted bass, so definitely it's less popular now. As far as since the first electric fretless, I don't see it being any more or less popular. It's a niche thing for it to actually make it into popular music, but I think many bass players have them and love them for the melodic qualities they bring. I can't think of not having a fretless, but gigging with one is a different story

 

[cxcxcx]

Niche instrument, with a small but very dedicated number of practitioners. but I haven’t observed a big increase or decrease in its overall popularity over the last few decades. There was a massive upswing in popularity that started with Jaco and maybe leveled out after Pino was playing on an endless stream of Pop hits. It was part of the sound of the times.

You may not hear or see a lot of fretless these days on large media platforms in use by the biggest bands on huge hits. Those days are in the past. I’ve always encountered a number of players that use it a lot on the local scene all around the country. This makes me think there’s still an active but more anonymous interest in it that hasn’t decreased.

 

[SteveCS]

The topic of the thread is "Is fretless decreasing in popularity?" If you can't name a song made within the past 20 years that was made with fretless, then I'd say "Yes, the popularity of fretless is decreasing".

I've no doubt there are plenty, but you did say "...that has charted...". The diminishing relevance of such charts and dominance of them by 'recording artists' hardly makes for a true measure of anything. Not only that, as far as most chart music goes, the current trend in production values make the bass on much of it is so devoid of character and definition there would be no point turning up with anything but a fretted P-bass with flats.

 

[JRA]

we don't hear it as much in the wider world of music because it's such a uniquely fretless sound. And in a world of "Everything must sound like a P Bass!" (ok, not really, but you know what i mean,) fretless is so left field sounding, nobody wants the bassist to actually record one on their songs, even if they think it's really cool.

"featuring" a fretless player on fretless usually only happens when we hear those great singing lines with all the mwah, vibrato, fretless-schmaltzy stuff with which the instrument has been mostly associated. but you don't have to play a fretless for a long time to know that it can be effectively used in most situations calling for 'a bass'.

all of the fretless players i know do the 'fretless thing' to amuse others. otherwise, it's just another bass instrument with obvious advantages over fretted EBs --- e.g., you can make a fretless sound like a fretted, but you can't make a fretted sound like fretless!

a lot of the posters on this thread think of fretless as something only a 'jaco' would do, a "niche" instrument with a sound no more valuable than an "effect" --- i think you'd have to actually play one in a variety of circumstances to know any better.

edit: a lot of the examples in this thread are featuring 'the fretless sound', but many of the examples are just bass parts which happen to be played with a fretless EB:
Examples of Fretless bass in "pop" songs

 

[MultiScaleMale]

I've no doubt there are plenty, but you did say "...that has charted...". The diminishing relevance of such charts and dominance of them by 'recording artists' hardly makes for a true measure of anything. Not only that, as far as most chart music goes, the current trend in production values make the bass on much of it is so devoid of character and definition there would be no point turning up with anything but a fretted P-bass with flats.

I said “charted” because anyone can put together a recording today so I wanted to cut out the albums that have the “< 1000” listens so we would be more closely comparing apples to apples.