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Simple-ish Bassists Who Kicked Ass!

How do you like your bassists?

  • Extremely technical (Jaco Pastorius style on Heavy Weather.)

    Votes: 26 12.0%

  • Moderately technical (John Deacon style on just about every Queen album.)

    Votes: 122 56.5%

  • In the middle (Mike Dirnt style on Dookie.)

    Votes: 33 15.3%

  • Less technical (Krist Novoselic style on Nevermind.)

    Votes: 20 9.3%

  • Simple as simple can be (Dee Dee Ramone style on the Ramone's eponymous debut.)

    Votes: 12 5.6%

  • Can barely play one note (Sid Vicious style.)

    Votes: 3 1.4%
  • Total voters
    216
#121
Kaden Daniels said:
I love Tame and the basslines but the new music is complete poopie except.... For the basslines are awesome but missed the rock
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It's funny. I've waited months for July 17 to get here to check out the new Tame Impala, and I ended up spending most of what free time I had yesterday listening to an album that was surpise-released the night before (Wilco-Star Wars). Based on the singles, I had a feeling I wouldn't love the new Tame Impala (although Let It Happen is one of their best songs yet), but I was hoping the rest of the album would have more guitars. No such luck. I'll give it some time to grow on me, and I'm all for artists making music they want to make. In the end I guess I just prefer the sound of a band over one guy composing on a computer.

With that said, in my opinion, the new Wilco is quite good!
 
#126
I'm sure I will take a beating for these (well, at least one of them) but here we are, seven pages into this thread and no one has mentioned Ross Valory from Journey:



The guy has one of the most memorable and often played bass lines in rock history (Don't Stop Believin') and found some nice sonic space between the guitar and piano and ALWAYS played for the song.

In addition to cutting my bass playing teeth mimicking his bass lines from Journey's albums, I also went deep into the REO Speedwagon catalog and bass stylings of Bruce Hall in the early/mid 80's. He will certainly be overlooked simply because he's part of this particular band (and all the disdain that comes with a successful AOR outfit) but his bass playing, for me, really taught me about phrasing, pocket and melody as part of the bass line. Again, his abilities may have been technically limited, but he always put what was needed into the songs.
 
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#127
The first time I remember being completely blown away by a bassist was listing to JPJ on Led Zeppelin 2.

I've always loved Roger Waters' playing.

Colin Greenwood from Radiohead is a fave for his ability to play just right and find his space in a band that has three guitarists.

This is an odd pick: Lou Barlow/Jason Loewenstein from Sebadoh. They're dirty, they grind hard and they fill out a lot of space in a power trio line-up. Barlow's work with Dinosaur Jr. is great too.
 
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#128
Duck Dunn, Tina Weymouth, and Carl Radle in his early years.

And most especially the late Pete Farndon with the original Pretenders lineup. That guy was absolutely brilliant when he was working with Chrissie Hynde. He was a punk bass player's punk bass player.

Another unsung "get the job done" great from back in the 60-70s was Phil "Fang" Volk who was the bassist in the original lineup of Paul Revere and the Raiders. Silly costumes and clownish stage act aside, Fang was a monster.

Check it out:



 
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#129
jbl71004 said:
It's funny. I've waited months for July 17 to get here to check out the new Tame Impala, and I ended up spending most of what free time I had yesterday listening to an album that was surpise-released the night before (Wilco-Star Wars). Based on the singles, I had a feeling I wouldn't love the new Tame Impala (although Let It Happen is one of their best songs yet), but I was hoping the rest of the album would have more guitars. No such luck. I'll give it some time to grow on me, and I'm all for artists making music they want to make. In the end I guess I just prefer the sound of a band over one guy composing on a computer.

With that said, in my opinion, the new Wilco is quite good!
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Yah all in all the Basslines are some of the best on currents
 
#130
lbbc said:
Some of my favorite influential bassists already mentioned:
Dennis Dunaway--Alice Cooper
Mel Schacher---Grand Funk Railroad
Michael Anthony-very underrated bassist with incredible vocals
Donald Duck Dunn--his role in the Blues Brothers movie made me an instant fan
I'm adding:
Timothy B. Schmit--Eagles (bass lines that fit perfectly and awesome vocalist)
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Managed to see Alice Cooper a bunch of times until he fired the real band and hired the never were studio musicians then never went to another of his shows.
Dennis Dunaway always played perfectly. Great bass lines and tone that a lot of us wish we could get.
 
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#131
A. D. Fairhurst said:
We all know that Pastorius, Wooten, Miller, etc... are great players who sound like God put a spell on their bass. But let us take a moment to think about some bassists who didn't need to play 50 different notes per second to be good...I'll start!

Krist Novoselic-The things he did with a Gibson Ripper on Nevermind are amazing. Full stop.

Mike Dirnt-Kerplunk and Dookie are just filled with bass-playing goodness without being overtly technical.

Mark Evans and Cliff Williams-AC/DC's bassmen both played what the song needed and let the guitar do the main work.

Paul Simonon-The bassline-of-doom on London Calling says more than my words ever can.

I'll come up with more as time goes on, but for now, it's your turn!
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For simple-ish Bassist I liked the bassist of U2 he did not even know how to play the Bass and he just started doing what he could do with U2 keeping the rhythm going learned little by little keeping it simple, then when they did that rooftop song "Streets Have No Name" and "In The Name Of Love" his Bass sounds awesome, nice and simple but a catchy Bass line for sure. Thanks to the big fat FENDER P-BASS he used pluged into his ALL TUBE AMPEG HEADS, that's what makes those songs sound so good, he really had a mean sounding Fender he played, just doing simple stuff.
 
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#137
Dan Bass said:
For simple-ish Bassist I liked the bassist of U2 he did not even know how to play the Bass and he just started doing what he could do with U2 keeping the rhythm going learned little by little keeping it simple, then when they did that rooftop song "Streets Have No Name" and "In The Name Of Love" his Bass sounds awesome, nice and simple but a catchy Bass line for sure. Thanks to the big fat FENDER P-BASS he used pluged into his ALL TUBE AMPEG HEADS, that's what makes those songs sound so good, he really had a mean sounding Fender he played, just doing simple stuff.
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That would be Adam Clayton. An excellent bass player to be sure.

I guess you could say he's arrived now that Fender has two gorgeous CS signature models (a J and a P) with his moniker on them.
 
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#139
Dan Bass said:
For simple-ish Bassist I liked the bassist of U2 he did not even know how to play the Bass and he just started doing what he could do with U2 keeping the rhythm going learned little by little keeping it simple, then when they did that rooftop song "Streets Have No Name" and "In The Name Of Love" his Bass sounds awesome, nice and simple but a catchy Bass line for sure. Thanks to the big fat FENDER P-BASS he used pluged into his ALL TUBE AMPEG HEADS, that's what makes those songs sound so good, he really had a mean sounding Fender he played, just doing simple stuff.
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Bullet in the Blue Sky is just about the most underrated bassline ever put to record. Simple, yet thunderously amazing.
 
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