Songs with great bass lines

[mhacdebhandia]

"In The Summertime", Thirsty Merc.

"Jump Around", especially as covered by Limp Bizkit. I agree with the earlier comments about their bass player being pretty damn talented.

"Musicology", Prince.

"White Rabbit", Jefferson Airplane.

"My Sharona", the Knack. Especially good in the full-length album version, but more so for its guitar solo.

 

[Joël of the FoS]

Also anything featuring Tony Levin on bass (Peter Gabriel, Liquid Tension Experiment, etc - he gets around). The man has skills. When I saw Peter Gabriel live, Tony Levin played an upright bass with a bow, a more regular-looking bass with drumsticks, and some other cool stuff I don't even remember any more. He's done some independant stuff - look up his cover of the Peter Gunn Theme.

Levin and Gabriel invented the bass stick, and Levin mastered it. Anything he does is indeed excellent (you forgot to mention his King Crimson stuff! I saw it in 84 and I'm still flibbergasted).

His more commercial stuff would be with Peter Gabriel (think of Big Time, or I go swimming, and you'll have a good idea of his "sound").

Joël

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Ginger Baker Trio Al Amut
Retarded Elf Thelonius Punk

My apologies. I had forgotten the artists had some fun with the spelling...

Its Retarted Elf's Felonius Punk. Retarted Elf was a Dallas band that was always on the verge of going big and never did. The album is 1993's Trick Quigger.

Ginger Baker (with MATERIAL [sort of]) doing Alamout. The album is Middle Passage, from 1990. It was this song that exposed me to Jonas Hellborg (the bassist) when it was performed with the trio (Ginger Baker, Shawn Lane, Jonas Hellborg) on BET's Jazz show.

BTW: the late Shawn Lane is as good a guitarist as any. He started off in country at age 16, discovered shred, and then fused it with jazz- he ALWAYS smoked the frets. Think Al Di Miola/Yngwie Malmsteen type speed.

The ambient guitarist, Nicky Scopelitis, also makes an appearance on this album, as does musical chameleon and bassist extraordinaire, Bill Laswell.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Queens of the Stone age - In the Fade; The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret; First it Giveth; Go With the Flow; God is in the Radio

Kyuss -the entirety of the album Sky Valley is a Bass festival, with the exception of the hidden track.

 

[Li Shenron]

Midnight Oil's Power and the Passion

The "Oils" have many songs with nice bass lines, it's quite one of their trademarks, despite of having had three different bassist during their career. They are also very easy-to-play bass lines:

Beds are burning
Truganini
Someone else to blame
Sleep

But almost all their songs are largely unknown outside Australia...

For those who instead can afford to play something more difficult, I think Tony Levin (especially with King Crimson and Peter Gabriel) is a very good reference bassist. Otherwise I'd go with Red Hot Chili Peppers' stuff (Nobody Weird like Me, Walkin' on Down the Road) or Rage Against The Machine (A Bullet in the Head).

 

[BOZ]

i was listening to some Black Sabbath yesterday. they have a lot of great bass songs, like Paranoid, War Pigs, and Iron Man.

 

[kenobi65]

Hey...I mentioned Squire! I picked Heart of the Sunrise!!!!

But yeah..he rocks. I even have a solo album of his.

Was about to mention Mr. Squire, as well.

The one bassline of his that particularly sticks out for me is Owner of a Lonely Heart, though some Yes fans probably dismiss that song because it's under 9 minutes in length.

 

[radferth]

Was about to mention Mr. Squire, as well.

The one bassline of his that particularly sticks out for me is Owner of a Lonely Heart, though some Yes fans probably dismiss that song because it's under 9 minutes in length.

What? More that three songs on an album? They are going soft in their old age.

I did see the mid-ninties Trevor Rabin incarnation of Yes in concert. Of the old timers, Chris Squire looked the oldest by far, but had lost nothing musically. I can't say the same for the other members.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well, Jon Anderson may have lost an octave or 3, but back off Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman!

 

[BOZ]

Glen Moore : Put in a quarter

Rabih Abu Khalil: When the lights go out

sorry, i couldn't find these either.