Stylus Magazine's Top 50 Basslines of AllTime - what's your top 5? (1 Viewer)

[Kirk Gunn]

What Is and What Shall Never Be ? (ok - the rhythm does get some guitar overdub, but that bass line drives me over the edge !)

 

[Arman]

Yup, Rio is awesome, one of my all-time favorites. I just watched in my DVR Duran Duran's spectacularly well-received concert @ Wembley Stadium INHD2 - Rio was their rousing encore performance. And now I could'nt stop playing DD's singles with Rio over and over in my car while driving - my 2 ED 9kv.2 subs love it!

 

[Arman]

JD's Love Will Tear Us Apart also got lot of playing time in my car for a while right after I started this thread.

I'm now appreciating and loving big time the r & b, hip-hop, funk, urban and even more the trance, electronica, chill music genres. [Any good music magazine available in newsstands not unlike Urb?] Could'nt believe that Sirius Hip-hop Nation will be included in my presets.

 

[Joe S]

Two rather obscure ones that come to mind:

"On A Carousel" by The Hollies (spelling?) For an older song it has some amazing bass lines.
"She Belongs To Me" by The Nice (Dylan Tune) A live performance, sounds great.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Not a single example from the stellar works of McCartney or Entwistle but a load of bands no one's ever heard of? Looks like another smug, elitist chart to me...

 

[Mike Broadman]

Kudos for the Mingus and 'Trane.

Probably the most "hooky" jazz bass line of all time is So What by Miles Davis.

 

[Arman]

and now their ...

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/feature.php?ID=1903

 

[Arman]

and this ...

Top 281 Basslines Shamefully Omitted in Stylus List

Did Mojo or Rolling Stone or VH1 ever put up this kind of list? I wonder which satellite station (XM or Sirius) will come up first with a BASS NATION/MANIACS station.

 

[Andrew 'Ange Hamm' Hamm]

Any list of great bass lines that lacks Paul McCartney, John Entwistle, Geddy Lee, Chris Squire, Sting, Tony Levin, and Graham Maby also lacks any credibility. What a gigantic load of crap.

Here's just the tiniest bit of the iceberg that's missing:

Paul McCartney - "Drive My Car" by the Beatles
Tony Levin - "Sledgehammer" (and "Red Rain," "Secret World," "Don't Give Up," "Big Time," etc. etc. etc.) by Peter Gabriel
Chris Squire - "Roundabout" (and "Long Distance Runaround," "Close to the Edge," "Siberian Khatru," "Tempus Fugit," etc. etc. etc.) by Yes
John Entwistle - "The Real Me" by the Who (actually, just about the entire Who Catalog)
Graham Maby - just pick any Joe Jackson song
Sting - just pick any Police song
Geddy Lee - just pick any Rush song

Is the author of this list familiar with the bass guitar or with music in general????? I hate these freakin lists.

 

[ScottCHI]

Taxman and/or Come Together should be on the list, too

how 'bout Feat's Spanish Moon?

 

[Nathan A]

Alright, who does he think he's kidding. Given his clearly expressed opinion of Queen, I think it's pretty unlikely that this would have even made the list (let alone be #1) if it wasn't for Vanilla Ice making the bass line so huge. Then he tries to say that "even Vanilla Ice couldn’t fuck it up." Err, if it wasn't for Vanilla Ice, you wouldn't have even put it on the list, guy.

I second Tony Levin. His work on Liquid Tension Experiment is also great.

And let's not forget John Myung!

 

[MarkMel]

For New Wave fans, just caught King's Love and Pride on Sirius. What a great bass line. I tried to research who played bass but no luck. Anyone know?

I did find out that Paul King was in Mungo Jerry. Remember the song 'In the summertime'?

 

[Bob Turnbull]

Allmusic.com lists Tony Wall as having played "Guitar (Bass)" on King's album Steps In Time which has "Love and Pride". Doesn't look like Tony did much else musically aside from some further engineering and mixing work.

 

[MarkMel]

Cool, thanks. With so much synth bass back then the ones that used real bass always stood out.