I've always been a huge fan of the bass. Even back when I had adolescent daydreams about being in a band it was always the bass I was playing. Not just that I'm not a front-man kinda guy, I just love the bass sounds. Of course I never learnt to play - that would require having some musical talent in my poor clumsy fingers. I love the music though: twanging deep notes, slide swoops, thrumming grooves.. to me it's the instrument that holds the heart of the song: not in the pounding chest-thumping way drums do, but the throbbing flow like blood through the arteries.
Anyway, I'll not bore you with my adoration of Les Claypool and wanting to have his monstrously weird, polydactylian, genius children. Have a read of this Stylus round-up of 50 best basslines (always a subjective thing, but I agree with many of their choices if not entirely the ranking).
Choice excerpts:
"...a nasty wallet stealing bastard of a bassline..." - 'Hallelujah', Happy Mondays
"...the man most likely to play everything in a slapthafuckouttait style." - about Flea (of course)
"...a prowling, unstoppable slither of mystery and horror." - 'Would?', Alice In Chains
"...giving room for Fred Thomas' sublimely simple, impossibly earth-shattering four-note bassline to pour pure liquid pleasure into your brittle, brittle bones." - 'Make It Funky', James Brown
"So magic that even Vanilla Ice couldn't fuck it up." - do I need to tell you which song?
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