10 basslines that are better than the guitar part
In the grand tradition of rock and roll lineups, bassists get a bit of a worse rep than the drummers. For all of the jokes that have been made about drummers being far from the brightest member of the band, bassists may as well be invisible onstage, either looking bored behind the bass drum or playing second fiddle to the ones holding a guitar. The bass has much power in the studio, though, and some of the greatest low-end sounds from Rush and Metallica often overpower the fretboard masters.
Although artists have created songs with brilliant guitar parts attached, the interesting side is always what’s going on in the bass. Since a bassist has to hold down both the rhythm section and the melodic framework of the song, some of the best four-string legends have been known to play around with the melody, going on different tangents that draw the listener’s ear in.
There are even a few songs where the bass becomes much more active than the guitar. If the guitars are used to playing most of the time, both the bassist and guitarists switch roles for the tune, with the bottom end having a chance to shine instead of having to simply follow the riff from beginning to end.
Although most songs benefit from a great bass line now and again, every bassist on this list became a force to be reckoned with, proving they were just as competent with a bass in their hands as the guitarist was with riffs or the singer was with lyrics. The bass might not be every fan’s favourite instrument, but every part they played provided the glue that held the song together.
10 basslines that are better than the guitar part
10. ‘Sabotage’ – Beastie Boys
In the age of sampling, The Beastie Boys were one of the first major hip-hop acts to get in a bit of trouble. After making one of the greatest records of their career on Paul’s Boutique, their excessive use of non-licensed samples landed them one lawsuit after another. Even when they couldn’t rely on someone else’s sick riffs to back their rapping, The Beasties could lay down a great groove by themselves.
Making backing tracks from the ground up, The Beasties flexed their musician chops across albums like Ill Communication, with MCA laying down one of the sickest grooves on ‘Sabotage’. Although most of the song comes back to The Beasties talking about how badass they are, the booming sound of that bass slide makes for one of the best openings to any song, regardless of genre.
It’s only fitting that the video had the band dressing up in cheesy cop outfits as well, sounding like the dramatic music that would soundtrack a glorious car chase through the bowels of New York City, with the law gaining on The Beasties at every turn. MCA might be the more serious Beastie Boy, but his knowledge of laying down a groove was impossible to come by in the glorious days of hip-hop.
9. ‘Schism’ – Tool
Understanding any Tool song is like doing advanced calculus while completing 100 pushups. Even though some of the songs are incredibly demanding from a performance standpoint, it’s immediately more difficult to keep track of all the different time signature changes underneath every track, with drummer Danny Carey never being satisfied with a straight 4/4. Although Tool likes to have advanced concepts in their lyrics, ‘Schism’ was too complex for the guitar to keep up half the time.
For most of the tune, Justin Chancellor is holding everything down with his bass, playing a disorienting riff that changes time signatures halfway through, providing an uneasy feeling for Maynard James Keenan’s vocals to lay on top. Keenan sings about wanting all of his internal pieces to fit, and the bass part responds with something so complex as if to illustrate that everything isn’t quite in its right place.
After Adam Jones’s guitar riffs take centre stage in the mid-section, the breakdown gives way to Chancellor’s juicy bass chords, creating a sonic bed before coming back to the main riff in double time, which is made even more disorienting as the tempo increases. As much as Tool can create complex riffs in their sleep, this bass part would probably need to be charted out for advanced instrumentalists to keep track of their place.
8. ‘The Headmaster Ritual’ – The Smiths
During the 1980s indie-rock scene, no one was doing what Johnny Marr could do. Although the appeal behind the Smiths in the early days was Morrissey going on about the sad state of the world, the charming old-school arpeggios from Marr always kept the audience’s head bouncing, making it sound almost fun to be an outcast. As the opening strains of Meat Is Murder began, though, Andy Rourke may have outshined Marr on a tale about the horrors of Manchester schools.
As Morrissey sings about being abused by his teachers and fellow students, Andy Rourke is flying up and down his bass, always playing off the vocal line and never holding down the root notes. Since this was recorded in an alternate guitar tuning, Rourke matches Marr on every note, never creating fills to sprinkle in but creating intricate parts that keep the audience glued to the story.
Marr is no slouch on the tune either, creating interesting chord extensions that no one would have thought of at the time. Although Rourke’s line could easily be called “too busy” for the tune, his overplaying never gets to the point where it’s distracting. Even when playing some of the best basslines of the indie scene, Rourke never forgot the golden rule of songwriting: serve the song.
7. ‘Jerry Was a Race Car Driver’ – Primus
From day one, Primus always elicited feelings of confusion from their audience. Even years after their prime, there are likely only a handful of people who truly know what the intricacies of songs like ‘Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver’ are actually about. Whenever the band took to the stage, everyone zeroed in on how Les Claypool would abuse his four-string.
Looking at his bass like a lead instrument, Claypool employs different tapping techniques on ‘Jerry Was a Race Car Driver’ using the high register of the bass neck. Although Claypool often uses custom basses with six strings, the tune’s main riff is still impressive on four strings, leaving Larry LaLonde to play ambient guitar noises in the background as Claypool annihilates his fretboard. The tapping on this song is far from Eddie Van Halen’s style.
Whereas most shredders might like to make beautiful melodies, Claypool was about creating a disorienting feeling, often drawn to dissonant harmonies that made people feel uneasy while listening. ‘Jerry Was a Race Car Driver’ might not be the most radio-friendly song in the ‘90s rock canon, but the fact that this tune got a shot on the radio in the ‘90s is astounding. Only in the age of irony could fans see a god among bass players playing nightmare music appear on the hit parade.
6. ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ – Queen
There isn’t a soul on Earth who will ever question Brian May’s guitar capabilities. Throughout his work with Queen, May was always the orchestrator of some of their greatest moments, practically turning his guitar into a mini-symphony on songs like ‘Good Company’ off of A Night at the Opera. For all of May’s great licks, he also knew when to lay back when John Deacon presented something great on a song.
Throughout Queen’s initial run, Deacon was always the group’s unsung hero, penning some big hits for them like ‘You’re My Best Friend’ and ‘I Want to Break Free’. As the band settled into the sounds of pop music, ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ only needed Deacon’s pulse to drive the song, keeping the energy going with as minimal fills as possible.
Even when May comes in with the guitar, he adopts a more percussive style to his playing, either mimicking the bassline verbatim or adding punchy stabs that harken back to disco territory. Thanks to some encouragement from Michael Jackson, Queen included it on their album The Game and turned it into one of the best hits of their career. No matter how many artistic symphonies Queen has made, ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ is a textbook example of doing more with less instrumentality.
5. ‘Money’ – Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd was looking to open the listener’s mind when making Dark Side of the Moon. Having gone through the nightmare of losing Syd Barrett to his own mind, every song on the record was a dissection of what makes one go crazy, from the slow meditation of ‘Breathe’ to realising the world is passing them by on ‘Time’. If the band were talking about the trials and tribulations of life, it was only a matter of time before ‘Money’ got involved.
Although most of Floyd’s greatest songs began in the mind of Roger Waters, his delectable bassline gives ‘Money’ a blues swagger from the top of the tune. While David Gilmour takes the vocals for most of the tune, his guitar is practically playing the same bass line throughout the verses, talking to those entering the corporate world about what it takes to earn wealth, complete with all the awful things that one needs to do to reach the top of the food chain.
Since the band were known for their progressive tendencies, the 7/4 rhythm of the bassline is also a clever bit of tone painting, with the uneven meter suggesting that not everything is quite right with the narrator. Despite having two fantastic Gilmour solos and one of the greatest saxophone lines in rock and roll history, Waters is always there in the background, gently plucking away on the bass as he counts those fat stacks.
4. ‘You Oughta Know’ – Alanis Morissette
Not many people in the ‘90s alternative scene emphasised virtuosity. The traditional “show-off” type of playing was reserved for the teased-hair bands of the ‘80s, and acts like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden provided the pure antithesis of that. The ‘90s also marked the decade for women rockers to come to the forefront, and Alanis Morrissette got some of the best industry for ‘You Oughta Know’.
Although this scolding indictment of Morrissette’s ex is biting, the backing track is funky as hell, provided by Dave Navarro and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Despite Navarro turning in time in Jane’s Addiction, there’s no arguing with Flea’s bassline in the track, always dancing around the chord changes until the chorus, as he digs into the root notes with the same ferocity any punk rock guitarist would have.
Despite having a phenomenal ear for funk jamming, Flea is always paying attention to what line could improve the song, like the end of the first chorus, where he leads into the verse with a few pops on his bass. The show’s star is definitely Morrissette’s voice, but in the few moments when she’s not singing, all of the anger and spite of the tune is contained in Flea’s fingers.
3. ‘Longview’ – Green Day
No one in the world will say that punk rock is the place for ferocious guitar playing. For as many great songs that came out of acts like The Clash and The Ramones, there was a slim chance that any of them could play a convincing shred solo if their lives depended on it. Green Day were always more than just punk fans, though, and Mike Dirnt is practically playing a lead bass throughout ‘Longview’.
For most people not stationed in the Northern California scene, this was one of the first glimpses of Green Day, with Billie Joe Armstrong not even touching his fretboard for the entire verse as Dirnt plods along. Although the tone is still punk because of the ramshackle production and biting tone on his bass, there’s also a playfulness in Dirnt’s playing, almost making the teenage version of a traditional walking bass line.
Since most of the song is about being bored, watching TV and masturbating to pass the time, Dirnt’s bass might as well be the music playing in that random teenager’s head, absent-mindedly scrolling through the TV channels to find something that will alleviate his boredom. Billie Joe Armstrong might have a reputation as a below-par guitarist, but when the songs are this well-written and the basslines sound like this, what’s there to complain about?
2. ‘YYZ’ – Rush
In the leadup to Moving Pictures, Rush had the ingenious idea of working on their next record when on the road. During the soundchecks for the Permanent Waves tour, the Canadian trio were already fine-tuning the songs for their next project, having the genesis of pieces like ‘The Camera Eye’ well before they went into the studio for it. Although every member of a power trio needs to do their part to keep the track together, Alex Lifeson is only looking to serve Geddy Lee on ‘YYZ’.
Named after the airport code in their native Toronto, this instrumental gives the listener the feeling of travelling through a bustling environment, with the main rhythm based around the Morse code for the airport. When the band were tracking the song, most of the tune was dominated by just Lee and Neil Peart before they had the idea to turn it into a song. Although no sections adhere to pop song structure, every member keeps the tune interesting, especially during the bass breaks where Lee rips out some of the most savage lead lines of his career.
Even with the millions of effects pedals that Lifeson might like to use during some of his atmospheric solos, Lee is holding down every minute of this song, only putting down the bass for a few seconds to man the keyboards before coming back in with some of the most rapid-fire licks he can think of. Rush’s approach to music might have seemed too alien to be on the pop charts, but for an instrumental to capture this much energy and remain catchy is as pure a song as they can muster.
1. ‘Orion’ – Metallica
Much of Metallica’s early success with musical parts can be attributed to Cliff Burton. Although most of the riffs may have been written by James Hetfield, even he admitted that Burton’s knowledge of musical theory had a huge impact on them when it came to arranging and harmonising their guitar parts. Since Burton knew how to harmonise every great part the band could throw at him, it was only a matter of time before he had a bass harmony part of his own.
Towards the tail end of Master of Puppets, ‘Orion’ is the one instrumental where Burton decides to take centre stage. While the initial riff was designed to be a part of ‘Welcome Home (Sanitarium)’, hearing Burton flesh out his creation is one of the most musical sections of Metallica’s catalogue, going from fierce riffs to one of the most melodic figures Burton ever made. Indebted to classical music, the mid-section practically feels like a recital piece with electric guitars, as Burton layers one harmony on top of another before they are all creating a symphony of guitars.
As the mid-section ends, Burton doesn’t hold back anymore, going on a long bass solo as the rest of the band play power chords beneath him. From there, Burton goes all over the map, playing long classical runs on his bass and even overdubbing another bass part so he can harmonise with himself before returning to the main riff to play out the track. Burton tragically never got to perform the song live following his tragic death in a bus accident in 1986. The studio version was played at his funeral to memorialise his massive gift for melody.
