Shitty Basslines

Name and shame the worst offenders ITT.

american pie by madonna?

Oh gosh. I also hate shitty basslines. Or, I hate bands with bassists where you can't hear the bassline properly. I like to be able to 'ride' the bassline through the whole tune. Noel Gallagher set the world back immensely by saying "a bassline never made a song good". Idiot.

Of course I'm drawing a blank right now, because I tend not to spend much time listening to tracks with shitty bass. But it is the quickest way to make me not like music, though I probably wouldn't immediately be able to articulate why I didn't like it.

not 'shitty' per se, but Husker Du's "Standing by the Sea" loses points with me for occasionally getting lodged in my head, remaining there for days at a time

if you just mean "inaudible basslines" then I'd like to introduce a vast swath of amateurishly-recorded metals into this thread

Return of the Pixies [Started by My name is Kenny (My name is Kenny) in September 2003, last updated Tuesday, January 28, 2014 1:58 PM by Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative) on I Love Music] 1 new answer
Shitty Basslines [Started by these birches is awful (Branwell Bell) in January 2014, last updated Tuesday, January 28, 2014 1:58 PM by my collages, let me show you them (bernard snowy) on I Love Music] 4 new answers

^^^^This just made me laugh so much, because of Kim Deal's YouTube rant about "REAL BASS PLAYERS".

But Kim Deal is one of those bass players who breaks every single rule about what makes a shitty bassline, and somehow makes all of her bassline awesome.

tell me these 'rules' and perhaps it will jog yr memory of the worst offenders?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXaobvYqWsw

if you just mean "inaudible basslines" then I'd like to introduce a vast swath of amateurishly-recorded metals into this thread ― my collages, let me show you them (bernard snowy)

I like the new Warpaint album so much 90% because of the interplay between bass and rums. It's delicious.

I was a bit nonplussed by the eponymous La Dusseldorf album when i picked it up recently because I didn't notice much in the way of basslines.

okay wow that poison song is all-but unlistenable

Well, my "rules" on bassline playing is along the lines of "fuck root notes; never play 4/4 with the kick drum, it's too plodding; syncopate; harmonise; melodic counterpoint" and pretty much all of Kim Deal's basslines are 4/4 root note playing, but they're still awesome anyway because they serve as such an anchor.

tbh I don't think bass can be played shittily. Dumb luck bassists always seem to fall into great, intuitive bass lines. As bass players get more technically proficient, their intuitive genius is replaced by slappy hilariousness. It always adds up to 10. A shitty bass line is a non-existent bass line. I can think of four worse things about that Poison song than the bass

The most-maligned bassist ime is Jaco on Joni and people are stupid his bass is great

yeah, i don't think i notice if a bassline is shitty or boring, but i def notice when one is great.

I get very irritated by "the U2 bassline" that so many bands trot out (I don't know what it is compositionally as I don't play anything, but I suspect it's probably very close to "4/4 root note playing" - it just goes 'dumdumdumdum-dumdumdumdum") because it seems so plodding and unimaginitive, but in the right context it's absolutely driving and effective and powerfully emotive.

the hardest thing about bass playing is trying not to let the low strings ring when you hit the high strings.

I'm more inclined to remember great / imaginitive / enjoyable basslines, but I sure notice the crappy / boring / unimaginitive ones at the time.

I can think of a hundred great electric bass lines but not a single bad one tbh

Yeah, the U2 bassline of anthemic rock is ground zero of shitty basslines BUT

You know who owns this thread? Flea owns this thread. Basslines so bad they made *me* hate Thom Yorke. Now that's shitty.

Have gone back & forth over the Chris Squire school of bass but that's such a cliche I don't even any more.

the Chris Squire school of bass? name names ffs, it's your thread man!

apparently Lennon's bassline on The Long And Winding Road is especially shitty but i haven't heard it in a long time

TLAWR is especially shitty as a song so best avoided bassline and all.

something about the bassline bugs me in this - sorry Linkwood!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwjZEaCucyI#t=84

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T5hYlUsQ0s

The first 30 seconds or so are really very nice. then it all goes to shit quickly.

Come on, that sproingling Roundabout bass. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it, but Yes wouldn't be Yes without it.

I suppose that's more the tone than the bassline, like how can anyone make a Rickenbacher sound so terrible? But they are tricky basses to get a good tone out of bcz their default thing they do is sproingling.

Guys, please. My bandwidth! Instead of/as well as a YouTube link please could you say name & track? Thanks!

there are loads of songs where the bassline is not shitty as in the notes sound shitty, but i'm thinking they could have done so much more with this song, like a missed opportunity, an open goal and you shanked it.

This isn't about you and your bandwidth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPcyTyilmYY

recorded the afternoon after Flea got his first fretless. It sounds like it.

Well you know if you don't give a name/track you are essentially just posting a random string of characters next to a YouTube URL. This is not conducive to any kind of discussion.

This is not about you.

To me, the shittiest basslines are the ones that the ones that are just preposterously overplayed, distracting from rather than being part of the song they're in. (e.g. Flea as alluded to by BB above.) To illustrate, check out this version of "Here Comes The Sun" from the justly maligned Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie. The bass player is apparently trying to bring the operation down from the inside, with ridiculous 16th-note flurries and leaping all over the neck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZVAhfXKLqg

There are two bassists credited on the album: David Hungate, who was a member of Toto and a sought-after session guy, and Wilbur Bascomb, best known for playing with Jeff Beck on Wired. Whomever it was, they definitely were overthinking things here.

Good day to you, sir.

Yes, Phil D, that is definitely the school of shitty bassplaying that infuriates me the most. Showy overplaying for the pointlessness of it.

That mix on "Here Comes the Sun" isn't doing anybody any favors, for sure -- but to me, well executed pretentious bass bullshit trumps pretentious clam stew, like the Flea and Ron Wood examples I posted. Bascomb's playing (for I think it is he) is silly as hell, but he pulls it off, so it's less "oh my God turn that OFF" to my ears.

I don't have a vested interest in AFP but the couple gigs I saw, Flea was the best thing going, personal opinion obv

Flea at his best is terrific, no question.

Haha, the bassist on that Here Comes the Sun clip was taking the piss surely.

I think more likely some coked-up producer kept yelling "more like that! YEAH!! YEAH!!!" at him.

Fuck me @ that version of HCTS. wtf even is that movie?! Never heard of it, thank fuck.

O, I am not inclined to take your opinion on AfP seriously as you don't actually like RH, do you?

yeah, the lennon one on TLAWR is bad. I have nothing against simple lines but this is close to incompetence !

Off topic, but I think Scik needs to see this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-2SOVJKOqo

xp

OMG, Scik Mouthy, you are not familiar with the great Robert Stigwood Turns The Bee Gees Into The Beatles Once And For All Film? It is . . . I mean, it's so legendarily bad it isn't even funny. I believe the whole thing is on YouTube. Let's just say that, after 90 minutes of Steve Martin singing "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and Frankie Howerd (!!!!) singing "Mean Mr. Mustard" and Donald Pleasance (!!!??!?!) singing "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," the movie has the audacity to end with BILLY PRESTON SINGING "GET BACK."

Re: that "Here Comes the Sun," I like to think they just gave Bascomb or Hungate a lead sheet and tempo but didn't actually tell him what the song was.

In conclusion, the movie also features "She's Leaving Home" song by vocoder robots. The end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAnK8YWpZD4

You know who owns this thread? Flea owns this thread. Basslines so bad they made *me* hate Thom Yorke.

Or...basslines so good they made me *like* Thom Yorke.

That Tool guy (the second one) with his unrestrained flanger and open string pedal bass intros zzzzzzz

You know who owns this thread? Flea owns this thread. Basslines so bad they made *me* hate Thom Yorke. Now that's shitty.

Whenever I engage in a situation where someone tries to defend RHCP, their last line of defense tends to be 'B-b-b-b-but you have to like Flea, he's an AMAZING bassplayer', which isn't wrong if you consider the incidental music from Seinfeld to be some sort of musical zenith.

Bascomb is known for that so-called chickin' pickin' style, Hungate is not.

x-post the incidental music from Seinfeld is played on a keyboard.

there's a good chunk of flea's basslines that are not all that slaptastic guys.

RHCP still suck.

wow, never knew Flea played on 'You Oughta Know'!

xxxxp

Linkwood - Ignorance is Bliss (this was the youtube)
New Order - Blue Monday

New Order - Blue Monday

You are dead to me. Dead.

Even deader than people who try to defend RHCP by going "they're not ~all~ slappy!"

(As if it's merely slappy basslines one objects to in Flea - popping and slapping is fine if you are in Chic or Funkadelic, it is something *other* than the poppy-slapping that makes Flea so utterly unlistenable.)

Worst Beatles bass line is "Helter Skelter". I mean, sure, it's a trashy song, but holy hell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PxVrOuMxy0

I'm not crazy about slap bass and low-end acrobatics, but Flea and Jaco have really grown on me. It's taken a long time though.

Kinda hard really to separate shitty basslines from shitty bassists. John Entwistle was obviously one of the best, but even he hated this song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl9bvuAV-Ao

I like "Taste the Pain" from "Mother's Milk," because it shows how much better Flea would be with Fishbone's drummer.

Opposite of shitty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrAOmIxbUus

Love how bored he looks. And how, well, Flea-ish he sounds.

there are loads of songs where the bassline is not shitty as in the notes sound shitty, but i'm thinking they could have done so much more with this song, like a missed opportunity, an open goal and you shanked it.

This isn't a bad performance, but the breakdown at :51 sums up the above statement for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8YHplnn60U

There's a funny bit in a live Who compilation video where Pete Townshend says his favorite song to play live is "Magic Bus."

Cut to John Entwistle: "I really hated playing 'Magic Bus.'"

"bl9bvuAV-Ao&fs=1" by The Who? yeah, that's such a great song. Why would anyone not want to play that.

And "H8YHplnn60U&fs=1" by "&hl=en" yeah, that's a great one, too.

You refusing to listen to sonic examples in a conversation about bass playing = it is not we who are the problem.

I am going to say this one more time, hopefully so clearly that even you can understand it, Three Word Username.

I am on a very slow dial-up low bandwidth connection. YouTube embeds just will not load on my laptop, and YouTube itself is impossible on my phone.

If you are capable of typing in the searchterms of "track by artist name" on YouTube, you are capable of typing them in on the ILM submit post.

If you do this, then the person who started the thread is able to join in the conversation that they wanted to have. If you do not do this, they are not.

It's your choice.

Always been iffy about Entwistle's status, he is busy and showy, nearly all the time and is mainly performing redundant, elastic variations on blues box licks which is how a load of bass players in the seventies approached the instrument, he should have just been a guitarist.

x-post: It is, once again, not about you.

three word username why are you being like this? It's not much to show some consideration to other ilxors, especially when they politely ask you.

xpost He essentially was a guitarist, helpful since Pete mostly played rhythm. Keith was kind of a guitarist, too.

I guess that was part of their dynamic, a band of guitarists 100% full on

Putting track titles alongside youtube videos is always a good idea anyway, cos without them later on when the videos disappear there is no record of what anyone's talking about. Many old threads are incomprehensible because of this.

TWU you're kinda being a colossal dickhead here, and I say this as a dickhead

Shitty basslines? Is this where I drop the Peter Hook bomb and flee the room

A good bassline is rarely about the notes being played alone, which is why the insistence that this conversation pander to folks using steam-driven Vic 20s is so annoying to me -- the timbre and rhythm of Entwistle's notes was a huge part of what made him as good a player as he was in that band.

I kinda don't mind Entwhistle's showiness, because he really played the melodic leads where Townsend tended to do more staccato percussive guitar-playing anyway - to me they had the same kind of dynamic that New Order would later have, melody on bass, percussion on guitar, counterpoint and bulk of the song on drums.

It's when everyone is being showy, and the bass is being extra-showy to stick out even more, that is the real sin in shitty basslines.

Worst Beatles bass line is "Helter Skelter".

What's wrong with it? Simple by Paul's standards sure, but perfectly effective. I can't think of a bad Beatles bassline off the top off my head actually (and I can think of a handful of brilliant ones).

Also the Helter Skelter line is recorded direct and super clean and the guitars are kinda tinny, but the buzzy way the line is played makes the whole thing sound more modern metal distortion than it ever could be.

xxxxxp Sunrise, Age Of Consent, Isolation, A Means To An End, Twenty Four Hours, Broken Promise, Ceremony...all great riffs

just wanted to drop by and say that categorically flea is not a shitty bass player, just because you dislike a style you cant just discount technique WHEN WE ARE TALKING ABOUT TECHNIQUE HERE. also not shitty, even if you dislike what they choose to do: les claypool, geddy lee, jaco pastorious.

if you want to talk about the quality of the writing of the basslines, then have at it.

Sounds like I got more dumb opinions to reeducate...New Order always was a band I never got, mostly coz I find Hook's melodies dull, but maybe worth another shot

It's when everyone is being showy, and the bass is being extra-showy to stick out even more, that is the real sin in shitty basslines

I guess that's how I've always felt about The Who, that they are all dynamically very pushy, even if Townsend is a clangy guitarist instead of a lead technician. I love lots of bands that the same argument could be levelled at (including Yes) but The Who mostly just sound kinda gauche to me.

Hook is a weird one though because he's basically a bass player who, more often than not, doesn't play basslines.

regarding the U2 lines, are you guys talking about the 4/4 root notes lines like in "with or without you" ?

XP - Hook also moved onto a 6 string Shergold bass near the start of New Order and elevated his playing as the Sequencers took over the bottom end, his high register baritone melodies are often poorly written and repetitive for sure.

We aren't talking about "technique" we are talking about shitty basslines, which is a completely subjective category.

Flea is pretty much my definition of "shitty basslines" - you are welcome to have another definition of "shittyness" but to try and tell me that something is categorically good or bad based on technique is so alien to my way of thinking that you and I will never agree.

(And yet another pointed reminder of why I never discuss music with other musicians. It's just an exercise in frustration.)

From what little I have been able to endure, the Mogwai dude wrote bad basslines similar to Tool guy, those open string pedal type you do in your first band.

The idea that "technique" is some kind of bulwark against shitty music is just... wow, no. You don't even know how this works, do you?

Yeah, I mean, Flea may be a technically proficient bassist, but that hasn't prevented him from playing shitty basslines. In fact, if "Higher Ground" is anything to go by, his facility has actually aided in said shittiness.

"With Or Without You" = yeah, canonical U2 bassline (and it ruins a song I would otherwise probably love?) That kind of bassline works on driving uptempo songs (it's fine on e.g. I Will Follow) but on mid-tempo to slow songs, it's a guaranteed way to make things drag.

Musician friends have always raved to me about Who basslines. I've never, ever, ever noticed one.

yeah, i know how it works. im not talking about shitty music (that was pretty clearly stated up there in my post) but obv you arent interested in discussion so much as talking loudly about your important opinions so w/e multixpost

A lot of modern dance music, particularly in various post-dubstep genres, has amazing bass sounds but does nothing with them, like the producers seem content to use it for power alone while forgetting that bass is also a driver of rhythm, harmony and groove as well.

"you arent interested in discussion so much as talking loudly about your important opinions so w/e"

'twas always thus. That this particular iteration has lots more sycophants because of silly coded in-language don't change nothing.

xxxpost
well, it sure is basic but I like the "with or without you" line. it works well with the atmosphere of the song wich is so simple as a whole (the guitar does almost nothing beside the e-bow notes and the little lick at the end, the drums are also very basic with only a variation of the beat at the end). the "one" too, as far as U2 basslines on slow songs are concerned.

Yea, dunno what more you would do with a one-note Joe like 'With Or Without You'

Musician friends have always raved to me about Who basslines. I've never, ever, ever noticed one.

He generally wasn't recorded very well on the studio stuff (which he constantly complained about), so the bass doesn't always make its presence known. But on the live stuff...
http://youtu.be/-vQyjVML-oY

Musician friends have always raved to me about Who basslines. I've never, ever, ever noticed one.

― the drummer is a monster (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, January 28, 2014 11:42 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The go-to example for stuff where you can really hear the bass is The Real Me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pohhMx9EdNc

Or Another Tricky Day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhuLhcbY_08

New Years Day is the only U2 bassline worth a shit.

The irony of the usual suspects who only stick their heads into my threads to tell me how RONG! I am informing me that I'm "not interested in discussion." Yup, that's not about me either.

I completely hear you on the "great bass sounds, do nothing with them" school, DC. That's another recipe for shitty basslines.

is there no bass on this, or is it my speakers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpbJK0ANZN4

XXP - Clayton did write a couple of nice riffs around that time, Two Hearts Beat As One is another.

Around Unforgettable Fire he started to stretch out a bit and you can really hear how creaky his chops are, the little improvised fills at the end of the Wide Awake live version of Bad are pretty cringey.

"your threads" you say

"bl9bvuAV-Ao&fs=1" by The Who? yeah, that's such a great song. Why would anyone not want to play that.

And "H8YHplnn60U&fs=1" by "&hl=en" yeah, that's a great one, too.

― these birches is awful (Branwell Bell), Tuesday, January 28, 2014 9:31 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Do you understand how people would be nicer to you if you were a little more pleasant in the first place?

How the FUCK would anyone know you can't play a fucking youtube video on whatever shitty device you're viewing this on.

I don't give a shit who started this thread, it belongs to ILX now.

Guys, please. My bandwidth! Instead of/as well as a YouTube link please could you say name & track? Thanks!

― these birches is awful (Branwell Bell), Tuesday, January 28, 2014 2:21 PM (3 hours ago)

Yeah, this is horribly rude. </sarcasm>

http://images.rapgenius.com/154c0910f78e14cfe649846599a4e94b.500x372x1.jpg

it my thread now

Seriously, I get where JJJ is coming from on Flea being technically able, but this thread wasn't started with a specification of 'poor bass playing ability', it was started about being 'shitty'. Would it be better if people called things that were shitty because of overplaying 'wanky basslines' instead? I can do that.

no cos not all shitty basslines fit that description

Wait, not all shitty basslines fit which description? I'm offering an alternative descriptor for shitty basslines that were shitty because of overplaying, not all shitty basslines.

oh ok i misunderstood, i get it now

id make a pretty strong argument that early RHCP flea basslines are the opposite of overplayed - they are the actual song in most cases. IOW, the whole point of that early stuff is fleas playing, its like bitching because a classical soloist is way louder than the orchestra.

and no, duh, i am not trying to elevate flea wrt the classical comparison, before anybody thinks that. im saying that if the intent of the song is to have a really complicated techy bassline, you can't call that overplaying really. you dont have to like it, but what you dont like is the style/intent of the song itself then.

In my case you might be right, in that I can't abide RHCP at all, so it's not like the bass-playing turns something otherwise-good into crap. It just is crap. But as this thread is about an entirely subjective thing, it's possible that someone might be turned off solely by the bass.

I do think 'wanky bass' is definitely a real thing, though.

His bass playing is mostly innocuous on the Atoms for Peace album though, so it's a case of shitty aesthetics more than anything else.

i can't even think of shitty bassline. i don't think such a thing is possible.

Flea is easily the most tolerable thing about fucking chilli peppers

I don't know anything about music but instinctively wanna say flambo otm

Emil.y OTM and OTM and OTM. That's specifically why I didn't start a "shitty bass players" thread but a shitty basslines thread: trying to get at what makes a bassline bad. Overplaying, underplaying, style/texture over tune - all of these things can be ways in which basslines go bad - and there are other examples itt where the bassline isn't bad so much as just horrendously inappropriate for the song.

"with or without you" has a perfect bassline for that song. adam clayton isn't particularly imaginative tho, no.

When I think of the phrase 'wanky bass' I think of Mick Karn or Percy Jones, that fussy, bendy onomatopoeic style.

ADVISORY: fretless bass (it could even be upright? hard to tell), youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prIvo8vx-0g

kate bush "be kind to my mistakes"

totally not shitty!

I'm even willing to entertain ideas of Peter Hook as an originator of "shitty basslines" (even though he is one of my fave bassplayers) because his lines do not function as basslines. (Though I think his work in Joy Division proves that he is capable of playing good basslines, as a bassist.) But I don't expect "basslines" from Hook in New Order, I expect "melodies" therefore we're both kinda half-right. He's good at what he does, but what he does isn't "basslines" any more.

X-posts to be sure

Yea, by '82 he was as much a baritone guitarist

Hey I love fretless bass on that K.Bush song because it is totally appropriate to her very baroque style of songwriting & production. It works in context. So I'm not prepared to come out against fretless bass in itself as "wanky" even though there is a lot of wanky fretless bass (LOL Mick Karn, this isn't the thread to say "I like Dali's Car" is it?)

XXP - Goole, that might be Eberhard Weber (haven't checked) who is unfuckwithable imho

I dig MK, Percy Jones less so, but that style, which Kev Hopper made so fantastically splattery and expressionistic is, to me, really wanky.

O, I am not inclined to take your opinion on AfP seriously as you don't actually like RH, do you?

This post is a metonym!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gEWDm-5gbE

Am I the only person who listens to Bauhaus and Love And Rockets for the BASS? I like Hook and Severin too, but David J is the underrated guy of this era.

No, no you are not. And we have had this discussion many, many times before. But how can you mention The wonder that are J.'s basslines on a "shitty basslines" thread? J. couldn't find a shitty bassline with a map. A crap map!

Do I have to post "Unskinny Bop" again?

i think by the "rules" established above, every bassline in every country song ever would qualify as shitty. but i would be inclined to strongly disagree.

That's the first thing I've read on this thread I'm willing to agree with

Country songs often feature either a walking bassline, or the staggered fifths bassline, neither of which are shitty. (usually. The staggered fifths thing can be corny as fuX0r)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=I6kVefbobBM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6kVefbobBM

surely 90% of stuff that came out from Hot Creations

I thought of one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Af372EQLck

8Af372EQLck by &fs=1&hl=en yeah, that is a terrible bassline. The absolute worst.

I'm just going to un-bookmark this thread now.

Good! Perhaps discussion will be possible now!

You are so weird.

Sorry BB, I forgot! it's Pachelbel's Canon.

LOL

omg at lorna's "papi chulo".

Or, I hate bands with bassists where you can't hear the bassline properly.

http://www.metal-archives.com/images/5/5/9/559.jpg

It is crappy to not mention who a video is of; a lot of the time I'm browsing on my phone whilst on the move on 3G. And suggesting there isn't discussion going on because of BB is dickish. BB is driving the discussion, you just don't like it.

"No, that is not what I mean by shitty." "No, that it is not what I mean by shitty." "No, that is not what I mean by shitty, and I cannot talk to you because you are wrong." "Oh, for fuck's sake, NO VIDEOS." is not driving a conversation.

and you are??

speaking of "metal bands" (broadly speaking), I can't think of a GnR bassline. I suppose they're generally not good...

Look at my posts to those who are not BB or BB's lapdogs.

OMG, the Welcome To The Jungle bassline! The Sweet Child O Mine bassline! GnR were one of the first metal bands I ever loved (Motorhead don't count because I didn't come to them as metal) because they had such awesome, towering, melodic basslines!

Think about Sweet Child O Mine! I don't ever think about that Slash riff, iconic as it is. I think about the bass melody that builds up underneath it during the intro. Such a sweet, sweet bassline.

what about this bassline?

TONY THE PONY

by MORRISSEY

1991

Bass by BEDDERS of MADNESS fame

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AByiLxAqaw

omg so many xposts

One thing that has struck me is that posting unattributed youtube embeds essentially makes the content of the post unsearchable. Like, suppose on this thread Sick Mouth thinks to himself, "you know what would make my point here? a youtube of Can't Get Enough of You by Smashmouth". But then like, a month later, I'm doing a search on Smashmouth because I want to know what ilm is thinking about them these days. Sick Mouthy's important post won't come up. I won't know that he thinks Can't Get Enough of You has a shitty bassline!

I'm just like anybody in that I don't think I ever attribute youtube embeds except within the context of an accompanying post, but maybe it would be a good practice to start.

It'd be useful if the embeds actually came up automatically with the name/title of the YouTube, and I know that YouTube has a way of doing that (certain does on other messageboards, but I think that's because it takes an entire chunk of code) but it would probably be too much additional work for the mods to recode the embed code.

But in the meantime, (in the meeeeaaaaan-tiiiime) it probably is just a good idea, on many levels, to start identifying your YouTubes manually.

Unless, of course, that would be GIVING IN TO THE FEMINAZI MADNESS OF BB AND HER LAPDOGS OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS to just give other posters a heads up as to what you're talking about?

can you tell people not to use mobile phones while driving while you're at it

THE FEMINAZI EMPIRE OF BB AND HER LAPDOGS OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS DO DECLARE THAT USING MOBILE PHONES WHILE DRIVING IS PROBABLY AGAINST THE LAW IN YOUR COUNTRY!!!!!

There, did that work?

Not like c word username to pursue a stupid imaginary grievance well past sanity & sense

xp i do hope so, my pet hate

Excellent. Now! Does anyone else have some more shitty basslines to share with the class? :D

I read this thread title & Blister in the Sun popped into my mind and I do not know why

Was it even a bass

Is there even a difference between a bass and a guitar

OMG, the Welcome To The Jungle bassline! The Sweet Child O Mine bassline! GnR were one of the first metal bands I ever loved (Motorhead don't count because I didn't come to them as metal) because they had such awesome, towering, melodic basslines!

Think about Sweet Child O Mine! I don't ever think about that Slash riff, iconic as it is. I think about the bass melody that builds up underneath it during the intro. Such a sweet, sweet bassline.

― these birches is awful (Branwell Bell), Wednesday, January 29, 2014 9:10 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM. And Duff should take the Ronnie Lane spot in the upcoming Faces reunion.

Tone policing AND accusing me of saying things I never said ("feminazi" -- are you fucking kidding me???) You are the very person you despise, BB!!!

Is there even a difference between a bass and a guitar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5iG11s-dok

xxp and bonnie tyler should take rod's place.

Haha a bass has 2 less strings and is lower in pitch.

Blister In The Sun, I could see a case for that being a shitty bassline - but either part, the repetitive bits or the ba-ZOING-bing-bong solo-lettes as punctuation at The end of the lines.

(someone else is welcome to come along and make a case for its awesomeness; that's how this works.)

the graciousness just keeps coming

A lot of 00s rock just has useless unimaginative basslines AND terrible bass playing, Mr Brightside is the first example that comes to mind but there are loads.

Yeah a lot of those 00s indie bands were riddled with shitty basslines (oh god what have I signed myself up for with this Interpol record) - I thought the Kilkers were supposed to be "dancier" or whatever and might have bouncier bass but memory of that song = alas, no.

Still not as bad as Stokes basslines tho.

I like the fiddly bits in Blister in the Sun -- they're rhythmically right where they need to be, the acoustic bass guitar timbre keeps things from being overly assertive, and it's a cool counter-melody. You want ridiculous "Hey I'm a bass genius, hello, PAY ATTENTION PLEASE" playing with an inappropriately aggressive tone that's all wrong for the song? You want Mr. Big's "To Be With You": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QD5n98R_nk

I know how to make DC's teeth shake with shitty basslines: JUSTICE

I am actually prepared to rep for Justice's bass, in that they made their shitty basslines a feature and not a bug. Which just goes to show, shitty basslines do not always sink a band.

OMG, the Welcome To The Jungle bassline! The Sweet Child O Mine bassline! GnR were one of the first metal bands I ever loved (Motorhead don't count because I didn't come to them as metal) because they had such awesome, towering, melodic basslines!

Think about Sweet Child O Mine! I don't ever think about that Slash riff, iconic as it is. I think about the bass melody that builds up underneath it during the intro. Such a sweet, sweet bassline.

― these birches is awful (Branwell Bell), Wednesday, January 29, 2014 9:10 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hum. "sweet child" has an ok bassline I guess. but "welcome to the jungle"'s is nothing, is it ? isn't it just the same riff as the rhythm guitar ?
also, I think I dislike his bass tone.

"welcome to the jungle"'s is nothing special, is it ?

Justice don't even have basslines, that's one of the things that makes them terrible, there's just this constant shitty midrange blare.

xp: The first thing that comes to mind is that awesome rumbling breakdown (you know where you are, etc.)

Are there any interesting basslines in most of the euro/electro/pop hits of the previous years ? It doesn't seem to be a key element in these productions.

one bass/guitar trend that I don't miss is the whole monolithic grunge sounds from the 90s where the guitar line is basically a sequence of chords that get repeated over and over and then the bass plays the root notes of the chords in unison with the guitar. Nirvana was ground zero for this and it was ok for a while, but got played out really quickly. Chris Novoselic often sounded like he aspired to play like Kim Deal, but couldn't quite cut it.

The interplay between Duff and Izzy (ha! those names! Duff! Izzy! Slash! Axl! They were *such* a boyband) is totally what *makes* Welcome To The Jungle, that kind of "prowling like a panther" growl. But I also really love his bass tone, it's a method to cut through the din of heavy metal in a really distinctive way.

When I tend to think of euro/electro/pop hits, so so many of them are dependent on that octave-hopping synth thing. Which I genuinely love and will happily listen to, underneath almost anything. But I guess I could make for that endless octave-synth thing as its own kind of shitty bassline when it's the only thing that ever happens in the downstairs department of a song. It is very lazy, and since I've called out other genres for lazy bass playing, I'm happy to call out that lazy cliche, too.

(Octave-hopping on an electric bass, as distinctive from disco, is always awesome. No matter what. I cannot think of a bad octave-hopping electric bassline in all of disco.)

x-post Nirvana? Shitty bass? Yes. Cosine. I think this is why I couldn't get into Nirvana for years. Shitty shitty bass.

I always liked the bassline to the first song on the first Strokes album; can't remember a single other one, though.

(As an aside, I pretty much just hate Youtube and online video in general; all me a luddite or something, I just prefer words online.)

(Personally, I really prefer someone telling me *why* they think a bassline is shitty or good, but in many many cases, providing a specific example of what is meant by badness is a shortcut to that.)

I'm really not convinced about GnR since they all seem to be pretty basic and unimaginative lines (with a bad tone !) for me but it's a question of taste, I guess !
agreed about euro/electro/pop hits.
also, a lot of the 00's RnB wasn't relying too much on good basslines (especially the timbo school, which I loved by the way). it was mostly based on synth/drums/percussions, if I remember correctly.

Basslines don't have to be played by a bass! One of the hallmarks of that era was the "bass frequency" being filled by things that were not your standard electric bass. A tuned 808 kick boom taking up that tonal frequency area can be as effective a bassline as a "bassline".

Squelchy synth bass!

eheh, OK, in that case there were awesome basslines in 00s RnB ! (still, I'm not sure a tuned 808 kick boom can be considered a bassline...).

Seem to be a few cases of bands serving primarily as a vehicle for one main member's songwriting being dull in the guitar and bass department (Oasis, Nirvana)

Coldplay.

I... I... can't recall a single Coldplay bassline, ever. But disqualified for being too easy.

Shitty basslines are kind of part of the whole Nirvana appeal, like try imagining Smells Like Teen Spirit without that lurching zombie bass.

Yeah. there's a certain brutality to Nirvana basslines; likewise early Idlewild before they chucked out Bob and got a 'musician' in.

I was mentioning Coldplay as an example of the bass not being important in "vehicle for one main member's songwriting", cos apparently, despite democratic credits, it's all Chris Martin's work while the other blow coke up their arses in St Tropez between tours.

Smashing Pumpkins seems like the elephant in this discussion but I've never listened to them closely enough to hear a bassline.

eheh, Oasis basslines is a good one !

basically, all 90s alt-rock's basslines sucked !

No, because ever band Kim Deal was involved with had awesome basslines. (Cannonball! Come on, Cannonball blows away the rest of 90s alt-rock!)

And also, to play the old saw, Blur had freaking excellent basslines, constantly. (But Alex was a massive Hook fanatic, so we're back there again.)

yeah, Blur had good ones. but I was talking about alt-rock... not britpop !

Oasis and Coldplay, tho?

Yeah, Blur's basslines are all great.

Even the shitty Blur basslines are great. Shame about the Tory tosser, though.

Today is James Jamerson's birthday. Let's all listen to "Bernadette":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLDqlgRK100

xxpost

ok busted.
basically, (rock) bands with a bass player with a strong personality have more chance to have good basslines.

shitty/uninteresting basslines from shitty/inuteresting bassplayers might be too easy.
what about shitty basslines by good/great bassplayers ?

Why are you posting James Jamerson on a "shitty basslines" thread? U MAD?!?!?!?

So we can stop thinking about shitty basslines for three minutes and bask in his genius.

OK, coz I was about to say!

The epitome of shitty bass is indeed all that horrible nu-metal six-string sludge.

Or five-string, like Limp Bizkit's "Nookie"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_RqOIliSs0

Haha, OK, yes, lock thread, you win. Hands down.

How about every KISS song ever?

I was just gonna say "Lick It Up" has the worst bass line ever.

Also "Heaven's On Fire"

Also every KISS song ever.

There's bass on Kiss songs?

Hah

there's some strand of jaunty indie pop that often has these bouncy, often fuzzy basslines that consistently irritate me. can't really name any bands though, i know it best from being an inexplicable model for every band any of my friends are in.

Merdeyeux, you mean this for example?

this is: MILLTOWN BROTHERS

song: WHICH WAY SHOULD I JUMP?

year: 1991

show: WOGAN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt289v4k1jA

xp ah yeah, that's the thing i was forgetting. the mgmt buzz bass, absolutely the worst.

The Fountain Of Salmacis by Genesis, utterly wretched.