| As well as practicing techniques and learning the | | | | 3. This Year's Model by Elvis Costello |
| theory necessary to construct bass lines, players | | | | The bass player on This Year's Model is the very |
| who are learning how to play bass and wanting to | | | | great and very underrated Bruce Thomas. Stand |
| play in a rock vein should also listen to some | | | | out tracks include Pump It Up, Lipstick Vogue, |
| great examples of rock bass playing. Here's a list | | | | Radio Radio, Red Shoes and Watching the |
| of 5 great rock bass albums that in my opinion | | | | Detectives. If I had to choose only one bass |
| you should listen to and learn from. | | | | player and album to model then this album would |
| 1. All The World's A Stage by Rush | | | | probably be my number one choice. |
| Of course the bass player on this is Geddy Lee. | | | | 4. Led Zeppelin II by Led Zeppelin |
| And this album kind of bookends the early part of | | | | This is my favourite John Paul Jones album - he |
| Rush's career when they relied on the classic rock | | | | plays great bass lines on some great rock tracks. |
| trio instrumentation. The next album after this | | | | There are classics like the Lemon Song, Whole |
| was Hemispheres - which is a great album by the | | | | Lotta Love, Ramble On and Heartbreaker. What |
| way - but on Hemispheres Rush started to | | | | was great about Led Zepp - and what a lot of |
| experiment with keyboards, samples and | | | | more contemporary rock and metal bands miss - |
| triggered sounds. | | | | is that they had a whole heap of influences |
| So All The World's A Stage is a great album to | | | | ranging from the blues to R&B to the |
| listen to so you can learn how to deal with the | | | | contemporary rock of their time. Whereas the |
| chordal vacuum that's created when the guitarist | | | | contemporary rock and metal bands seem to |
| starts to solo. But it's also a great album to listen | | | | have only classic and contemporary rock as their |
| to the energy in these early Geddy Lee bass lines. | | | | influences. That's a shame. As The Duke said: |
| Standouts on this album include 2112, Anthem, | | | | there are two types of music, good music and |
| Something For Nothing and I have a retro | | | | bad music. |
| fondness for What You're Doing too. | | | | 5. Anything By The Beatles from 1965 onwards |
| 2. The River by Bruce Springsteen | | | | As the Beatles transitioned from being a touring, |
| Garry Tallent is the bass player on The River - | | | | pop band into a studio based rock band so Paul |
| one of Springsteen's finest albums, and also some | | | | McCartney's bass lines took off along with his |
| fine bass playing. Garry Tallent is a master at | | | | songwriting. His lines become innovative and |
| playing in a very full band setting and yet still being | | | | inventive - he often uses rhythmic flurries that |
| able to vary up his lines with subtle changes of | | | | would sound out of place in less confident hands, |
| rhythm, note choice and/or octave placement. | | | | or often displays his compositional background by |
| Standout songs from a bass perspective on The | | | | using other chord tones than the root note at the |
| River include Point Blank, Hungry Heart, I Wanna | | | | point of chord change. There's a bunch of great |
| Marry You and there are two or three uptempo | | | | tunes to learn on The White Album, Revolver and |
| tracks that it's hard to choose from. But the | | | | Rubber Soul. I couldn't choose one of them over |
| overall inventiveness of the playing on both discs | | | | the others - so get hold of all three! |
| is a bass masterclass in playing for the song. | | | | |