Top Ten Bass Riffs

While I tend to stick to six strings, treating basses as a inferior cousin to the awesomeness of electric guitars, on occasion I've been known to divulge in a little bit of "slappin' the bass" (not dropping it, I'm no Skrillex!) from time to time. Actually last year was my first time playing bass, and given that I had to play it in both a crowded bar and on the Regent Stage, I was a little bit nervous about doing so! But I found I actually really enjoyed it, even though I was playing one of the simplest bass lines out. Thanks R.E.M! I also gained a bit more appreciation for this four-stringed (or in the case of one of the guys in my music course, six stringed) instrument. So while I do make the occasional bass player joke (I'm a guitarist, I can't really help it!), I've learned that playing bass is actually cool, and a little more tricky than I had thought. It is with this in mind that I present to you the top ten baddest bass lines of all time. Or at least in my opinion....

10. "Cover Up" -  Imagine Dragons

Imagine Dragons wouldn't really be known as complete musical geniuses, as they tend to stick to basic 4/4 playing and major keys. However they have a tendency to write some of the most darn-catchy and original pop music out there, which helped catapult them from being underground musicians to being near-famous almost overnight. After hearing a phenomenal live version of "It's Time" on Youtube, I was hooked, and they quickly became one of my favourite bands. This song is one of their lesser-known songs, which is unfortunate because it's actually really good! After a extended intro, the song finally kicks in driven by a bass line that is so groovy it almost belies it's simplicity. Yes I've counted and I'm pretty sure it's only like three notes, but still. Sometimes the simplest things are the best! And the rest of the song has some pretty killer bass playing in too, especially that bridge. Good job Ben McKee, but for the simplicity you're at the bottom of this list...
7/10

9. "September" - Earth, Wind & Fire

Funk bass-playing is IMPRESSIVE and this song would have to be one of my favorites in the genre. While the horns, keys and vocals in "September" are impressive enough, the entire song seems to build off that sick bass line. It just grooves away beneath it all, just adding that extra funky touch which Earth, Wind & Fire need. This was one of my favorite songs to play last year, cos when we got it right it just grooved so much! Also it's written in one of the most interesting keys I've ever played in (basically filled with 7ths and 9th chords). This is one of those few songs where I would rather play bass than guitar cos it's SO MUCH cooler!
 8/10

8. "Time Is Running Out"/ "Madness" - Muse

Muse's bass player Chris Wolstenholme is pretty impressive - but then I suppose you'd have to be if you're in a band with Matt Bellamy constantly outplaying everyone with his mad guitar and vocal skills. The bass intro in "Time Is Running Out" grooves out solo before the drums and singing kicks in and really sets up the whole song. When I was learning this song a few years ago, I quickly realized I wouldn't get far if I didn't learn that bass riff. Yeah, that's right. I learnt a bassline on the guitar! Who says basses don't rock now???!!
The sole reason Madness is on this list is because that MIDI bass Wolstenholme plays on it is SO COOL. It just throbs away throughout the song, creating an almost dubstep-like effect which is strangely appealing. Go look up the music video/ live version of this song if you don't believe me!
8/10

7. "Ny Batteri" - Sigur Ros

Kings of Icelandic ambient/post rock music, Sigur Ros somehow managed to create one of the most beautiful songs ever with this track off their album Agaetis Byrjun. This song draws you right in with it's haunting vocals, mellow trumpet and some wicked guitar playing which the lead singer does with a violin bow (because picks are to mainstream). It's one of those songs which when you're listening to it you can't really do anything else but just listen because it's that epic. However while all the instrumentation in this song is impressive, it is driven by one of the most awesome ambient bass lines I've ever heard. From the moment it kicks in after a haunting trumpet introduction, you just get the maddest shivers down your spine and you know that the rest of the song is going to be the best eight minutes you've ever spent listening to music.
9/10

6. "Black Dog" - Led Zeppelin

I knew that if I don't put at least one John Paul-Jones riff on here then I'm bound to get slaughtered by a host of bloggers posting angry comments like "WHERE IS JOHN PAUL-JONES ON THIS LIST??!!!" or "Nice post bro but you forgot John Paul Jones". But in saying that, he is considered one of rocks most talented bass players for a reason. This song is chosen out of all of Zep's greatest bass lines because Mr Paul-Jones is the man responsible for writing the riff. And that riff is KILLER. It's also a little more technical than Sigur Ros, which puts it further up the list, despite the lower overall rating.
8.5/10

5. "This Is Your Life" - Switchfoot

One of Switchfoot's biggest hits, and one of the most recognizable riffs in Christian rock. Is it played on a guitar? Nope, surprisingly the memorable intro/verse riff is played on a bass which actually makes it so much cooler. When they played this one at Parachute earlier this year, Tim Foreman stood up the front and kicked the whole song off with his grooving catchy bassline. He is the man for creating something so legendary and then having the guts to play it on a bass! Without the bassline, this song would be a lot less awesome.
9/10

4. "Gangam Style" - PSY 

I get the feeling I'm going to get some hate for putting this one on the list. After the video featuring some groovy dancing went viral on the internet (1 billion views and counting is a little over the top guys) and it was thrashed to death in every single club in the country, everyone must be sick of this song by now.  But in saying that, it is actually a pretty darn good pop song. And for a pop song, it has some surprisingly tricky bass lines which set up the groove for the song and make it so darn catchy and dance-able. Whoever played bass for this track really got funky with it. Don't believe me? Check out this video of a bass cover of the mega-hit K-pop song and see if your mind doesn't get changed....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6EmxuAOD1s
9/10

3.  "Vicarious" - Tool

I flipping LOVE this song! It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to learn on guitar as all the riffs are in 5/4 or 6/8 timing and it switches all the time which makes things confusing. Even now, there's still parts which I can't quite master (the riffing at the end of the song is so fast it's practically impossible!). Yet every time we played this song last year, I was equally impressed by the bass parts as much as the guitar lines. The way the bass clashes with the guitar in the opening, playing something completely different instead of just the root notes is just pure genius. Tool's Justin Chancellor playing is on fire in this one.
9.5/10

2. "Instrumedley/ The Dance of Instruments" - Dream Theater

When you're in a band with John Petrucci and Mike Portnoy, respectively amongst the fastest and best guitarists and drummers in the world, you've got to be be a whole lot better than good. Yet somehow all the members of progressive rock band Dream Theater are so talented its mind blowing. It is one of life's most unfair moments that a band of this musical pedigree is a lot less famous than pop stars who are SO musically inferior such as Lady Gaga or Bieber. The bass player for Dream Theater, John Myung, has been rated the greatest bass player of all time by Music Radar, which is no mean feat itself. This song shows how far Dream Theater's musical complexity goes, constantly switching between time signatures and different feels. And it has some killer, killer bass playing in where Myung pretty much puts every other bass player to shame. It's pretty long, like most Dream Theater songs, but definitely worth a listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM0Y1Ajqq7g
10/10

1. "My Generation" - The Who

Not going to lie, it feels a little bit strange featuring the work of a blues-based rock band from the British Invasion after the musical complexities of Tool and Dream Theater. But I knew from the start of the list that this was going to be my number 1. John Entwistle is considered to be one of the world's greatest bass players, and he showed this in his stellar work with The Who as well as his solo music. He was a pioneer of several influential bass techniques such as a unique fingering technique he called the "typewriter" approach to playing bass, and was voted "Bass Player of the Millenium" in guitar magazine. Still, this song tops the list on the strength of its pounding bass lines, and the sheer fact that it features an incredible bass solo. In the sixties, a bass solo??!!! Beat that, bass players.
10/10

Got a song you think should be on this list? Did I miss out one of the bass playing greats? Do you think you can play bass better than some of the people on this list? Or do you agree with me 100%? Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Working Man

Originally the title of a rather annoying song by Newworldson (who happen to have one of the most annoying band names out), the title has been redeemed and superbly so by Imagine Dragons. This would have to be one of my favorite songs out at the moment! This band is just too darn good!

My life was pretty much complete when I discovered that to my surprise Imagine Dragons had released a lot more songs on their extended editions of Night Visions than the standard 11-track album I had. Even though for an 11-track the percentage of awesome music on there is incredibly high! So it was to Youtube for me where I spent the next hour and a half in complete contentment. Then I remembered I had 3 assignments to write and that brought me down to earth pretty quick.

So far this weekend has involved me working pretty much to the death on these three stupid essays. Well maybe not that hard. Actually more like not hard enough. But the amount of effort I've gone into reading up, thinking and worrying about them has been almost equal or probably more so than the amount of actual writing I've done. So all up I feel like I've invested a lot of time into them.

And not going to lie, it's been wearing me down.

It's not that I can't write, it's just that at the moment I lack the motivation to. Every step I take I keep asking myself the same old question. Why am I doing this again?! Do I really want another three years of study? Do I even want to be a journalist? Heck I'm not even sure if I'll get a job out of this!

I guess the best thing to do in times like this is what I've always done: Keep at it. Just try your best and rely on your determination to see you through. Which I am capable in every single way of doing. It's just that it's getting me down. All this self-doubt, this uncertainty. This constant worry that was not what I expected of this year. That maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Yet everything's worked out for me to be here.
And I can't help but think that this is where I'm meant to be.
I'm just not sure what for, that's all.

This is my heart, it's on the line.

Album Review: Night Visions

As anyone following this blog may have noticed, in the last couple of months there's been a new band on the block which have been occupying my eardrums for a significant amount of time. For those of you who are new to this blog, or perhaps haven't visited for a while, that band is Imagine Dragons. This incredible indie-pop band absolutely blew my mind with their EP, Continued Silence (check out my review of it here), which introduced me to their awesome music and left me wanting more (6 songs is not enough!!!!).
And a few days ago, I finally got my hands on a copy of their debut album, Night Visions, ordered all the way from the USA (cos New Zealand is laaaaaaame when it comes to selling music not made by the "big names").

This me in class with the album. I guess I look a bit shocked, but it's actually supposed to be excitement or something like that. Because, not going to lie, this has probably been the most excited I've ever been about an album release EVER. I was actually buzzing on the day it got released (5th of September was the official date I think),  but I had to force myself to resist the urge to listen to the tracks online as I waited for my copy to arrive. So when it turned up in the post it was all new and exciting for me (with the exception of one track, Tiptoe. My patience couldn't handle listening to nothing).
First of all I should point out that this album does draw on a lot of the material found in Continued Silence, with 4 of the first 5 songs from their EP. I guess that can't be helped what with it's release coming only months after, but it did make listening to this album pretty hard to listen to as a whole as it seemed to me to be more like a collection of songs mixed in with the tracks of their EP. But this might have just been because I was listening to the new songs more, as I'd already thrashed the 'older' ones.

My first reaction to Night Visions was of slight disappointment. Maybe it was because I'd hyped it up to much, or because the EP was so good, but on the first listen, something didn't seem quite right. Gone was the indie instrumentation and good-time vibes, replaced by some uber-slick production and soaring vocal hooks. Once again, Imagine Dragons completely surprised me by bringing in a completely different element into the mix. Except this time I was a little unprepared for it and it took me a while to adjust to this new, poppy-er sound. But now that I've had a few more listens the album has grown on me, and I've found that if it's not completely, then it's pretty close to being worth all the hype I gave it.

No doubt though, this is a much more pop-orientated album than Continued Silence. Imagine Dragons lean a la Coldplay on several of the tracks, with synth based arena rock seasoned with huge beats coming to the foreground on this, rather than hiding away in the indie tracks somewhere. Of the tracks on the album, there was only two which stood out on the first listen. "Underdog" is one of those infectious tunes that you can't help smiling to whenever it comes on. With a chirpy modulated synth opening and a uplifting chorus where Dan Reynolds unashamedly drops pop hooks with just the faintest hint of irony"Hey, that sounds like my luck, I get the short end of it, Oh I love to be the underdog", this is a stand out moment on the album. The next one to grab my attention was the track directly after, "Nothing Left To Say/Rocks". Sitting at just under 9 minutes, this is really the surprise of the album as it is actually two complete songs merged together into a single track. "Nothing Left To Say" is a driving slow-burner with an incredibly soulful outro which features the viola skills of drummer Daniel Platzman. The words for this song are some of the most well-crafted on this album too - the line "Who knows what's right? The lines keep getting thinner" gets me every time. Then just as you're getting into the viola & acoustic breakdown, it suddenly stops. About five seconds of silence pass, and then "Rocks" kicks in. It's a really interesting choice to merge them together in this way, because in many ways "Rocks" completely different from "Nothing Left To Say" with it's upbeat tempo, nonsensical lyrics and instant catchiness - but somehow it works.

The rest of the album carries within the same vein. The previously mentioned "Tiptoe", stuck as unfortunately as it is between "Radioactive" and "It's Time" is another stand out track with a catchy chorus about heading to the top - much in the vein of "It's Time" lyrically I suppose. "Amsterdam" starts of with an excellent piano opening but somehow never delivers as much as it could. "Hear Me" is probably my least favorite track on the album - despite soaring chorus vocals and a few tasty guitar licks, it's over-saturated pop sound makes it seem almost as if Imagine Dragons are trying too hard. This is followed by yet another surprise - the barbershop styled intro to "Every Night" which somehow reminded me of Fun's song "Some Nights" when I first heard it. Only the difference is Imagine Dragons don't use autotune and the song gets even better after the opening. In fact it could possibly be my favorite song from the album - with an incredible vocal performance, a sweet hook line ("I'm coming home to you every night") and a well-placed guitar solo from Wayne Sermon, "Every Night" is another highlight on an already incredible album.

Despite the more pop-orientated sound, it's safe to say that this album is already sitting in my collection of favorite CD's. I was talking to a friend the other day about music and we both agreed that you know you've found a great band when you like pretty much every song on their album. In today's world where you're lucky to find 4 good songs and then a pile of album filler, it's refreshing to find a band like Imagine Dragons who hard work and struggles finally pay off in this incredible debut. If you've never heard of them, it's time you bought this album and got yourself acquainted.


Album Rating: 4.5/5
Lyrical content: 3/5
Additional comments: Go buy it now!

Album Review: Imagine Dragons -Continued Silence EP

Artist: Imagine Dragons
Album: Continued Silence EP
Genre: Indie rock/ Pop
Rating: 4.5/5

I came across this band, and later, this album in quite a roundabout way. It was a late night, and I was hunting for music on Youtube, as I'm prone to do. So I started out listening to some instrumental music, which was pretty good. Then I saw one of those links which said "please go listen to my band ...... we sound like ...... " . So in a moment of spontaneity, I clicked and followed through.
The video was alright, but nothing to amazing. I was scrolling down the comments and waiting for the song to finish when a video in the sidebar caught my eye. The name of the song was "It's Time" and the artist was some band I'd never heard of called Imagine Dragons. My first thoughts were: "That's a FREAKING cool band name!!!" (which it is!). With that in mind, I hit play on the video.

To my surprise, the band actually almost surpassed the awesomeness of their name. "It's Time" was an original song performed live in some studio in the USA. I was instantly drawn to the first few notes on a mandolin and how indie the band looked (I have a weak spot for mandolins and indie bands so this was a winning combination!). Also, the song had some amazing percussion which consisted of the lead singer clapping and stomping on a wooden floor.
The sound was incredible and I was pretty much instantly hooked.

Anyway, so after a little bit more research on the band, I decided to take the plunge and get their album off Itunes. And I can honestly say it was one of the best ten bucks I've ever spent! I don't think I've been this excited about a new band since I saw New Empire for the first time two years ago! But that's another story.
Onto the album!

"Continued Silence" kicks off with a track called Radioactive. The first time I heard this song, I was thinking "What on earth is this?!!!" because, apart from the short intro played on acoustic guitars, it sounds nothing like how an indie rock band is "supposed" to sound like. 30 seconds into the song, a beat kicks in which any dubstep artist would be proud of, and then Dan Reynold's voice comes in over the top, singing in an almost-rap style an anthem-like song about waking up to a new age. It's a powerful message, and a powerful introduction to the album.
Radioactive is followed by Demons. At first I was slightly dubious of a song with such a title, but I was pretty much instantly won over, and it remains one of my favourite from the album, and definitely one of this bands greatest songs to date. It's a slow-burning song, again with a great beat, which is all about failing and how we hide the truth to cover up the darkness inside. The chorus is pretty incredible, with Reynold singing heartfeltedly "When you feel my heat, look into my eyes/ It's where my demons hide/ Don't get to close, it's dark inside/ It's where my demons hide."
The album falters in the middle with two slightly 'weaker' songs, which can't really stand up to the awesomeness of their predecessors. Of the two I probably prefer On top of the world. Though the song is almost to simple, it's catchy tune and Hawaiian vibe can't help but make you smile. The next track, Round and Round pretty much lives up to it's title. It sounds like it's going to get interesting but never quite gets there, and so it seems a little too average in light of the rest of the album. But in saying that, it's not that bad a song. The chorus has some nice harmonies in which almost make it sound like it could be a One Republic tune, and there's an interesting tremolo guitar lick at the end of the song (which unfortunately doesn't last long enough for my liking.) So even though it's not their greatest, it's still a good song and worth checking out.
I was a little bit nervous about the album version of It's Time seeing as the live version is so awesome. Thankfully my doubts were soon stifled, as it sounds pretty close to the one on the Youtube video, the only differences being the percussion is mostly played on the drums, and keyboard and electric guitar parts are added.
The EP finishes on the ballad My Fault. I'd venture, albeit hesitantly, that this is my overall favourite track on the album. Like Demons, it's quite a slow tune, but is more reliant on guitar and a great drum track to move it along. The lyrics are probably the most simple I've heard from Image Dragons so far - the loneliness you feel when you're apart from that special someone. The chorus is just two lines "Is it my fault, is it my fault? We've been missing each other"  but coupled with a great tune, it makes for an amazing statement which touched me in a way which few other tracks on this album did. And on top of that, it's so darn catchy that I've been humming the tune to myself ever since I bought it!
The only problem with it is it finishes too suddenly. That might be just because the chorus is so good you never want it to end, but to me it felt a little to short.
Overall, this album is a great listen. The songs are interesting, radio-friendly, and catchy. The band is exceptionally tight in their performance and undoubtedly talented (check out the above video and another track of theirs called "Clouds" and you'll soon agree), and Dan Reynold's vocals are incredible. The overall style, indie rock with modern beats and folk-sounding lyrics and themes, makes for a diverse and original sound which I haven't heard done this well before. It's fair to say that I'm sort of obsessed with this band now! These songs have been on repeat on my Ipod ever since I bought the album!
The album is not without it's faults, such a faltering stylistically in the middle and the inevitable lack of songs (6 is not enough!); but these are few and far between, and the quality of most of these songs and their production is more than enough to make up for it! Go check these guys out if you haven't already!