I’m sure we’ve all googled “best song to play on bass” or something along those lines. I’m also sure we’ve all seen those searches resulting in the same suggestions. So let’s start a thread of songs (or even bands playlist) that you enjoy playing that you won’t find on those Google searches.
I’ll start:
Billy Talent - Rusted From The Rain
a pretty easy riff to get down but also a bit of challenges going from quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes. Great for beginners, it was the first song I was actually able to play fully.
Billy Talent - Devil On My Shoulder
Again not a super complicated riff, but it changes quickly from quarter to eight notes while rapidly changing strings and fretting, I’m still working on getting up to pace fast enough to nail it.
Billy Talent - Suprise Suprise
Get you chug on! Lol
So theres three quick suggestions from me. They’re all from the same band obviously. But having grown up near Toronto these guys were kinda the local heroes, lol. Plus their songs are super fun to play on bass all of them in Drop D tuning. Plus you really don’t feel like your missing half the music when you play, so great for just playing solo also with no background track. they have so many other songs that I could make a list 20 songs long probably.
A very very very good Dutch band is “Doe Maar”, with it’s excellent bass player Henny Vrienten (RIP!).
Doe Maar were the Beatles of Holland. Every girl loved Henny, every boy wanted to be Henny!
Yes, the bass player ruled the world (in Holland).
They played at their farewell concert 2012, long after their unbelievable success in the 80s…
This is the secret Dutch national anthem, and it’s a looooong description of how to grow weed. Friends tell me that it works very well
And this song is the definitive song about having a midlife crisis. I liked it long before I got my midlife crisis … and finally understood what the lyrics meant then…
I’ve listened to Flock of Seagulls most of my life and never once thought “listen to that bass” until a month ago when I came across this song. I thought it was duran duran when I heard it.
No, his name is Johnathan Gallant though if you were curious, lol.
But if you would like some other suggestions not from them to divert your criticism:
Foster the People - Pumped Up Kicks
Fun song to sing along with, and most people will recognize the song when you play it also. So a nice one for those times someone says “play me something!”
Iron Chic - Let’s. Get. Dangerous.
Lots of chugging that picks up to strumming two strings later in the song.
Pennywise - Society
Eighth notes at 180bpm with string jumping, for me this is a tough song to try and learn, I’m still along ways away.
