As an artist, you gotta have rhythm to have bass guitar in your songs. As a listener, you gotta have rhythm to want bass guitar in the songs. So, to answer the question "whatever happened to bass guitar", it's extinct because of rhythmless dull ass people, both artists and listeners.
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[Edited 7/22/09 14:48pm]

The same can be said about "whatever happened to rock guitar solos" in the 90's (and the nu-metal music of the early 2000's). Kids then couldn't play solos. They had no clue how to play them.

In today's R&B it's the same..the young'uns don't know how to play a bass guitar. And a lot of the producers today would rather use a synth-sampled bass than hire a real bassist.

vainandy said:

I'm quick to blame the parents of rhythmless children. Some parents don't make the time to educate their children on old-school artists.

I'm age 35. And I remember a time long ago (late 1970's!) that my mother, both of my grandmothers, uncle, and pretty of older cousins making time to educate me on REAL recording artists that were already successful before my time. That is exactly how I ended up knowing about the 1960's & early 1970's music beforehand (especially The Funk during their jazz-inspired horn-driven years).

But these days (21st century), it's sad that these poor kids today don't have parents OR other relatives available to give them the same kind of music education to help them know the different between a real artist from a wack ass artist. Forget the 1960's, these poor kids don't know a damn thing about the 1970's OR 1980's music history!

PFunkjazz said:

Depends on what you like to listen to, but I understand your sentiment.
There is the wonderful Tal Wilkenfeld, whom most assocuate with being guitar great Jeff Beck's bass player, check her out below:

http://www.youtube.com/wa...8DjpGmgpKw

There are the three gurus of the bass: SMV, Stanley, Marcus and Victor a/k/a Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten, whom just did a show in France with Jeff Beck and his band on July 15th. see below


http://www.youtube.com/wa...VgIEF6U9TU

There are great players like Meshell Ndegeocello, Ralphe Armstrong, Esperanza Spalding,

One of the things I love about funk, is how the bass can act as a counterpoint to the melody... instead of just emphasizing that root note.

But if you layer too many tracks... the bass guitar gets hard to hear... especially if you've got horns on there... that's one of the things I love about Prince's funk... though even on a lot of his stuff, it's hard to hear that bass...

TonyVanDam said:

The parents who came of age in the late 1970s and 1980s don't have the bravery to tell a kid what's "good music". It ain't like the parents who came from the 1950s and 1960s, least they'd sit you down and have you hear something from those days. I know my parents did. That's why I consider myself lucky because I've been listening to older music since I was three.

LOL, Se7en is right about the action part.

But I have another theory/explanation:

In the olden days (you know, when I was young) the bassist in a rock band generally played the same hook as the lead guitarist. Not always, but that was a hallmark of rock back in the horse-and-buggy days.

Of course, back then guys could actually play guitar.

Nowadays, rock guitar consists of drop-D tuning, 17 Humbucker pick-ups, and twice as many distortion pedals as the law allows. Then, just wail away on the top three strings.

Ugh. How you gonna play bass to that?

I blame Nirvana, and all the grunge and girly-man bands that followed them, like Green Day, Pearl Jam, and those types of bands.

RodeoSchro said:

Yeah and people forget that with grunge music, you didn't care if you play sloppy, doesn't mean every rock band should've done it.

RodeoSchro said:

The Spin Doctors were awesome! They came out around the same time... but they were completely different... they were funky... you could hear that bass...

But for some reason they get associated with the grunge acts of the time.

coolcat said:

Man I heard that and was like "how are they GRUNGE?"

Them guys were straight up rock 'n' roll with a funky edge to them.

Timmy84 said:

Pocket Full of Kryptonite is such a great album. I wish that sound was still around...

You gotta think about this like the old lady that asked "Where's The Beef ?" back in 84'.... Most the time all you can pick out of the wall of sound, is the drums and guitar whcih are turned up 2 about 1000. lol

I've really enjoyed reading this thread and while I've got a few thoughts about a few posts, the first thing that comes to mind is to be the change in this world that you want to see. Don't hear enough music with good bass lines? Write some, and play those bass lines yourselves.

The current trend of producer/computer driven music on pop radio isn't going away just yet, so get out there and make the music you wish you could hear on the radio and you never know what might happen.

In defense of keyboard bass (though I prefer a bass guitar or even an upright when appropriate for the song), Stevie Wonder is the biggest culprit of substituting low-end synth for low-end wire, and has been since the late sixties. Having said that, those are the funkiest keyboard lines I've heard from ANYONE!

And there was Ray Manzarek from the Doors before that.