(Yet another) Bass Guitarist Poll

I had a very quick flick through a bass guitar magazine in the newsagents yesterday morning, when the cover indicated it was publishing an all time top 20  bass guitarists list. Geddy Lee 7, Flea 3, and guess what Jaco No.1  Anybody had time to properly browse and assimilate the full list?

Flea= great musician but heavily overrated

In any publication, Jaco has to be number.  However my lists of top bassists would have to be:

Michael Manring
Jaco Pastorius
John Myung
Chris Squire
Tony Levin
Jonas Reingold
Geddy Lee
Justin Chancellor

I hate lists.

Mine would definitely include Dany Thompson, Jack Casady, John Entwistle and Jack Bruce.

Zoso wrote: I hate lists.

I go a little way with the sentiment.


Polls on TV and in the media are usually corrupted by having first been passed by a committee of a few people, who are both biassed and rarely have a comprehensive overview of their subject. (The 20005 Mojo poll of alltime prog albums had an element of that about it). When the public have a free vote (but how often is that?) artists and/or albums (or singles, if come to that) released in the last year seem to feature disproportionately (because the public can have a very short term collective  memory). Maybe in the case of albums, banning inclusion of recordings less than 2 or even 3 years young may give focus to recordngs which have legs and long term appeal. Last time I saw a poll of all greatest rock albums which appeared to make some unbiassed sense and had  an absense of recent releases, was published (of all magazines) Rolling Stone about 20 years ago!!! (But then the list of British albums threaded here at a fortnight ago had something about it...)


Edited by Dick Heath - December 08 2006 at 05:37

Jack Bruce should be up there somewhere.

Geddy Lee of course

John Paul Jones should be on that list. But obviously not as high as Chris Squire or Geddy Lee,imo, but still Led Zeppelin's bassist is pretty underrated from what I have heard from people.