Metallica's Bass Development

Motley Crue

I haven't put this with the super thread because it sort of covers musical development as opposed to Metallica as such (although it does make a good point about their attitude towards Jason). In any case, these are some files which follow the bass writing and development in Metallica from Cliff to Rob.

First, Master of Puppets, credited partly to Burton - this is his original bass track from that song (you can easily identify this) and you can hear his distinctive style of playing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY8zdTO0pvg

Next, from the same album, Leper Messiah - drum and bass only - a song credited to just Hetfield and Ulrich. Notice the plain bass, which would have been written by James, aimed at keeping time with the guitar and the basic drum pattern. It's obvious from listening to this song that the strength of the composition lay in the vocals, lyric and guitar work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvCqNTZawEc

Jump forward to 1988, and Jason gets a writing credit for Blackened, and you will realise how much this song was written from the bass perspective. You have to skip to 0.36 to hear the first notes, and then it kicks in again at 0.56 and you can clearly hear the detail and the songs basic structure in this piece

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n21MxTY5Ijk

If we compare this to a song Jason recorded, but didn't write (again a bass piece James would have written for Jason to use) we can see that in the case of 'Sad But True' it's a very simple and plain piece of music just written to back up the guitar work that's already been done

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nofTvBRgQbo

again, compared to 'Where The Wild Things Are' (skip to 2.34) we can see the performance is a lot more involving

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPhLKHTK8rg

Finally, with Rob, we have a pretty good return to what Cliff was doing. The track 'All Nightmare Long' is a perfect example of where the bass almost leads the entire song and feels like a fundamental part of the instrument as opposed to just being there to give a deeper sound to the drumming and guitars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK74taWRRC4

Another great example being the 'Day That Never Comes' - you might call it the only thing on Death Magnetic representing a ballad, which in itself means that there shouldn't be a lot for the bassist to do - and yet during the chorus this is one lead bass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uXvMpJW6_U

Compared with Nothing Else Matters, Jason might have as well left the stage when this song was performed every night (skip to 1.05)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qhONSUH3kY