My Top Bassists, Pt. 5

#2
Name: Simon Gallup
Associated Bands: The Cure

First things first: Simon Gallup is clearly a great bassist, on the merits of his glorious first name alone. However, all joking aside, Gallup is one truly formidable bass player. The Cure are a band that rely heavily on atmosphere and the texture of the sound, which often limits the guitar to spectral sheets of noise. This provides the perfect musical bedrock for Gallup’s heavy, melodic basslines to shine through. But what really makes Gallup amazing is the emotion he can somehow wring out of a simple bass guitar. Particularly on the Cure’s twin masterpieces, Faith (1981) and Pornography (1982), Gallup’s playing is marked with a heart-wrenching amount of sadness. It’s something about the slight way he hesitates between notes on some songs, or the desperate, headlong rush on others. He also has a tendency to play high melody lines, slicing through the murk of Cure songs with a distinctive little riff. In many ways, Gallup, with his strong, emotional style, should be my favorite bass player of all time. There’s just one little problem. As amazing as Simon Gallup is, he stole his technique from another bassist. Gallup is good, but he can’t hold a candle to the original…

Required Listening:
“Other Voices”, “The Hanging Garden”, “Cold”

#1
Name: Peter Hook
Associated Bands: Joy Division, New Order

In many ways, it’s a wonder Peter Hook plays bass at all. He famously had such low-quality equipment when he started playing that he could barely hear any sound at all coming out his amp. But Hook rose to the challenge, creating a new and truly unique style of bass playing in the process. By playing incredibly high on the fretboard, he managed to overcome his shoddy amp by playing just those high notes. He also had the good fortune of playing with a guitarist, Bernard Sumner, who was about as far from the “big, dominating guitar hero” mold as you can be. Sumner’s lack of overpowering chords opened up the music, allowing Hook’s dancing basslines to shoulder virtually all the melody, essentially reversing the usual roles of guitar and bass. Hook also has a jaw-dropping penchant for writing the perfect, memorable, minor-key riffs. When coupled with Ian Curtis’ haunted vocals, they made Joy Division’s songs unforgettable. Although Hook and his bandmates would suffer a huge loss when Curtis died, they would continue on in New Order, where Hook’s bass usually carried even more weight. Peter Hook is a bassist who plays like a guitarist and, in that sense, he’s had a bigger influence than anyone else on my own style as a bass player.

Required Listening:
“She’s Lost Control”, “Shadowplay”, “Transmission”