![]() ![]() It’s emphatically not intended as a ranking of objective skill nor does it assign any one set of criteria as a measure of greatness. The alternative era brought new heroes on the instrument, from Sonic Youth’s intuitive Kim Gordon to Primus’ outlandish Les Claypool, and more recently, a fresh crop of bass icons - including Esperanza Spalding and the ubiquitous Thundercat - have placed the low end at the center of their musical universes.Īs with our 100 Greatest Drummers list, this rundown of the 50 greatest bassists of all time celebrates that entire spectrum. ![]() “Nobody wanted to play bass, they wanted to be up front.”Īnd yet the instrument has its own proud tradition in popular music, stretching from the mighty upright work of Jimmy Blanton in Duke Ellington’s orchestra and bebop pioneers like Oscar Pettiford to fellow jazz geniuses like Charles Mingus and Ron Carter studio champs like Kaye and James Jamerson rock warriors like Cream’s Jack Bruce and the Who’s John Entwistle funk masters like Bootsy and Sly and the Family Stone’s Larry Graham prog prodigies like Yes’ Chris Squire and Rush’s Geddy Lee fusion gods like Stanley Clarke and Jaco Pastorius and punk and postpunk masters like Weymouth and the Minutemen’s Mike Watt. “It wasn’t the number-one job,” McCartney once said, reflecting on the fateful moment when he took over the four-string after Stu Sutcliffe exited the Beatles. Guitarists, singers, and horn players tend to claim the flashiest moments in any given song, while drummers channel most of the kinetic energy, but what the bassist brings is something elemental - the part that loops endlessly in your head long after the music ends.īassists are often overlooked and undervalued, even within their own bands. Whatever you play puts a framework around the rest of the music.”Ī great bass line, whether it’s Paul McCartney’s hypnotic “Come Together” riff, Bootsy Collins’ sly vamp from James Brown’s “Sex Machine,” or Tina Weymouth’s minimal throb on Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer,” is like a mantra: It sounds like it could go on forever, and it only feels more profound the more you hear it. DC has always been a city of thinkers-we believe that’s a key attribute in making it such a special place.“The bass is the foundation,” session legend Carol Kaye once said, “and with the drummer you create the beat. We also think some of the names here are likely to land in government in the future, either because of their ambition to serve or because they’ll be tapped for their expertise.Įvery one of the influencers shares a drive to understand a policy issue and propel it forward. We believe that the people we’ve included in this arena possess special insight into how to get an issue elevated. Many of our choices have indeed served government in some capacity, like AEI’s Scott Gottlieb and Google’s Camille Stewart. Chaney, who’s leveraging her political expertise in the push for voting-rights protection. That gave us the chance to highlight people like CrowdStrike’s Dmitri Alperovitch, who’s bringing his global experience in security issues to a new policy think tank, and the National Urban League’s Joi O. For instance, we added two new categories: voting rights and trade policy. We tried to select policy areas that we felt the administration and the country are currently focusing on. We’re not passing judgment on whether every person’s influence is for the greater good. Some names or companies may strike you as having a harmful effect. We also didn’t include elected officials and Hill or administration staff-the “influencees,” so to speak. We’ve chosen people across the ideological spectrum, avoiding big-name “hired guns” whose influence often derives from their communication skills and network. ![]() They work on matters many of us don’t follow daily-from making government run better to civil-rights reform. And yes, they’re all wonks in one way or another. They comprehend policy’s nuances and complexities. They have deep subject-matter expertise and significant understanding of how DC works, with the goal of getting action. We sought out smart, innovative people who care about issues and spend a lot of time thinking about them. This year, we expanded the roster from 250. What follows is a list of 500 of those stalwarts. Well, there’s good news for them (and us): The nation’s capital is full of people who aren’t elected but who shape the laws that govern the country and ultimately affect the course of history. Unfortunately, polls have shown that many of those young advocates have little desire to serve in elected office. Now more than ever, young people are eager to see improvements to our country, our climate, and our justice system. For a long time, people have moved to Washington to change the world.
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