boo boo

I dunno, Burton often didn't shine as much as he could, its obvious the guy had mind blowing talent.... But most Metallica songs weren't really bassline driven, he just carried the rhythm, which is something that any half-decent bassist should be able to do.... Carrying the rhythm is one thing, carrying the main melody AND the rhythm would be damn hard, and thats something that Flea and Claypool have been known to do 90% of the time, Burton didn't do it very often, sure he did some cool solos here and there (Orien, Pulling Teeth) but nothing that i'd say conquers Flea and Claypools best work... Burton died before he could show all of his potential, we don't know if he could play anything outside of metal, while we know that Flea and Claypool can do pretty much anything they want, just my two cents, it's hard to compare what little stuff Burton did when he was alive to Flea and Claypool's much larger body of work.

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Seltzer

Yes, that's exactly my mentality. While Burton was a good bassist, Metallica has never had many great basslines. Whereas, Steve Harris ensures that Maiden has piles of them. I'm just learning Phantom of the Opera .

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hiu

Not even good enough to be as good as a punk bassist eh? Mike Watt kills all three of those bassists.

shiftael

Maiden any day of the week, month, or year!!!!!!!!!

swim

But look what happened to Metallica when Cliff died. His role in writing and arranging music was huge.

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boo boo

True, but good writing and aranging does not = good bass playing.

Burton was very good, but him being a good writer and aranger does not improve his ability to play bass, similar logic would be like saying that Roger Waters is a better bassist Tony Levin, and it's pretty obvious that isn't true... I think looking at it objectively Burton isn't as good as some can make him out to be, and we can't forget that Flea plays a big part in RHCP's songwriting, and Claypool writes most of his stuff.

It's pretty close.

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swim

As far as basslines go, flea and claypool have burton beat everytime. Metallica is not a bass band. Neither are too many metal bands (implying whatever bands that you know are bass driven bands don't make up the majority, I know there probably are bass driven metal bands). But, in my opinion I think has just as much effect on the songs he writes as Flea and Claypool. Look at Kill 'em All's bass just from a rhythmic point of view, it's god damn awesome. I think that Burton is just as good of a bassist as Flea and Claypool because just like them he can take a song and make way better than most people would think it to be.

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TheBig3

I took a look at the notation for the stuff on MOP (something guitarists these days might want to do once in awhile), I've seen some of the runs Flea created on "By The Way" and they look alot less complex than MOP.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree.

/\ Yeah but thats because Primus was Claypool, and the rest of RHCP doesn't have as much talent as Flea does.

Burton was playing with the greatest guitar duo in music.

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Seltzer

I wouldn't use By the Way as the model RHCP album. It's much less bass oriented than their other albums.

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boo boo

I wouldn't call Hammett and Hetfield the greatest guitar duo in music.

Also, By The Way is one of his lesser works basswise, their early stuff as well as One Hot Minute is really where it's at.

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