Bass players might not always grab the spotlight in the same way as showboating lead singers or preening lead guitarists, but without them, rock would struggle to find its roll.
Over the years, many bassists have taken their time to shine with solo albums that show the true extent of their talent – here are the best.
And no, we didn’t include bassists who were already known as lead vocalists – apologies to Paul McCartney, Sting, Roger Waters, Nick Lowe and Phil Lynott fans – or multi-instrumentalists, otherwise John Cale’s Paris 1919 would be high up the list.
The 15 best solo albums by bassists
15. Kim Gordon, No Home Record (2019)
Though Kim Gordon had fronted side projects including Free Kitten and Body/Head, No Home Record was the first solo album from the former Sonic Youth bassist.
Its bracing and abrasive embrace of post-punk, industrial noise, hip-hop and electro harks back to the thrilling chaos of Sonic Youth’s early days. Gordon’s ever-cool vocals tie it all together, whether snarling with disdain for the "Andy Warhol prints on the wall" in ‘Air BnB’ or mantra-like on the droning ‘Earthquake’.
An uncompromising howl from an artist utterly unconcerned with commercial success, and all the better for it.
Key track: 'Earthquake'
14. Duff McKagan, Believe In Me (1993)
Bassist Duff McKagan’s punk roots gave Guns N’ Roses an edge that set them apart from their heavy rock peers, so it’s no surprise that his debut solo album – the first by any member of the rock titans – had attitude to spare.
But while the frenetic ‘Punk Rock Song’ and ‘Just Not There’ were sneering blasts of punk energy, ‘The Swamp Song’ (one of two songs to feature guitar legend Jeff Beck) and ‘Man In The Meadow’ were swaggering, stadium rock anthems. Meanwhile, bandmate Slash’s inimitable fretwork on the title track made this a must-buy for GNR fans.
Key track: 'Punk Rock Song'
13. Chris Hillman, Slippin' Away (1976)
By the time Chris Hillman went it alone he’d already supplied the low-end for three bands – The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Manassas – who’d released some of the great Americana albums of the time.
Unsurprisingly then, he was able to draw upon some serious talent to back him up on Slippin’ Away, including Booker T & The MG’s guitarist Steve Cropper, dobro maestro Al Perkins and Flo & Eddie (The Turtles, Mothers Of Invention).
From the title track on, Slippin’ Away is a mellow treat, all laid back, sunkissed ’70s country rock with Hillman’s smooth vocals a perfect fit. The outliers are the reggae-lite take on the Burritos’ ‘Down In The Churchyard’ and the bluegrass knees-up of ‘(Take Me In Your) Lifeboat)’.
Key track: 'Slippin' Away'
12. Flea, Honora (2026)
Liberated from the ever-naff Red Hot Chili Peppers, bassist Flea’s solo debut is a triumph. Turning 60 and faced with the prospect of seemingly endless downtime on a two-year RHCP stadium tour, Flea challenged himself to learn the trumpet and make an album at the end of it, Honora is the result.
Jazz was Flea’s first musical love – check out his cameo in the 1988 Chet Baker documentary Let’s Get Lost – and Honora feels like the bassist is reconnecting with that part of himself, from the sprightly bop of ‘Morning Cry’ to the meditative, late-’60s Miles of ‘Frailed’.
But this is so much more than a genre exercise, as the lush, trumpet-led cover of Frank Ocean’s ‘Thinkin Bout You’, the gorgeous take on Funkadelic’s ‘Maggot Brain’ and the twitchy ‘Traffic Lights’ (featuring Thom Yorke on vocals) prove. More of this, less of whatever Red Hot Chili Peppers is please.
Key track: 'Maggot Brain'
11. Roger Glover, The Butterfly Ball & The Grasshopper's Feast (1974)
It sounds like a sub-plot from This Is Spinal Tap – in 1973, bassist of hard rock pioneers Deep Purple, Roger Glover was commissioned to write a rock opera based on The Butterfly Ball & The Grasshopper’s Feast, a children’s picture book by Alan Aldridge and William Ploner.
"Being the bass player of a hard rock band," Glover later reflected, "it… was very odd." But he threw himself into it, spending six months working tirelessly to complete the songs and calling on a who’s who of ’70s rock to voice the cast of characters, including Glenn Hughes, David Coverdale and Dio.
But rather than a hard rockin’ opera, jaunty melodies and lightly psychedelic whimsy were the order of the day, making Butterfly Ball a hugely enjoyable listen.
Key track: 'Get Ready'
10. Jah Wobble, The Legend Lives On... Jah Wobble In Betrayal (1980)
Ever fond of a grand, sweeping statement, John Lydon once bragged, "No-one listened to bass in rock music before PIL." Though we’ll take that with a pinch of salt, Lydon was correct to give props to the talent of Jah Wobble, Public Image Limited’s bassist.
Wobble’s dub and reggae-influenced bass lines set PIL apart, but after the release of their classic second album, Metal Box, the bassist became disillusioned.
"People were getting drunk, using drugs," Wobble told The Guardian in 2015. "We played three gigs in the whole of 1979."
When Wobble’s debut solo album, In Betrayal, came out in May 1980, it sparked a row with Lydon, who was angry that two tracks – ‘Not Another’ and ‘Blueberry Hill’ – were based on unused backing tracks from the Metal Box sessions and Wobble left the band.
Despite the hoohah, In Betrayal remains a great introduction to Wobble – a wonky, handmade-sounding dub odyssey given an otherworldly quality and charm by Wobble’s heroically wayward vocals.
Key track: 'Tales From Outer Space'
9. John Paul Jones, Zooma (1999)
Post-Led Zeppelin, John Paul Jones has been a bassist of leisure, emerging from time to time with disparate projects – producing The Mission (1986’s Children), arranging strings for R.E.M (on four Automatic For The People tracks, including ‘Nightswimming’ and ‘Everybody Hurts’), forming rock supergroup Them Crooked Vultures with Josh Homme and Dave Grohl.
His debut solo album, 1999’s Zooma, clearly comes from the same place – a wholly instrumental album that exists purely for the joy of making music with scant regard for shifting units.
‘Zooma’, ‘Grind’, ‘Goose’ and ‘B Fingers’ show he hadn’t lost his appetite for earth-shaking riffs, while the lilting introspection of ‘The Smile Of Your Shadow’ allows space to reflect among the noise. Best of all, ‘Snake Eyes’ calls on the London Symphony Orchestra for a huge, suitably serpentine string arrangement which harks back to ‘Kashmir’ while Jones steals the show with a bravura organ solo.
And anyone worried that he might have lost his chops in his time out of the spotlight should be referred to the nimble, jazzy groove of Bass ‘n’ Drums’.
Key track: 'Snake Eyes'
8. Rick Danko, Rick Danko (1977)
Anybody who’s seen Martin Scorcese’s The Last Waltz, his account of The Band’s final gig, will be familiar with at last some of Rick Danko’s underrated debut solo album.
During a scene shot at Shangri-La, The Band’s Malibu studio/clubhouse, the director asks Danko, "Well, now that The Last Waltz is over, what are you doing now?" Danko pauses, puts on a wide-brimmed hat and asks the engineer to put on a track.
"Just making music man," Danko drawls over the intro, "trying to stay busy." Scorsese beams, but as then-unreleased ‘Sip The Wine’ kicks in and Danko’s haunting and raw vocals kick in, the camera zooms in on the singer, his expression hidden by the shadows cast by his hat.
It’s a moment of cinema gold, but while ‘Sip The Wine’ is the stand-track on Rick Danko, there’s plenty more to recommend, not least the rollicking New Orleans R&B of opener ‘What A Town’, the Cajun flavours of ‘New Mexicoe’ (featuring former Band-mate Garth Hudson on organ and Eric Clapton on guitar) and the raucous ‘Java Blues’.
Key track: 'Sip The Wine'
7. Jack Bruce, Songs For A Tailor (1969)
Following the break-up of Cream, Jack Bruce recorded the instrumental, free jazz-inspired album Things We Like, but with the release delayed by a few years, 1969’s Songs For A Tailor became his first official solo album.
It’s a powerful, genre-hopping collection, with Bruce backed by guitarist Chris Spedding and drummer Jon Hiseman – apparently, he’d play them the basic song on piano and expect them to improvise an arrangement around it, which explains the refreshing feeling of spontaneity throughout.
There’s funked-up R&B (‘Never Tell Your Mother She’s Out Of Tune’, ‘The Ministry Of Bag’), melancholic psych (‘Theme For An Imaginary Western’), sprawling prog-folk (‘Rope Ladder To The Moon’) and woozy jazz (‘Boston Ball Game, 1967’), all given an extra dimension by Pete Brown’s surreal lyrics.
Key track: 'Never Tell Your Mother She's Out Of Tune'
6. Kim Deal, Nobody Loves You More (2024)
Nearly four decades since changing the course of rock music with Pixies, Kim Deal’s first solo album showed she still has plenty of surprises up her sleeve.
Supported by an indie-rock dream team including Breeders bandmates, Britt Walford of Slint and Teenage Fanclub’s Raymond McGinley, Nobody Loves You More veers between tender and poignant reflections on caring for her mother (‘Are You Mine?’), gorgeous slacker Mariachi (‘Coast’) thrillingly strident alt.rock (‘Disobedience’, ‘A Good Time Pushed’), sinister dance-punk (‘Crystal Breath’) and swooning ballads swaddled in Sinatra strings (‘Summerland’).
And Deal’s effortlessly cool, endlessly charismatic vocals are the icing on the cake – still the big sister you always wanted, but with hard-won wisdom to spare.
Key track: 'Nobody Loves You More'
5. John Entwistle, Smash Your Head Against The Wall (1971)
That cover image (below) – John Entwistle’s face pressed against misted-up plastic, superimposed on an x-ray of his chest – is typical of the off-kilter, sometimes macabre, and mischievous debut album by The Who’s bassist.
The bludgeoning opener ‘My Size’ is a sequel to Entwistle’s Who track ‘Boris The Spider’ (as he hints at with the ‘Boris’ riff at the end) and from there he detours into heads-down boogie fraught with the perils of over-indulgence (‘Pick Me Up (Big Chicken)’), spacey existential balladry (‘What Are We Doing Here?’) and a bluesy take on his Who rabble-rouser (‘Heaven & Hell).
The second side kicks off with the Syd Barrett-ish character study of ‘Ted End’ before ramping things up with the rollicking, gospel-rocker ‘You’re Mine’.
‘No 29 (Eternal Youth)’ is a deep groove that showcases Entwistle’s astonishingly dextrous playing (Keith Moon, Neil Innes and Viv Stanshall are credited with ‘Latin percussion’, oh to be a fly on the wall at that session) and the closing ‘I Believe In Everything’ is a chunky send-up of spirituality which climaxes with an absurd, cockney knees-up rendition of ‘Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer’, a wild ending to a album full of surprises.
Key track: 'My Size'
4. Holger Czukay, Movies (1979)
Every year, the latest pop hopefuls clamour for their hit to be crowned the ‘song of the summer’, but any sane person knows that former Can bassist Holger Czukay claimed the title forever with the pop-funk silliness ‘Cool In The Pool’, the opening track on his debut solo album, Movies.
Czukay’s prankster-like approach continues on the 13-minute exploratory jam ‘Oh Lord. Give Us More Money’, with samples of disparate voices used to create a feeling of chaos before he and his old Can comrades hunker down to business.
‘Persian Love’ is sublime, Czukay weaving together a song from samples of Farsi songs and soundtracks and ‘Hollywood Symphony’ closes the album with another lengthy sound collage, flitting between tightly wound funk, more messing around with samples (eat your heart out The Avalanches) and ravishing vistas of synthesised strings.
Key track: 'Hollywood Symphony'
3. Chris Squire, Fish Out Of Water (1975)
Following the tour to support their seventh album, Relayer (1974), prog giants Yes went on a year-long hiatus, designed to allow each member time to work on solo material. Bassist Chris Squire’s Fish Out Of Water was the pick of the bunch, an exploration of lush prog with choral flourishes steered by spry and precise bass playing.
‘Silently Falling’ is the ambitious centrepiece, beginning with pastoral flutes and Squire’s lazily meandering basslines before it takes off into a dazzlingly intense space-rock journey flowed by a symphonic prologue.
Key track: 'Silently Falling'
2. Stanley Clarke, School Days (1976)
Virtuoso bassist Stanley Clarke made his name as a session player, working with jazz giants such as Pharoah Sanders, Stan Getz and Dexter Gordon.
In the early ’70s, his work on pianist Chick Corea’s Return To Forever led to the spin-off band of the same name, whose Latin-infused jazz-rock made them fusion pioneers. Meanwhile, Clarke released a string of sparkling solo albums that made him a force to be reckoned with as a solo act.
School Days was his fourth, a stunning combination of innovative technique, mind-boggling solos and vital compositions. "When Stanley did School Days, I’d never heard playing like that," Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler told Guitarist magazine.
"People used to tell me that I was a reasonable bass player and then I heard him, and I felt like just giving up. It was like, 'Oh my God…’ He took it to a completely new level."
Key track: 'School Days'
1. Jaco Pastorius, Jaco Pastorius (1976)
Jaco Pastorius was never lacking self-belief. According to legend, he approached Joe Zawinul, keyboardist for fusion pioneers Weather Report after a gig and introduced himself with the words, "I'm John Francis Pastorius III. I'm the greatest bass player in the world."
Over the next few years, he proved it, with his debut album, stellar work on Joni Mitchell’s Hejira and Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter and – his chutzpah paid off – a succession of Weather Report albums, staring with Black Market.
But his crowning glory was his self-titled 1976 album, a dizzying celebration of his near-supernatural ability. After the near-solo showcase ‘Donna Lee’, we’re hit with the thumping soul-jazz cut ‘Come On, Come Over’ and the slinky fusion ‘Continuum’ in quick succession.
But the lightning-fast and supple playing of ‘Kuru/Speak Like A Child’ is where the album really kicks off, with highlights including the voodoo groove of ‘Opus Pocus’ (featuring a star turn from Wayne Shorter on sax), the fidgety brilliance of ‘Used To Be A) Cha Cha’ and the stunning closer ‘Forgotten Love’, on which Pastorius allows the spotlight to fall on Herbie Hancock’s transcendent piano playing.
But throughout, Jaco is the star – he’d never shine quite so brightly again.
Key track: 'Kuru/Speak Like A Child'
All pics Getty Images
Top photo John Entwistle of The Who playing one of his 'Fenderbird' custom bass guitars in his home recording studio in 1972
