The 5 Best Songs With Epic Bass Solos At The Beginning

It isn't every day that you hear a must-listen bass solo, but it's even rarer when it forms a part of a song's beginning. When executed properly, it sets the tone for what's to come and holds the potential to transform the entire experience for the listener. It becomes both the foundation and driving force of the musical journey.

From Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea to Muse's Chris Wolstenholme and Metallica's Cliff Burton, the world's greatest bassists have known when to step up to the plate and announce their arrival by slapping those thicker strings with extra vigor, passion, and purpose. Everything that comes after these electrifying intros is just history — musical history.

In picking the tracks featured here, we looked at the best songs with epic bass solos in the beginning that have become staples of every artist's catalog. These are the bona fide bangers that every fan knows like the back of their hand and would instantly include in any best-of compilation without hesitation. Some are intricate, others are here for a good time — not a long time — but one thing's certain here: they rock!

Whenever someone mentions Avenged Sevenfold — a contender to be seen as one of the most important rock bands of the 2000s — the first thing that comes to mind is the sensational guitarwork of Zacky Vengeance and Synyster Gates. The rockers have unleashed some absolutely mind-blowing guitar solos in their career; however, bassist Johnny Christ rose up in the intro to "The Wicked End" to remind everybody that his fingers are just as fast, furious, and melodic as his bandmates.

Flying off 2005's "City of Evil," "The Wicked End" isn't one of the singles like "Bat Country" or "Seize the Day," but it's a beloved track among A7X fans who love the musical boundaries it pushes and how it showcases a band that dares to try to be different. The song starts off with Christ in the pocket and tearing through the bass for close to 10 seconds before the twin harmonies of the guitar take over. Christ takes a wild, loud, and impactful approach to his bass playing here, sucking in the listener into what's set to become a sonic battlefield of both brutality and beauty.

Even in YouTube's comments section, many fans call this song one of Avenged Sevenfold's most underrated tunes, while on Reddit others credited Christ's work on it. "The intro to 'The Wicked End' is pretty nuts," a Redditor wrote.

Fun fact: Most normies don't know that the intro for Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is played on bass. As a matter of fact, even many 'tallica fans didn't know that bit of trivia either. A Reddit thread saw many Redditors reveal they only found out that fact much later. "But when I learned the truth, it elevated my respect and admiration for Cliff to legendary status," one user wrote.

You can't blame them, since the intro sounds very much like it's played by an electric guitar. However, it's actually the late Cliff Burton producing the unmistakable and epic tone through a wah pedal and his trusty bass. It's almost impossible to believe until you watch a live video of the bassist performing "For Whom the Bells Toll," then you understand why he was so highly rated, and this song off the "Ride the Lightning" album had Rolling Stone calling it one of the best metal tracks of all time.

While Lars Ulrich's drums add a layer of beat, the intro is all about Burton, who controls the mood in the palm of his hand and lets his fingers do all the puppetry here. Nothing needs to be said because there's an ominous and foreboding feeling that says it all. For whom the bells toll indeed.

As a group, Muse refuse to conform to generic conventions. They'll try to do the unexpected. The track, "Hysteria," off the 2003 album, "Absolution," is a prime example of this. It's lift-off as soon as a heavily distorted and fuzzy bass solo sees Chris Wolstenholme's fingers dance around the fretboard and threaten to set the instrument on fire with the speed he moves at.

"It came about in a soundcheck in Doncaster of all places," Wolstenholme explained the origin of the song on "The Leona Graham Podcast." "Matt [Bellamy] started playing the bass riff, he was playing it on guitar, and he was sort of playing it almost like a bluesy kind of thing. Then we started jamming it out, and I think I added the sixteenth things to make it sound like it's a machine-gun-type thing going on. And then it became the bassline ..."

Without question, Wolstenholme's bassline from "Hysteria" remains one of Muse's most iconic pieces of music and is instantly identifiable from the intro alone. On Reddit, fans praised Wolstenholme's work, with one commentator showering praise on its influence and writing, in part, "That was the gold standard bassline to learn for teenagers learning guitar in the mid '00s, and [there are] few basslines that are so recognisable but also that complex, without delving into more obscure, progressive music."

Flea isn't a regular bassist — he's a funkasarus. Red Hot Chili Peppers' entire groove is led by the manic musician who refuses to stand still for a single second. Yet it's his quickfire influence (and fingers) in "Higher Ground" that helps to separate the song from the Stevie Wonder original, which is different but equally brilliant.

At the beginning of the track, Flea plays a foot-tapping bassline in an isolated, fast fashion before Will Ferrell Chad Smith's drum fill kicks in and the song erupts into a full-fledged funk metal beast. While the track features many high points and memorable sections, it's the blistering bass solo in the intro that gets everybody on their feet and bosses the proceedings.

The song has become a central piece of every RHCP setlist. In fact, the band and friends performed a thundering rendition of it when they were inducted into the 2012 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with one commenter saying, "There is no better bassist than Flea! (via YouTube). Let's just all be grateful that Red Hot Chili Peppers decided to cover Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground."

As one of the most important rock bands of the 1970s, Black Sabbath's self-titled debut album remains a must-listen for any fan. It changed the course of music history, announcing the arrival of a group that wasn't afraid to embrace the darkness and dance with the devil in the pale moonlight (to steal a quote from Tim Burton's "Batman").

One of the most memorable songs off this record is "N.I.B.," which was voted by Rolling Stone readers as one of the best Sabbath tracks in 2013. For just over six minutes, Ozzy Osbourne and his crew take the listeners on a powerful trip to parts unknown and back. However, the intro slaps differently — mostly because it does just that. Bassist Geezer Butler applies all the blues and funk sensibilities to it, dancing his fingertips across the board and letting loose with freedom and originality. Butler's bass solo has also been labelled and referred to individually as "Bassically," which is probably the most appropriate name for it, ever.

While Ozzy received all the headlines for Black Sabbath, many musicians and fans know all about the importance of Butler's playing — especially on a track like "N.I.B." On Reddit, fans agree that Butler's solo is something special, with a Redditor posting, "It's actually not very difficult to play, but that's not the point. It's an iconic solo and sounds incredible. The tone he had on the first two albums is the Holy Grail for me."