----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jaimie Vernon" <bullseyecanada@hotmail.com>
> If you can't *hear* the bass in the song then it's been deliberately 
> mixed that way. My complaint about modern producers is that bass 
> parts are now relegated to merely a sonic tone on recordings. You 
> can only hear the parts if you're listening to the CDs on stereo 
> systems with booming sub-woofers. Gone are the days when the bass 
> line carried the song ("Day Tripper" by the Beatles, "Money" by Pink 
> Floyd.....or, gasp, "With Or Without You" by u2). Bass players have 
> become kick drum enhancers....and not melody line creators. This may 
> not be true of a lot of the power pop we listen to, but out there in 
> the commercial world of knock-off major label production it is the 
> norm.

Depends on the genre: ever since contemporary alt-rock bands 
discovered Joy Division a few years ago, you get a lot of bass-forward 
songs there these days.  Interpol's big hit from a couple years ago, 
"Evil" -- I don't think the guitar even comes in until the first 
chorus.  See also Franz Ferdinand, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, that sort of 
thing.

S