Sting has so many strings to his bow – and his lute! – that it’s easy to forget how his bass guitar was what first powered him into our lives.

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Paul Simonon of The Clash famously learned to play the bass guitar from scratch by practising note-for-note along to the Ramoones’ debut album.

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Basslines #10: Bernard Edwards is the man behind a bassline that surely deserves that most overused of adjectives – “iconic” – and Good Times is arguably the first song I think of (alongside I Feel Love) when I hear the word disco.

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Basslines #5: Peter Hook’s basslines with Joy Division don’t just anchor the songs – they often provide the lead melody.

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Marilyn McLeod is best known, if she is known at all, as the songwriter behind hit singles for Diana Ross and Junior Walker.

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The Dead Kennedys made an indelible mark on punk rock with their debut single California Über Alles in the summer of 1979.

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Bob Marley captured the concerning mood of the times with his warning of impending global catastrophe – as relevant today as when he sang it in 1979.

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This nine-minute extravaganza is essentially an extended guitar solo, much like Funkadelic’s extraordinary Maggot Brain. And just as good.

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Jazz-funk was never my thing, conjuring nightmarish visions of George Benson and Level 42, but it did provide a moment of Pleasure in 1979.

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Everything about this song screams “1979” – a transitional year when the first wave of punk was evolving into the New Wave and its various sub-genres: post-punk, power-pop, synth-pop.

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