Originally Posted by Qccowboy

you did not offend me. I clarified that my post was aimed principally at composers interested in concert music.
while the concept of the "melodic" bassline is not unique to concert music, it is more prevalent in that medium.
However, I think that you may also have misunderstood the point of that section.
It is a uniquely "pop" musical vision to interpret the bass part as the harmonic foundation and no more.

when writing for orchestra it is important to consider the bass as more than simply the harmonic foundation. else this leads to very boring orchestration.

as I noted, when the bass part coincides too often with the soprano what we get are parallel and direct 8ves between the two parts that establish the entire harmony. by assuring yourself that the two parts are in and of themselves independant melodically you assure yourself of avoiding those parallel and direct 8ves. I'm having difficulty putting this into words without musical examples.

I'm attaching an image. Strictly speaking, there are no actual "errors" in this short example, but the bass part is extremely weak because it does not show true independance from the soprano. The number of coinciding octaves create too much of a sense of unison between the two parts.

"God That's Good" is based on a pedal tone. if you notice, the bass moves melodically very strongly once you're past the chorus section (into the minor "What's my secret? Frankly dear - forgive my candor"). As well as in the intervening scenes with Todd. there is a strong balance of stability between the chorus and the considerably more dissonant bridge and verses.

as for "Every Day a Little Death", it follows perfectly the principle of the melodic bass.

I believe you are reading too strictly into what I have written. I am not saying "avoid using harmonic movement by 3rds". I use this continuously, it's a major part of my own harmonic language. I'm saying learn to explore the balance between common tones and chords without any common tones.