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The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song
- lancesells 3y agoThis is really interesting question. Outside of hip-hop I listen to the instruments far more than the vocals. Even with hip-hop though I'm very much listening to the production but the vocals are clearly the star most of the time. My favorite instrumentalist right now is Mary Halvorson.
- beezlebroxxxxxx 3y agoIt's very genre dependent. Mary Halvorson, for instance, is a great pick, but jazz is, and likely always will be, about individual musicians. Especially be-bop and bop oriented jazz where virtuosity is highly prized. Even when they form groups, the focus is on the interplay of the individual players. Halvorson is rather interesting as she is considered a great guitarist and a great composer. The same is often true in rock and metal (especially the more extreme variants). The solo and the riff are very highly prized. Fans will follow individual instrumentalists across bands, and the "selling point" of one band will often be the mixture of the instrumentalists. A recent example is the revamped Gorguts lineup, which is a really a superstar line-up of avantgarde-esque metal musicians. Featured solos are still common. Vocals, when screamed, are often seen more as percussion or rhythmic texture rather than the centerpiece of the music. In metal, instrumental acts are still quite common and popular (obviously relative, pop music still dominates the charts).
- lancesells 3y agoWell said. I'm a big metal fan and agree that vocals are fairly textural (especially death metal) and more of a sound. And always good to see Gorguts being mentioned in a comment. Ha.
- wolframhempel 3y agoTo be fair, Polyphia is a great band and Tim Henson still a star instrumentalist...
- svachalek 3y agoYes, I was surprised to find no mention of Polyphia, even to dismiss it. Are they not as popular as I thought?
- arvinsim 3y agoTim Henson and Yvette Young are the guitarists I enjoy nowadays. it is strange that they are not even mentioned.
- yamazakiwi 3y agoThey are reasonably popular but I personally don't find their talent better than other bands I've heard in the past in their genre, even though their main guitarist is quite talented. In contemporary music I believe King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are a better sell for talented instrumentalists.
- recursive 3y ago> mathy Are they? I thought math rock was all about weird time signatures. By contrast, Polyphia is pretty accessible. And I've never heard them play a weird time signature.
- yamazakiwi 3y agoNot actual math rock, I don't want to get into a genre purist debate, but I mean math-esque i.e. mathy. They flirt with changing time signatures across instruments constantly in their music; not necessarily complicated ones, but multiple through each song. I guess this style is more common nowadays with 90% of bands writing straight up label music or their music is influenced by their label so much that they're pressured to pack their music with more dynamics.
- alex_lav 3y agoAnecdotally I've never met another person that'd even heard of them. I only know of them because YouTube forces them at me a lot.
- potta_coffee 3y agoBuckethead is my favorite instrumentalist. He's not a Jazz musician though.
- lapcat 3y ago> He's not a Jazz musician though. He's not human.
- potta_coffee 3y agoTrue enough. I'd like to be that good at guitar but it seems like he's somewhat of a savant. I can't say I envy his social life.
- Gualdrapo 3y agoBetween the prolific musicians I admire the most, like Allan Holdsworth, Devin Townsend, Zappa, Pat Metheny or him - he seems to be the most troubled but interesting character. It's like if the only, coherent and 'real' way he speaks is only though the guitar - any other way you'll get some gibberish our simple minds can comprehend. Heard the other day he has health issues and hope he's better now.
- lapcat 3y ago> Pat Metheny That reminds me, Pat Metheny is another instrumentalist who had some gold albums in the late 80s/early 90s. > Heard the other day he has health issues and hope he's better now. I had not heard that until now!
- squeaky-clean 3y agoHadn't heard of the health issues, hope he's doing well. He does speak sometimes, but only through a deranged puppet named Herbie. Apparently when Guns N Roses manager was working out the details of him recording and touring with them, he would only speak to the manager through Herbie. It's all just a character though of course. He did some recordings with the LOTR actors, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd (Merry and Pippin) spoke a little bit about it on their podcast. He had a strict rule about no cameras or cell phones when meeting him, and they were able to hang out with him sans bucket and Herbie.
- throwaway743 3y agoOneohtrix
- Minor49er 3y agoHe's overdue for a new album. I didn't think he'd be able to top GoD, but Magic OPN is fantastic. Apparently he's working for Disney right now Related: Squarepusher. His album Ultravisitor will melt your brain
- lancesells 3y agoNot only is he(Tom Jenkinson / Squarepusher) an amazing composer he's up there for being an incredible and innovative bassist. Not sure if he's "underrated" but I feel as a bass player alone he's special.
- Minor49er 3y agoHard Normal Daddy overshadows a lot of his other superior work
- throwaway743 3y agoAh that album is soooo good. Saw him live a few years back with a band. Great with a band (the band was great too), but as one dude at the show said, "It's crazy to think that he can legit do all of this alone without the band".
- _2uwr 3y agoIf I had to name one it would be the violinist Vanessa Mae, but I think DJ's have replaced bands and musicians in many ways and have certainly added value to the original work, which ironically is a copyright nightmare. I wouldnt listen to this original soundtrack/song, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N_ucgihNzk&ab_channel=fdsvffs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N_ucgihNzk&ab_channel=fdsvf... But I'd listen to these upgrades. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vmbSXKNJ14&ab_channel=mortendalgaard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vmbSXKNJ14&ab_channel=morte... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vak9wUPkL3Q&ab_channel=HilltopHoodsVEVO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vak9wUPkL3Q&ab_channel=Hillt...
- User23 3y agoIt'll be interesting to see how AI disrupts the "mix other people's stuff and call it your own composition" space. I have to admit I look forward to DJs complaining about models being trained on their work. In a very primitive way what we calls DJs really are forerunners to the LLM.
- rjsw 3y ago> If I had to name one it would be the violinist Vanessa Mae Haven't heard any of her work, have skied with her though.
- copperx 3y agoWhat a strange way to flex.
- rjsw 3y agoI'm not American so have no idea what you mean. My point was that she was busy with a non-musical project for several years. I have not met her since the pandemic though.
- harry8 3y agoWhat did you think that information was adding to the conversation? As readers what are we supposed to get from what you typed? What do you think @copperx thought it was? Your nationality shouldn't matter in any of that.
- azan-n 3y agoTigran Hamasyan, Animals as Leaders, and Plini are musicians I listen to almost everyday.
- innocentoldguy 3y agoThanks for the recommendations. I listen to Tigran Hamasyan and Animals as Leaders all the time, but I hadn't heard of Plini before. His Strandberg guitar sounds so much better than mine for some reason.
- squeaky-clean 3y agoI was able to get a lesson and jam session with Tosin Abasi from AAL. He's so chill and ridiculously skilled. I distracted him at one point and made him drop his lasagna on the floor... He kept saying it wasn't my fault when I apologized but it kind of was :(
- dokem 3y agoI recommend Sithu Aye.
- arbitrary_name 3y agoAdd scale the summit to that list!
- TeaBrain 3y agoIf you like Tigran, it might be worth checking out Hiromi. She's a jazz pianist with a similar kind-of chaotic energy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr98Qt99mN0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr98Qt99mN0
- lapcat 3y agoI don't know if these anecdotes prove anything, but two of my favorites, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, had popular instrumentals in the late 80s/early 90s. And one of my non-favorites, Kenny G, is one of the best-selling artists of all time, more than 75 million records.
- rzzzt 3y agoI see your Kenny G (in fact I was Ctrl-F searching for his name) and raise you Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jzb 3y agoKinda leans into the point of the post, I think. Vai, Satriani, and Eric Johnson are still working today, but they peaked popularity wise in the late 80s / early 90s. Not sure Satriani ever topped “Surfing With The Alien.”
- hammyhavoc 3y ago> pulls Vai face whilst tremolo-bombing self into pleasurable oblivion
- FiatLuxDave 3y agoIf you like Satch and Vai, you might want to check out Angel Vivaldi if you haven't already.
- devindotcom 3y agoNot to contradict the writer in any way, obviously in popular music this format has largely disappeared. But even so there are lots out there and a ton of diversity. Some from recent listening: James Blackshaw, Zoe Keating, Max Ananyev, Mary Lattimore, Anna von Hausswolf, Goldmund. and of course Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebro, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Jack Rose, RIP. Individual musical artists have so many more tools now that they can produce a whole song with multiple instruments plus vocals much more easily than 10 years ago, let alone 50. But the trend is still interesting to track.
- Agentlien 3y agoI find it fascinating that despite listening to a lot of music I don't recognise a single name in this list.
- devindotcom 3y agoI listen to a fair amount too but someone's list from jazz or metal or some corner of classical would be totally unfamiliar to me too. Fortunately it's so easy to search for a name, click a track, and listen for 10 seconds that you can breeze through recommendations super fast. Of course lazy commenters like me don't link to representative tracks... perhaps a task for AI. "Go to top YouTube video for selected text" would probably suffice.
- leethargo 3y agoI know Zoe Keating (the cellist) mostly because of her looping setup.
- jzb 3y agoYou might know of Ryuichi Sakamoto from his work with Yellow Magic Orchestra. (Or not, but YMO seems to have more name recognition.) Big recommend for Keating. She doesn’t have a large catalog, but her albums are fantastic. I wish she was more prolific. (I think she’s doing a lot of composing for TV and film.)
- TeaBrain 3y agoHiromi Uehara is a contemporary japanese jazz pianist and composer I'm a fan of. She's released a solid catalogue of 12 studio albums in the last two decades.
- H1Supreme 3y agoIf the author continued their lineage beyond hip-hop, into electronic music (house, drum n' bass, downtempo), I think they would see that "favorite instrumentalist" has transformed into "favorite producer".
- mtalantikite 3y agoYeah, I had a similar thought around "favorite producer" as the language to use these days. I saw RZA speak a few years back and one thing he mentioned was that he just didn't have access to instruments and instrumental teaching when he was a kid like others may have had in earlier generations. He said something to the extent of "I could have been Mozart if I had had that access". What he did have access to was an ASR10, an EPS16+, a bunch of records, and great ears. I've always wondered how much impact lack of funding for music education in schools has had, where a surprising number of people just don't know what instruments are even called anymore.
- bzzzt 3y agoYou could argue the restrictions caused by not having access to formal music education and classical instruments caused a lot of innovation in the music space. People made music long before any kind of formal music theory was a thing and will make music nonetheless.
- version_five 3y agoAgreed, necessity is the mother of invention and all that. The worlds better off with RZA as himself than as another Mozart.
- ludston 3y agoThat's your opinion. I'd really much prefer another Mozart.
- fknorangesite 3y ago
- tallies 3y agoThe article asks two different questions, one about the decline of the instrumental hit and one about the decline of the instrumentalist, and doesn't go far to answer either. I'd be interested to see a breakdown of the instrumental hits throughout the decades. Is the decline simply due to classical and jazz going out of fashion? How many are soundtracks? Surely most modern instrumental hits are EDM, yes? This data-driven history could use some more data. As for the other question, the article's examples of popular instrumentalists were much more famous as bandleaders than as clarinetists or trombonists. Cheap recorded music and digital music production has pushed both the band and the virtuoso performer out of popular culture, replaced by the solo artist and their multi-instrumentalist producer (sometimes the same person). This is true even outside of hip hop. I bet a non trivial amount of pop fans would be able to name Jack Antonoff from his work with Taylor Swift, Lorde, and Lana del Rey.
- radley 3y ago> Surely most modern instrumental hits are EDM, yes? More so, electronica. I feel kinda bad for a music expert who isn't aware of Four Tet, Nils Frahm, Orbital, Sasha, or Tipper.
- n4r9 3y agoI guess those artists technically don't often make "hits" that top the pop charts. But I agree - here in the UK, rave music literally defines a whole generation of people born in the 70's and 80's. But even in popular music, when I was a teenager we had acts like Fatboy Slim, Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, and Moby producing tonnes of tunes that are not primarily vocally led. More recently you have Avici and David Guetta and the likes.
- Agentlien 3y agoThere are a few niches where instrumental music is still going strong, but the stars seem to be composers rather than instrumentalists. Movie scores: John Williams, Hans Zimmer, ... Video game music: Koji Kondo, Toby Fox, Jeremy Soule...
- glandium 3y agoAnime: Hiroyuki Sawano, ...
- ahub 3y agoI was glad to learn about the 1942-1944 musician strike. Didn't know about it, there is a wikipedia article about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1942%E2%80%931944_musicians%27_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1942%E2%80%931944_musicians%27...
- apercu 3y ago"No one" is a a pretty broad statement. Julian Lage is my favourite guitar player to come along in a decade or two. And he releases instrumental albums.
- ben7799 3y agoI love Lage too, but I play guitar. I think people who play an instrument are vastly more aware of star instrumentalists than the general public, especially the star instrumentalists who play the same instrument you do.
- ttapp 3y agoThe statement might be hyperbole. But most people seem to need vocals in their music, like kind of an anchor. I mostly listen to instrumental music, and have always found it difficult to share that interest.
- pazimzadeh 3y agoIf they don't have to be living, then Paco de Lucia has to be mentioned somewhere. Almoraima specifically.
- efields 3y agoIt's the market || politics || technology, stupid.
- okwubodu 3y ago> That doesn’t negate the fact that hip-hop is a lyrical artform, with the emcee being the star since the 1980s. I don’t think this is true. Instrumentals in hip-hop are largely first class citizens. Lyrics are at the forefront, yes, but consider that rappers are judged more on their technical ability to navigate the beats they choose. It’s the only genre where artists are regularly deemed unworthy of their own instrumentals. The author’s example is ironically the best example of this. It’s N.Y State of Mind by Nas (regarded as one of the best beat selectors of all time), on Illmatic (one of the best hip-hop albums of all time), and produced by DJ Premier (one of the best producers of all time).
- anyfoo 3y agoFully agreed. Given my background, I was (and am) mostly listening to German Hip-Hop (but of course it’s born out of US Hip-Hop, which I appreciate as well, including Illmatic and pretty much anything with “primo beats”), but the same thing applies. I do value good lyrics of course, but for a track to be really good, it primarily has to have a really good beat, and really good flow in how the lyrics are presented. Then, even next-to-nonsensical lyrics can still make a good track on that. But conversely it’s rather hard for a track with even fantastic lyrics to be really “good” (in my mind of course), if it has bad beats and sub-par flow. It is still music after all, and not just poetry.
- _sys49152 3y agofor english-as-a-second-language people it comes no suprise you'd have an adjusted ear for the music vis-a-vis the lyrical end of the songs. if youre not putting together the words fluidly, youre not getting the 'solo opera singer on the stage' attention to the movie that the words provide. when the words fail you, its important to have good production values to fall back on and enjoy in the song. i believe most the people in the US however are words above all listeners, and will accept subpar production, because theyre focused on the 'opera singer and the movie.'
- anyfoo 3y agoI don't know how that follows from what I said. I was talking about German Hip-Hop, where I do understand the words just like a US-native listener would in US Hip-Hop. And for that, "it primarily has to have a really good beat, and really good flow in how the lyrics are presented" is true for me. I don't know why that would be different in a different language. (By the way, I've been in the US long enough that the same is approximately true for US Hip-Hop by now, but that's neither here nor there.) > i believe most the people in the US however are words above all listeners, and will accept subpar production, because theyre focused on the 'opera singer and the movie.' That's what I dispute. Obviously I have no hard data, but just at a cursory look it seems to me that, in US Hip-Hop as well, good beats and flow with subpar lyrics tend to do better overall than good lyrics with subpart beats and flows. This is no different from any other genre of music.
- 3pt14159 3y ago> But if you asked a random person on the street to name a clarinet player, I suspect most people couldn’t come up with one, let alone one known for their good looks. The space of potential sources for inspiration has exploded. How many people had a favourite typographer or open source software contributor or racecar driver or whatever else a hundred years ago? Music is different, sure, as others have commented, but there are so many different things or people to consider now that it's getting a little tiring with the nags to know every last thing that people used to know. Don't get the relationship backwards. Knowing your favourite candle maker used to be about the candle maker achieving things that impressed you not you feeling guilty about not knowing any candle makers.
- thaumasiotes 3y agoDownton Abbey suggests that people 100 years ago did sometimes have favorite racecar drivers. Wikipedia completely supports this by noting several races between 1887 and 1907. The course for the Indy 500 was built in 1905.
- kgwgk 3y ago"But if you asked a random person on the street to name a clarinet player, I suspect most people couldn’t come up with one, let alone one known for their good looks." If they could come up with one there are good chances that it would be Woody Allen. Definitely not someone known for their good looks.
- porkbeer 3y agoWouldnt it be kenny g?
- abakker 3y agoAntoine Boyer, Matteo Mancuso, Josh Meader, Max Ostro, Ichika Nito for new musicians, Plini, Nick Johnston, Polyphia, Julian Lage, Josh Smith...there's a ton of great instrumentalists out there. I think this question has more to do with distribution of content than whether or not there are fans.
- jancsika 3y agoMap the decline against the funding decline for grade-school/high-school music and band. Going to rankly speculate that they line up well.
- o_nate 3y agoThere are many instrumentalists whom I follow on social media (Instagram, Twitter, Youtube). I imagine that most people interested in instrumental music do the same.
- HKH2 3y agoIt's usually much easier to identify music if it has lyrics/words.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- harles 3y agoI’ve never really understood picking favorites for music, games, movies, etc. I’ve always found “what’s your favorite <x>?” a hard question to answer. What’s wrong with enjoying things without ranking them? Do other people find ranking somehow increases their enjoyment?
- porkbeer 3y agoWhile I agree, there is often a pattern that is uniquely appealing. People who express those same patterns become a style and styles become generes. Most people can pick a favorite genere at least.
- kragen 3y agobzrp is doing a concert tour now, he just played here in buenos aires a couple weeks ago, i have the t-shirt also maybe lindsey stirling counts?
- webmaven 3y ago> also maybe lindsey stirling counts? She does, and was the first instrumentalist that came to mind shortly followed by Yo-Yo Ma, and various classical guitarists like Pepe Romero (I'm not sure I have a personal "favorite" per-se).
- kragen 3y agoi mean i don't know that she's a blackpink or bzrp level celebrity prolly beats zamfir tho
- quantified 3y agoTrey Anastasio?
- musicale 3y ago> favorite [popular] musician that doesn’t sing He's looking at the wrong chart. Looking at this week's Billboard electronic/dance chart I see: David Guetta, Tiësto, Illenium, Marshmello, Calvin Harris, Chainsmokers, Skrillex ... All extremely popular musicians who are known primarily as producers/DJs rather than vocalists. And there are tons of popular instrumental electronic and dance tracks. Calvin Harris does actually sing (Feel So Close, Summer, etc.) but he's currently at #1 on the UK singles chart (Miracle) with Ellie Goulding on main vocals.
- spunker540 3y agoThey may not sing but their popular tracks still have vocals don’t they?
- liotier 3y agoIn electronic music, vocals are just another sampled oscillator garnish, taking as just much credit as the drum machine... Far cry from the front & center heroic place occupied by the pop music singer.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- atchoo 3y agoThis is in part because of exploitation and lack of credit/royalties given to the vocalists instead of the lack of importance to the music. Take a look at the story of Martha Wash, the huge iconic voice behind "everybody dance now", "ride on time" etc. You can't deny that these type of vocals are the tent-pole of those tracks but they basically scammed her by using demo sessions and using lip-syncers in music videos. https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/martha-wash-the-most-famous-unknown-singer-of-the-90s-speaks-out-231182/ https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/martha-wash-the-most-fa... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSefwVQVVpU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSefwVQVVpU
- throwaway_75369 3y agoHuh. I'm a huge fan of instrumental music. I encountered Plini and Nick Johnston and through them discovered my favorite guitarist, Guthrie Govan. Then through him discovered his band The Aristocrats, with Bryan Beller (who's awesome, but I don't know too much about bassists) and the drummer Marco Minneman, who's now my favorite drummer after Neal Peart passed away. I also really like all the Dream Theater adjacent stuff, like Liquid Tension Experiment... Ok, guess I'm rambling. I dunno, for some reason I find it easier than ever to find all kinds of fantastic purely instrumental stuff, and now with YouTube you often get to more easily observe the musicians themselves, as opposed to listening to CD's back in the day.
- nixass 3y agoCarbon Based Lifeforms anyone? Solar Fields? Solar Fields did soundtrack for Mirror's Edge for example. So many good composers doing electro/synth instrumentals nowadays but aren't mainstream, which might be good thing
- fshbbdssbbgdd 3y agoI adore those artists, transports my mind to another place like no other music. However I can’t help but feel a little disappointed this stuff didn’t catch on more, like they should have inspired 1000 followers to invent new sub-genres by now. Maybe they did and I just don’t know where to find it.
- nixass 3y agoYouTube comments under those songs are sometimes treasure
- harry8 3y agoBrian Eno. Aphex Twin, The Orb, The Irresistible force, Lane 8, Ben Boehmer, Air, Marconi Union, The Free Association, Floating Points, Gas, 2814, Nala Sinephro, Loscil, Max Richter, Banco de Gaia, Skee Mask, The Future Sound of London, Jan Jelinek, Earl Grey, Bonobo, Susumu Yokata, Stars of the Lid, Detroit Escalator Co. Global Communication, Biosphere, Max Cooper. I recommend them all. What you got?
- butterknife 3y agoNice list. Autechre, Umwelt, Schwefelgelb and Hecq/Ben Lukas Boysen for a touch of darker flavour.
- boredemployee 3y agoNice list. I'd add John Beltran, J Dilla and 100s of cats from Detroit.
- hnzix 3y agoLone, Chaos In The CBD, Roland Tings.
- G3rn0ti 3y agoEl Ten Eleven is a great instrumental band that is kind of famous in the alternative scene. Otherwise, popular instrumentals are all techno tracks that made it into the charts. Think of Fat Boy Slim, Jus†ice or Daft Punk. I’ve seen Jus†ice live and they perform something similar to a pop/rock concert. Pretty cool.
- throwaway675309 3y agoOutside of musicians, the public and mainstream just have an easier time identifying with songs that feature lyrics. Most people need to possess some rudimentary ability to play an instrument to appreciate and to look closer into individual instrumentalists. Of course an obvious exception is classically minded listeners, but they're sadly relatively rare as well. As a pianist, it's easy for me to rattle off the names of my favorite pianists: Fats Waller, Thelonious Monk, Keith Jarrett, Sviatoslav Richter, etc.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago"EDM" seemed to do alright for a few years with the mainstream. Plenty of techno, acid, house et al crept through even without vocal samples. This is probably a UK/EU-centric viewpoint.
- nathan_compton 3y agoThis guys whole culture beat is so absurd. He seems to miss the time when record companies would, as a technological necessity (anemic information flow up and expensive information distribution down), create hits in a more or less top down way. People still like and listen to instrumental music as much as ever (probably more instrumental musicians are producing more music of more different types than ever before) but what he wants is for some giant distribution system to tell everyone "this is a hit, this is culture."
- ricardo_nh 3y agothe article could explore a bit more the importance of voice for subjectivity and identity. I would say that with the emergence of the 'idol' culture, the voice also took center stage. the voice is one of the fundamental elements of the structure of subjectivity, it is what marks the individual character. Of course one can admire a player playing an instrument, but then we are admiring their skill and not them. I see material for a more serious investigation in the interconnection between idolatry of musicians and the role of voice in subjectivity. It's a shame they didn't pick it up
- exabrial 3y agoI love instrumental music, or even instrumental solos. Instrumental sort of died on the radio after the Van Halen era. Long gone are the days of Spanish Guitar, and groovy hits like Green Onions… even Evil Ways by Santana could probably be thrown in. Sowing of, the last holdout for long instrumental solos was Country music, but even they’ve fallen to the dreaded Nicki Minaj interlude as the genre has moved to four chords and snap beats.
- fuzzfactor 3y ago>‘Well there weren’t amps.’” Albeit a simplification, Setzer’s quip is pretty accurate. Seems like Setzer can quip pretty accurately from time to time. Not too many like him. For almost 20 years starting in the early 1960's, guitar amplifiers got more capable every year in ways that professionals could appreciate. Santana was a good example, before Woodstock he was already developing his maxed single-note lead guitar tone & style. He's always been the bandleader and never intended to do vocals so his flambuoyant instrumental style makes for a good frontman, his vocalists over the years have been professional sidemen. Every year he would come back with better amps than the year before, same with lots of classic rockers, like Steppenwolf or the Beach Boys. You could see the smile on their faces as they played last year's hits with their new-found stonk. Better equpment each year than had ever existed before. Before that it was not too easy to make single-string guitar notes loud enough to stand out from the mix and substitute for the original rock & roll melody instrument, the saxophone. Players needed to bang on all six strings at a time just to be heard, keeping them in the rhythm section. Plus it took a while for solid-body guitars to proliferate, which could actually be cranked without feedback. Vocalists had to fight feedback too and were mostly the only electified member of a big band or jazz group. Nobody really had enough satisfying power for any of this until the 1960's. The 1950's Fender Bassman preferred by Setzer for his lead guitar playing is only a 50-watt amplifier, not really voiced differently than other amps sold for 6-string guitarists. There was just no reverb or tremolo on a Bassman since bass players really did not need effects. It had strong enough speakers to be run at full volume where the tubes were easily overdriven to some tasty distortion for guitarists but bass players growing up all said WTF. It wasn't good enough for rock bass with only 50W when you really need about 300W for clean bass to be as loud as an acoustic drum kit. But cranked all the way up a 50W amp is barely loud enough for lead guitar though. When you think about it, when the Bassman was designed it was intended to make Fender's new solid-body basses as loud as an acoustic string bass. Otherwise you wouldn't hear anything. That's really about all it will do for a bass, man. Ampeg was a bit ahead of Fender at the time, their amps were designed to make an acoustic string bass louder to begin with so they could be heard along with all the horns.
- spicyusername 3y agoThere are plenty of well known, all instrumental, musicians these days. Almost certainly more than there've ever been. Most just don't show up on things like Billboard because that ceased being a representative way to track musical consumption a long time ago. There's an overwhelming amount of content now, across all mediums, and there's a lot of "dark matter" that isn't well represented in the mainstream. It's like when someone, who enjoys streaming television asks someone else what they're watching... Who knows. Could be a popular show on Netflix, could be a niche YouTube channel where a man slowly fixes a wooden boat by hand.
- Night_Thastus 3y agoAgreed. People say that "X isn't around anymore" but what's really happening is that X doesn't dominate pop culture/isn't the Big New Thing anymore. It's become effortless for people to get into artistic creation, including music. So it's everywhere, you just have to dig a bit to find it.
- ethhics 3y agoThe article doesn’t mention lyrics, which has to be one of the biggest contributions a singer provides to a song. Being able to emote through language in addition to music may as well double the effect a song may have on people.
- tibbydudeza 3y agoI can only recall a few songs in my lifetime that was instrumentals that were hits. Apache by The Shadows The good the bad and the ugly from the same movie Ballade for Adeline - Richard Clayderman and lastly Crockett's Theme from Miami Vice. Also Kenny G was big in my days but then they started with using guest vocalists on their music.
- PopAlongKid 3y agoIf you remember those songs, then surely you must have heard many more from the same era. TFA totally glosses over the increase in instrumental popularity during the 60s and 1970s. Two big factors completely missing are 1) decline of Top 40 AM radio, and 2) decline of 7-inch 45 vinyl singles. I remember the following instrumental hits of the era, they may not have reached number 1 but were definitely played a lot on air and were in my parent's (and then my) record collections. I'm sure there were many more. Classical Gas - Mason Williams. Telstar, Walk Don't Run, many more - the Ventures Tequila - various Midnight in Moscow - Kenny Ball Work Song, Taste of Honey - Herb Alpert A Walk in the Black Forest - Horst Jankowski Alan Parsons - I Robot (FM radio) Close to the Edit - Art of Noise Music to Watch Girls By - Bob Crewe Generation Let there Be Drums - Sandy Nelson Topsy, Big Noise From Winnetka - Cozy Cole Cast Your Fate to the Wind - Vince Guaraldi Stranger on the Shore - Acker Bilk Bonanza - Al Caiola Like, Long Hair - Paul Revere and the Raiders Theme from A Summer Place - Percy Faith Orchestra
- tibbydudeza 3y agoMoments of Love - Art of Noise - how could I forgot that one.
- harry8 3y agoRobert Miles - Children Guru Josh - Infinity Hot Butter - popcorn Harold Faltermeyer - Axel F Chariots of Fire - Vangelis Star Wars - John Williams Pick up the Pieces - Average White Band
- 3y ago
- MontgomeryPi2 3y agoI was curious so if anyone else wants to know: the last #1 instrumental song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US was "Frankenstein" by The Edgar Winter Group
- daggersandscars 3y agoThere have been 13 instrumentals to hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 after Frankenstein by EWG. The most recent was Harlem Shake in 2013. Before that, it was the Miami Vice theme in 1985. Chariots of Fire hit #1 in 1981. Rise by Herb Alpert in 1979. The Star Wars Theme / Cantina Band hit #1 in 1977. Others can be found https://www.listchallenges.com/instrumental-1-songs https://www.listchallenges.com/instrumental-1-songs. I only validated the ones listed in this post.
- MontgomeryPi2 3y agoThanks! Damn ChatGPT to provide a correct answer, the answer seemed right ;)
- lelag 3y agoI'm surprised nobody's mentioning Mike Oldfield who was topping the European charts in 1974-1975 with Tubular Bells and Hergest Ridge. Both mostly instrumental album with 20min+ tracks... Totally unimaginable now.
- porkbeer 3y agoGo watch the docu on his life. He was an incredibly interesting man, who went through bizzare changes after recording those hits.
- _sys49152 3y agoits the distribution bottleneck. dubstep shouls be infinitely more popular among the masses than it is, and its quality enough to deserve its own commercial radio stations in the metroplexes, and rotation on, well, a late 1990s mtv format. hundreds of five star dubstep tracks. but ask around and people might be able to name skrillex and a few other names who arent dubstep.