When I grew up there were always a few instrumentals on the charts. From Duane Eddy's Rebel Rouser through the disco era and beyond with TSOP and so much more in-between and after (just a few, the aforementioned Telstar, Classical Gas, Honky Tonk, Fire On High, Desifinado, Cast Your Fate To The Wind, The In Crowd, Out Of Limits, Because They're Young, Magic Bird Of Fire, Rumble, Walk Don't Run, Green Onions, The Horse, Beck's Bolero, Frankenstein, Eruption, XYZ, Surfing With The Alien, Rise, Stranger On The Shore, Chariots Of Fire, Gonna Fly Now (Rocky's Theme), Love's Theme, Miami Vice Theme, Raunchy, Wipe Out, Midnight In Moscow, Outta Space, Axel F, Soulful Strut, Pipeline, Feels So Good, Songbird, Pick Up The Pieces, Tequila, and so on).

Instrumental music boring? It depends. I could listen to Dvorak's Ninth Symphony or Tchaikovsky's Sixth, or Beethoven's Seventh and so many more millions of more times.

Depends on the instrumental. There are some boring jazz songs, and some delightful ones as well. Depends on the song and musicians.

There are a lot of boring vocal songs out there, and a lot of boring instrumentals as well.

What about Silver Convention's "Get Up And Boogie"? (entire lyrics, "Get up and boogie, Get up and boogie, Get up and boogie, That's Right" over and over and over and over and over again.

Plus the instrumental solo in the middle of a song is often either the climax of the song or a release from the vocals. What would Hotel California, Santana's version of Black Magic Woman, Stairway To Heaven, or even Aretha Franklin's version of Respect be without the instrumental solo? Less of a song I guarantee. (Sorry I don't have any Nashville music examples because I don't listen to it that much).

I listen to a lot of symphonic music, and I don't prefer concertos because like a vocal pop song with no instrumental break, one voice (instrument) dominates the entire song with no release from that voice (with some rare concerto exceptions).

I am a good singer, plus I play saxophone, flute, wind synthesizer, guitar, bass, keyboard synth, and drums. So my opinion comes from my own personal experience.

Before I learned to sing, I thought vocal songs were boring. They I decided to think of the words as simply articulation without any meaning, and I learned to appreciate that, and later I learned to combine the articulation with the meaning.

The main thing I think about with a song, is don't bore me. And that doesn't matter whether it is an instrumental or vocal. The next thing is tickle my ears and give me an eargazm.

So I lament the excising of the instrumental break in pop music (including Nashville). But then, they didn't ask me.

Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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