Sad But True

William Weir nails it in a Slate article about the absurd and unnecessary death of the instrumental pop hit. The amazing statistic:

From 1960 to 1974, 128 instrumentals reached the Top 20, while only 30 did from 1975 to 1990. And since? Five.

I've thought about this a lot because I'm an instrumental guy living in a song town. The only thing more amazing than the power music has over the heart and mind is the dwindling number of opportunities to hear instrumental music.

Wier writes:

I understand the appeal of the human voice, and I certainly can't begrudge anyone's joy at singing along in the car (unless I'm in it). But why such shabby treatment for the instrumental? Marketability.

Exactly. Because for twenty years the music business hasn't been selling music as much as it's been selling celebrity. When people don't hear instrumental music they forget how to listen to it, or they never learn.

Comments

[David Hooper]

Agree on the celebrity thing.

Is there a list of these instrumental songs somewhere? Would be interesting to see.

[George]

I think the issue is not so much the lack of instrumentals. There are loads of them. Brad Paisley is even recording an entire album of them.

The issue is your method of statistics, namely the Top 30. How is the Top 30 created? From the best songs? From sales? Or from airplay?

So what you're saying is that instrumentals don't get much radio airplay. No big shock there. And yes, radio is more interested in celebrity than music, and record labels give radio what it wants.

I wonder what this will mean for creative music as a whole if the music industry gets to charge radio a royalty for the right to play that music. Something tells me that we can expect even less creativity and even fewer instrumentals. Because if you're going to pay for something, it needs to give a financial return. And only a few celebrities can do that.