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The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

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Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#71

Post by butterknife »

harry8 wrote: post #66
nixass wrote: post #60

Carbon 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

Brian 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?

Nice list. Autechre, Umwelt, Schwefelgelb and Hecq/Ben Lukas Boysen for a touch of darker flavour.

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#72

Post by pazimzadeh »

apercu wrote: post #27

"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.

If they don't have to be living, then Paco de Lucia has to be mentioned somewhere. Almoraima specifically.

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#73

Post by skrebbel »

onionisafruit wrote: post #59
H1Supreme wrote: post #12

If 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".

Favorite producer seems equivalent to favorite big band leader.

"Producer" means at least two things. In electronic music, it's commonly used for the person actually composing and arranging a track. It's used to differentiate from a DJ, who plays other people's music and doesn't "produce" anything. You can install FL Studio on your laptop, mess around a bit, and you're a producer (not a very good one probably, but the word does not imply quality).

In most other genres, "producer" is the person in the studio doing the recording, or also commonly, running the team that does the recording and plays the background instruments etc. Eg your big band leader.

In film (and gamedev), "producer" is the "product" head honcho, more like a CTO than an individual contributor. That's not dissimilar to producers of large music productions, but very dissimilar to deadmau5 jamming out a tune in his basement studio.

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#74

Post by bzzzt »

mtalantikite wrote: post #30
H1Supreme wrote: post #12

If 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".

Yeah, 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 AS…

You 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.

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#75

Post by spunker540 »

musicale wrote: post #56

> 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 act…

They may not sing but their popular tracks still have vocals don’t they?

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#76

Post by hammyhavoc »

jzb wrote: post #53
lapcat wrote: post #9

I 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.

Kinda 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.”

> pulls Vai face whilst tremolo-bombing self into pleasurable oblivion

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#77

Post by hammyhavoc »

throwaway675309 wrote: post #63

Outside 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…

"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.

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#78

Post by kgwgk »

3pt14159 wrote: post #40

> 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…

"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.

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#79

Post by boredemployee »

harry8 wrote: post #66
nixass wrote: post #60

Carbon 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

Brian 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?

Nice list. I'd add John Beltran, J Dilla and 100s of cats from Detroit.

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#80

Post by liotier »

spunker540 wrote: post #75
musicale wrote: post #56

> 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 act…

They may not sing but their popular tracks still have vocals don’t they?

In 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.
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