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The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

tedgioia.substack.com

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Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#81

Post by hnzix »

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?

Lone, Chaos In The CBD, Roland Tings.

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#82

Post by n4r9 »

radley wrote: post #68
tallies wrote: post #17

The 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-dr…

> 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.

I 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.

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#83

Post by partomniscient »

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?

Boards of Canada, Ulrich Schnauss.

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#84

Post by [deleted] »

rzzzt wrote: post #36
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.

I see your Kenny G (in fact I was Ctrl-F searching for his name) and raise you Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute.

[deleted]

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#85

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

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?

Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed you! Black Emperor, Mogwai, Sigur Rós, 65daysofstatic, Dead Can Dance, Carpenter Brut, Orbital, Delirium

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#86

Post by glandium »

Agentlien wrote: post #18

There 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...

Anime: Hiroyuki Sawano, ...

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#87

Post by version_five »

bzzzt wrote: post #74
mtalantikite wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed, necessity is the mother of invention and all that. The worlds better off with RZA as himself than as another Mozart.

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#88

Post by nathan_compton »

This 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."

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#89

Post by ricardo_nh »

the 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

Re: The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song

#90

Post by ogogmad »

partomniscient wrote: post #83
harry8 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Boards of Canada, Ulrich Schnauss.

BoC sounds eerie and depressing for me. Like a haunted house.
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