The death of instrumentals in pop music.

[Jason Rumley]

You're not going to get it on today's radio. They've gotten their formula for catchy music down and instrumental hooks have fallen by the wayside. Today's listener isn't patient enough for instrumentals. I love them though and when I get a little bit better at steel I plan on putting an instrumental album out there. Give me a couple more years though.

[Russ Wever]

If you're wanting to hear instrumental music,
try streaming ~> WKTZ Jones College Radio.

They consistently program a high
content of instrumental music.
~Russ

[Dom Franco]

Thanks for the link Russ.... I'm listening right now!
Dom

[Mark van Allen]

Dom, your chart is really an eye opener. While I agree with Dave about the new market paradigm, it brings up the "chicken and egg" question again about mainstream distribution- has the downturn in instrumental music on mainstream radio been because of listener interest, or marketing decisions? I'm curious how a well-promoted instrumental would do if it had the marketing clout behind it that most radio-format tracks have to have to get market penetration.
I'm thinking of the immense impact that Jake Shimabukuro's version of "While my guitar gently weeps" had on the internet, and how much of the current ukelele explosion is due to that one song...

[b0b]

I don't know what "mainstream radio" is, but there's a good sampling of instrumental music on my car radio's FM dial. If I spent more time driving, I'd get Sirius satellite radio. They have lots of instrumental stations.

I don't listen to music radio at home. The reception in Cloverdale is really bad and besides, I don't need someone else deciding what I should be listening to. My home radio is just for AM news.

[Theresa Galbraith]

Talk radio is the way to go on AM stations in Nashville.

[Jeff Scott Brown]

But after considering the state of popular music, it is doubtful than any instrumental tune will ever again be a hit!

Instrumental "hits" are obviously not the norm but the idea that there will never be another demonstrates a giant lack of imagination, for any reasonable definition of "hit". Even if you narrow your scope to only the last 50 years of music, there have been a lot of them. The idea that those are the end of it seems ridiculous to me. Of course there will be.

[Bob Hoffnar]

I don't know anybody who likes music who listens to mainstream radio. Especially young people. The radio has not been considered a viable source of music by young music fans for well over 10 years. Radio jumped in the tar pits in 1996 and the recording industry followed. TV will be gone shortly.

Everything is different now with music production, distribution and consumption. Very different. You gotta admit things are pretty interesting. We have access to more instrumental music both new and old then we could possibly want.

[Mike Neer]

There are still a lot of instrumentals that get plenty of play in different ways--for example, Eric Johnson's Cliffs Of Dover is one of those tunes that you've heard a million times but never realized it, especially if you're a sports fan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OI9qcTwRN4

I've heard Jim Campilongo's music used on commercials, too, and the same with other artists. There's no reason to stop writing instrumentals because they aren't popular.

Pop is dead to us older guys anyway, why concern yourself with it?

[Jeff Scott Brown]

Everything is different now with music production, distribution and consumption. Very different. You gotta admit things are pretty interesting. We have access to more instrumental music both new and old then we could possibly want.

Indeed things are very different now than they were 20 years ago with respect to all of this, and indeed things are very interesting now. A lot of this has to do with some of the reasons that I think paying for radio is better than free radio and why I think paying Apple is better than using a corresponding "free" service from Google, etc. In general, Apple wants to sell me stuff. In general Google wants to sell me (and my information) to others. I prefer the former model to the latter most of the time.

Satellite radio isn't as good for me as it could be but it is a better model than the old radio model. The fact that it is satellite and one's favorite stations can follow them around as they travel is a nice new option but that isn't the thing that is fundamentally different from the economics standpoint. What is really different from the economics standpoint is the answer to the question "Who is the customer?". When you listen to broadcast radio, you aren't the customer. The station may refer to you as the customer, but you are not, at least not in the way to which I am referring. When you use GMail, you are not the customer. A radio station's real customers are the people they send bills to, like advertisers. When you aren't the customer, you don't have as much influence over the product. Indirectly you do because the customers (the advertisers, for example) want your attention, but really the customers are the ones driving the product.

Satellite radio still has a way to go but it seems to me that it will probably be economically feasible for satellite radio to embrace the so called "long tail" in a bigger way than it does now. At present, satellite is a better option than traditional broadcast, but it could be a WAAAY better option than traditional broadcast. That way better option doesn't necessarily have to be satellite. The technology isn't what is relevant. The model of providing the same kind of thing that radio provides but doing it in a really tailorable taste driven way is where I think we are heading. Witness all the players (Satellite radio, Pandora, etc...) heading in that direction right now.

[b0b]

Right. With commercial radio, you are not the customer. You are the product. They are selling you to their advertisers.

Myself, I don't like being a product very much.

[Jeff Scott Brown]

Right. With commercial radio, you are not the customer. You are the product. They are selling you to their advertisers.

Myself, I don't like being a product very much.

Indeed. In many cases, I don't like being a product very much.

I do a lot of public speaking and you could say that I am a product in that situation. I have written books and maybe to a lesser extent you could say that I am a product there as well. I wouldn't have to dispute those in order to object to being the product that a radio station sells to an advertiser. You might say that anyone who has a job is making themselves a product. I am ok selling myself as a product. I am less enthusiastic about a radio station selling me as a product and even more so, Google selling information about me as a product.


JSB

[Dom Franco]

A lot of this all points to a major change in the way people access entertainment. Broadcast radio used to be the bigtime! Just like appearing on a major variety show like Ed Sullivan or American Bandstand was the goal of most musicians. There are tons of choices out there now, and it's a little harder to "follow the money" on the internet playlists. But you can be sure if it was profitable, the major record labels would be promoting Innstrumentals.

[Jeff Scott Brown]

But you can be sure if it was profitable, the major record labels would be promoting Innstrumentals.

I do not disagree with that at all but I would add to that the assertion that I wouldn't assume that a major record label, or a record label at all, necessarily needs to be a part of that. Self distribution is a tiny spec of things right now but there is no reason to believe that will always be the case. The fact that I am publishing this note right now and billions of people around the planet will have access to this practically instantaneously would have seemed science fiction to Robert Johnson's drinking buddies.

[David Mason]

One major problem is that reporting about "the music business" very often still entails a lazy reporter in Nashville, LA, or New York - who spent years building up "connections in the industry" - will dial up his friend at Sony and say "So, how's the music business?" So we get a relentless barrage of stories about who's stealing money from the major labels - money that they once assumed was theirs, because they had got so good at stealing it from musicians. A lot of people don't know that CD sales had actually remained quite solid well into this century, until our little crash of 2008. The major labels weren't selling anything like they used to, but bands were and small labels were and CD Baby etc.

It goes back to that period in the 80's when the big labels discovered that they could sell their old music on CD's, and the conversion process started netting them yearly profits of 800%, 900%, 1200%... at that point the Wall Street investors said "NOBODY gets to make money like that except US!" The final result of the investment takeover is you end up with moneybags like Seagram's and Bertelsmann deciding what music is "good" - and more different ways to re-sell Beatles songs than you ever imagined possible!

[Mark van Allen]

I agree with a lot of this, especially in not appreciating being a product. Better get ready to forgo the internet entirely if that really bothers you!
I assumed the thread was inferring placement/marketing of instrumental music as well as listening to it, and broadcast radio is still a strong presence for many people who simply don't have or want access to other forms of distribution.
A lot of marketing people are trying to figure out just where things are moving from the old models, and how fast. Many foresee a much wider range of style, genre, and content as the internet and satellite delivery systems become more of a direct artist-consumer pipeline. I'd love to see that, but history tells us if money is to be made, money will control the pipeline.

[Jeff Scott Brown]

I agree with a lot of this, especially in not appreciating being a product. Better get ready to forgo the internet entirely if that really bothers you!

I think that is bad advice. I for one am not going to forgo the internet. It is a net positive for me, even after factoring in the negatives.

[b0b]

..broadcast radio is still a strong presence for many people who simply don't have or want access to other forms of distribution.

Is that true? It seems to me that radio is a very small segment of the overall music market. People listen in cars, but time spent driving is on the decrease and a lot of people prefer talk or news stations. Hardly anyone listens to radio at home.

The strongest outlet for music today is YouTube.

[Joachim Kettner]

I just thought of the many instrumentals that were include in albums, so many. Just a few that come to my mind:
The Beatles- Flying, The Byrds- Captain Soul, Nashville West, The Stones- 2120 South Michigan Avenue, The Yardbirds- Beck's Boogie, The Lovin' Spoonful- Night Owl Blues, Little Feat- Lafayette Railroad, Boz Scaggs- Can I Make It Last.

And please listen to this one, the Jeff Beck inspired instrumental by Kimberly Rew- Alice Klar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM00F4tnOFE

[b0b]

Jeff Beck makes a living playing instrumentals. Have you heard him and his band play "A Day In The Life"? I wouldn't have thought it possible.

My CD collection, which is quite large, is about 80% instrumental. I rarely buy vocal music. Usually I just buy it to learn a song. The stuff I listen to is almost all instrumental.

[Joachim Kettner]

I think he had a chart entry with "Love Is Blue".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doPWIgVmptg

[Mark van Allen]

Wow, Joachim, I never heard that track, and I'm a Beck fan. "Love is Blue" is the song that really got me into music, oddly, I was playing French Horn in a community orchestra when I was just a kid and the Horn chart for Paul Mauriat's version had guitar chords on it, so I dug out my Dad's old Hawaiian and took the riser nut off and learned the 30 or so chords on the chart.
B0b, I think radio has an entirely different presence depending on the local scene and market. Many of the college towns I've played in have stations with a big influence on youth-market taste, and when I talk to the kids at the more hardcore country shows, they seem to get all their "star fix" from the local Clear Channel Country Cookie Cutter and the internet. They eat up the TV award shows like manna.
And Jeff, not advice, just a comment on the fact that near everything on the internet is moving to a predictive model, where what you search for and read is different from the next guy, because of what you've already bought, read, and searched for. The pop-up ads specifically tailored to you are just the tip of the iceberg.
While the internet is fantastic and for some of us, myself included, now indispensable, the trends in marketing us via our own choices have serious repercussions in what we'll be exposed to and even how we think. Check out Eli Pariser's "The Filter Bubble". Eye opening.

[Donny Hinson]

My CD collection, which is quite large, is about 80% instrumental. I rarely buy vocal music. Usually I just buy it to learn a song. The stuff I listen to is almost all instrumental.

Realize, though, that your palette is quite jaded, b0b! You are an instrumentalist, and that puts you in a less-than 1% category of those who are actually listening to CDs or the radio. When steelplayers try to relate to mainstream listeners, it's really a case of them being "lost in the details". As instrumentalists, we've honed out ears to hear far more than the average listener, so we're way out of touch as far as what they're (the average person) is actually listening to.

[Joachim Kettner]

Not sure about that Donny. Well yes, maybe the mainstream listener, but it depends on which kind of mainsteam he grew up on, 50's, sixties etc?
I know quite a few people who have an ecclectic taste, without playing an instrument.

[Jeff Scott Brown]

Not sure about that Donny. Well yes, maybe the mainstream listener, but it depends on which kind of mainsteam he grew up on, 50's, sixties etc?
I know quite a few people who have an ecclectic taste, without playing an instrument.

I don't know that eclecticism is a particularly important part of the debate but that aside, I am on your side with this. I don't think it follows necessarily that a musician has honed their ears any more than other listeners. Certainly anecdotally that hasn't been my experience. I have a lot of friends who are serious appreciators of different kinds of music and a fair number of those folks are not musicians. A lot of music producers are not musicians and a big part of their job is to appreciate the details. I learned in my early 20's that I am a terrible painter. I thought I wanted to paint because of how much I loved a lot of the work I had seen. I am creative in a lot of ways so it made perfect sense to me that I could satisfy at least myself by painting. I was wrong. Visiting Musée d'Orsay is something I appreciate in a huge way, but that isn't tied to my painting skills. I don't think music appreciation is necessarily tied to musicianship. I think it would probably be a complicated sell but one might even make an argument that the inverse is true, at least in some ways.