View Full Version : Wacky Billboard hits and a instrumental quesion


Elvis Fonzie Dean
08-26-2004, 01:42 PM
I think music has hit an all time low...and the majority of people who buy singles hit an all time low.Yeah! was number one for nine weeks...even more pathetic than that is Lean Back by Terror Squad is number one now.That's raps chorus is just as dull as the rhyming....literally...a seven month old can make a chorus like that.Is there some evil scandal going on because it seems like anything the involves singing and rocking is not hitting people, Not that there is much I like the last few years anyway. but this is weirdhttp://www.muller-godschalk.com/images/msn60/smile005.gif.

Speaking about Billboard, when's the last time an instrumental was on the charts or even a single?

jamesanthony
08-26-2004, 07:55 PM
Originally posted by Elvis Fonzie Dean
I think music has hit an all time low...and the majority of people who buy singles hit an all time low.Yeah! was number one for nine weeks...even more pathetic than that is Lean Back by Terror Squad is number one now.That's raps chorus is just as dull as the rhyming....literally...a seven month old can make a chorus like that.Is there some evil scandal going on because it seems like anything the involves singing and rocking is not hitting people, Not that there is much I like the last few years anyway. but this is weirdhttp://www.muller-godschalk.com/images/msn60/smile005.gif.

Speaking about Billboard, when's the last time an instrumental was on the charts or even a single?

The corporate takeover of radio and the record labels has led to a lowest common denominator tactic in music promotion. I can't think of any instrumental that has been a hit on the mainstream hot 100 in this decade and I think the last one to hit the pop top ten was MARRS' Pump Up the Volume in 1988. Smooth jazz artists who record instrumentals (like Kenny G, John Tesh etc) have some of the lowest record sales and radio airplay points of any popular music format so its not so surprising that their songs miss the hot 100. New age instrumentalists (Yanni etc) generally sell even worse. Dance instrumentals that you might hear in a nightclub are too far outside the realm of what is considered top 40 material to get any serious airplay. Live instruments are becoming rarer and rarer in music in general replaced by computerized sounds and synths. Instrumental hits from the 70s like TSOP, Love's Theme, Fly Robin Fly, 5th of Beethoven, Theme from SWAT, Rocky's Theme and the Hustle wouldn't get much airplay today because there are too many musicians playing on them who would have to be compensated. Rap records with samples pay off because the people being sampled get paid and the rapper gets paid rather than having to pay some band of 6 musicians. Also many of the raps give shout outs to products like Corvosier, Bentley, Escalade, Versace, Lexus etc and those companies get paid when listeners buy the products.

Elvis Fonzie Dean
08-27-2004, 01:43 AM
Originally posted by jamesanthony
The corporate takeover of radio and the record labels has led to a lowest common denominator tactic in music promotion. I can't think of any instrumental that has been a hit on the mainstream hot 100 in this decade and I think the last one to hit the pop top ten was MARRS' Pump Up the Volume in 1988. Smooth jazz artists who record instrumentals (like Kenny G, John Tesh etc) have some of the lowest record sales and radio airplay points of any popular music format so its not so surprising that their songs miss the hot 100. New age instrumentalists (Yanni etc) generally sell even worse. Dance instrumentals that you might hear in a nightclub are too far outside the realm of what is considered top 40 material to get any serious airplay. Live instruments are becoming rarer and rarer in music in general replaced by computerized sounds and synths. Instrumental hits from the 70s like TSOP, Love's Theme, Fly Robin Fly, 5th of Beethoven, Theme from SWAT, Rocky's Theme and the Hustle wouldn't get much airplay today because there are too many musicians playing on them who would have to be compensated. Rap records with samples pay off because the people being sampled get paid and the rapper gets paid rather than having to pay some band of 6 musicians. Also many of the raps give shout outs to products like Corvosier, Bentley, Escalade, Versace, Lexus etc and those companies get paid when listeners buy the products.
That's pathetic.It's sad people use computerized sounds instead of instruments...and its used for edit people's singing too.Sampling and computerized sounds is going so low.And it's worse that so many people are in love with rhyming.Only a few raps I like,,,and those are ones that are original.

There might be a lot of new instrumentals I don't know about that are very good.A surf-a-billy (rockabilly, jump blues, surf) made the music for the Hotwire.com commercials.Those are great.Especially the first instrumental that was used that isn't played anymore.There name is Los High Tops.Really got the retro sound of the early 60s surf on the guitar.Wish they would go mainstream.I like that not many people know about them, but there is nothing going on in mainstream, and if there is it doesn't go very far.

It's sad.The more technology there is might mean music is gonna get worse.