Words don’t mean a thing.
Instrumentals. Tracks that don’t need to rely on a few carefully planned sentences to get the message across. Tracks that can both wake you up and put you to sleep. Tracks that define day and night. Tracks that focus primarily on personal feelings and perspective.
It’s no secret that some of our world’s most beautiful tracks are wordless works of art. But - how can something SO “vague” (per say), be SO important? Why are instrumentals SO beyond crucial to every earth-bound being’s playlist? The answer is simple: sometimes a lack of lyric can make you think harder than you knew you could. After all, lyrics aren’t ALL that important, are they? I mean, sure - they tell you what the artist is singing about, but do we really need lyrics to understand that? No. We don’t. Music is about the feeling. It’s about the churn inside your heart that reaches into the pit of your very soul and changes your entire life. Instrumentals are emotionally healing and emotionally exhausting. They conjure rage, but can also make it vanish into thin air. They can make you fall in love, or maybe even realize that you were always in it. They can make you want to die, but they can also make you feel like you want to live forever. They can change who you are. And sometimes lyrics can ruin that. Sometimes the vibe of an otherwise cool tune can vanish completely because of lyrics. Sometimes words are misleading and hardly even scratch the surface of the true meaning of the composition or the message that the artist wanted to convey. Plus, let’s be honest: some things are better left unsaid. (And some people seriously lack in the lyrical genius department.)
Take “The Birth And Death Of The Day” by Explosions In The Sky, for instance. An extremely well-made, beautifully written track, which combines a series of acoustic guitars, hair-raising melodies and breathtaking percussion work. Oh, and don’t forget the gnarly electronic twists and turns throughout. The song has emphasis on the precise process of sunset to sunrise - and more importantly - the feelings involved in such times. With an incredibly EPIC (and I do mean EPIC) opening, the song takes you through a beautiful day. It literally feels like a roller-coaster, slowing down and then picking up again and so on. The song builds and builds (to a “middle of the day” feeling) until it reaches it’s peak at around 5:25 and begins it’s decent into sunset at around 6:12. It is over-all an overwhelmingly epic piece and I highly recommend it. Songs like these are the reason that instrumentals are SO unbelievably crucial for every single playlist.
Here are a few other instrumentals you might enjoy:
- The Birth And Death Of The Day - Explosions In The Sky
- Day One - LIGHTS & Holy Fuck
- Too Late - M83
- All Is Violent, All Is Bright - God Is An Astronaut
- Radio Protector - 65daysofstatic
