QUESTION OF THE WEEK: DO YOU ENJOY INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC AND SEEING INSTRUMENTAL PERFORMANCES OR DO YOU PREFER MUSIC ACCOMPANIED BY VOCALS?

While I admire instrumental musical excellence, such as Eric Johnson, I much prefer music with vocals, so I can sing along.

13 Responses

  1. it depends on the music…Mr. Scary is great, Yngwie can do that, some backing tracks sound great, and some singers ruin it…

  2. I enjoy listening to instrumental music, such as Joe Satriani, Vinnie Moore, and Tony MacAlpine, as instrumentalists can do a great job of creating a vocal melody with their guitars. They only instrumentalist I have seen live was Yngwie Malmsteen, and he had Jeff Scott Soto sing a few songs with vocals. I would much prefer music with vocals, particularly live. For concerts, I would much prefer seeing a band with a frontman/vocalist, as that person could engage the audience more with banter.

  3. Instrumental artists, although highly talented and creative, collectively bore me. About 20 years ago I legitimately tried to get into it by picking up some Satriani, Vai and Yngwie cds. None of it did anything for me. But kudos to those guys. They are special and quite deserving of the high praise they receive for being all time greats on lead guitar.

    Now on the other hand, I don’t mind an instrumental song on an otherwise vocal album. Some that come to mind that are great and fit nicely into the sequence of the album they appeared on (and also fit nicely into a live setlist) include YYZ by Rush, D.T. by AC/DC, Mr. Scary by Dokken, Eruption by Van Halen and Orion by Metallica to name a few.

    1. RPS,

      I completely agree with everything you wrote. I think some rare exceptions for me are Eric Johnson, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and of course Randy Rhoads, although Dee is the only instrumental I have ever heard from him.

  4. I like both – seen some amazing jazz artists jam without a note being sung and have seen a variety of musical acts with mostly great vocals.

  5. Definitely not instrumental. I saw Joe Satriani once. 1990. A friend was a nut for him and bought my ticket, insisting I’d love it. BOOORRRIIIING. The only entertaining moment was watching bassist Stu Hamm play the Peanuts theme. That’s it. Plus, as a bonus, the entire floor of the club was TRASHED. Worst I’ve ever seen. Beer cans everywhere. I didn’t drink but maybe if I did, it’d have been tolerable, I suppose. Nothing worse than musician nerds showing off how they couldn’t write a song if they wanted to.

    1. Nothing worse than musician nerds showing off how they couldn’t write a song if they wanted to.

      LOL!!!!!!!

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