How strictly do you define "instrumental" songs?

I'm currently making two playlists of Billboard singles-charting instrumentals, one for the years 1960-1964 and the other 1965-1969 (those five are my personal favorite period for instrumentals, just great stuff). So, I was just curious...when making compilations, playlists, etc:

How "strictly" do you define instrumental?

I'm thinking about the type of songs that contain a bare minimum of vocals..... such as "Wipeout", "Tequila", "Soul Finger", and "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly"?

Of course, it's not a life or death decision, and no "answer" is correct or incorrect....I'd just like to see other opinions on the matter

 

(Lots of Pink Floyd song titles to come) I consider it instrumental if the vocals are either there to boost the music (i.e. as an instrument, like "The Great Gig In The Sky"), if they aren't "traditional" (like every radio broadcast snippet Roger Waters used on The Final Cut, although none of those songs are instrumentals to begin with), if they're meaningless (like the weird barking thing on "Pow R Toc H") or if it would be pretty much pointless to print as the official lyrics ("one of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces").

Basically if any spoken word (or sung parts for that matter) doesn't conform to some general consensus of lyrics, I don't consider them lyrics and I feel they function as an instrument more (again, going back to Roger's beloved radio samples). I typically decide on a case-by-case basis but since I don't consider ominous Latin chanting as lyrics, I see it as an instrument to carry a melody.

 

I would consider all of the examples in the OP instrumentals.

I would consider Great Gig in the Sky a vocalise* for what it is worth. The voice is used as an instrument. But something like Wipeout, the voice is just an effect.

*vo·cal·ise
(vō′kə-lēz′) n. An exercise, composition, or arrangement in which a performer sings solmization syllables or other meaningless vocal sounds rather than a text.

Now can we come up with a whole playlist of those?

 

According to the dictionary, a song is a musical composition meant to be sung. In that order of ideas, an instrumental is not a song.

 

If you take away the instruments and the vocal part that is left is insufficient to be considered a song, then it was an instrumental not a song.

 

David Bowie's All Saints compilation of his instrumentals included tracks like "Warszawa," "Subterraneans," and "V2 Schneider," all of which include singing.

 

I've always thought of Wipeout and the others as instrumentals.

A handful of songs consist of a long instrumental passage followed by a minute or two of vocals, like The Gulf of Knowledge by Tai Phong. I guess they're not technically instrumentals.

 

Yes, exactly

 

No vocals. Instruments being played only. As in the recent Steven Wilson reissues, wherein the vocal track is removed, and is labeled as the instrumental version.
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TSOP had minimal Three Degree vocals. I think it's an instrumental.
The Hustle...that is too.

 

Here's my problem with the "no vocals" rule: by that standard, a vocal record should have no instruments!

 

Some old records specify "vocal with instrumental accompaniment" or language of that sort on the label.

 

I consider anything without lyrics to be instrumental. If it has vocals but they are wordless, that's still an instrumental in my book.

 

I agree with you. It's OK if it has some background, chanting, or occasional vocals.

 

That seems fair. I consider "Telstar" an instrumental, for instance.

 

Jazz songs with scat vocals - ie wordless - are those also instrumentals?

 

What do you think?
Joni Mitchell's voice is pretty much another instrument on this recording.
You can bend the rules. There are no fines or jail time involved ...

 

A piece of music with no lyrics

 

Yes, because scat vocals, by definition, are not words, just sounds. The voice is being used solely as an instrument and not to convey a more specific message through language.

 

or we could go even further and define instrumental songs to the tunes written and first recorded without lyrics . Green onions , Tequila, Popcorn , Apache...

 

I consider this an instrumental, though the vocals are my favorite part...

 

I would think the logical cutoff point would be any that contains anything vocally that is less than a phrase.
Tequilla and Wipeout simply say the name of the song, and don't really express any ideas.

 

Ok, this is a stretch but, this implies that if the vocal contains sounds that are somewhat unintelligible as words, so would that mean that songs sung by Bob Dylan are all instrumentals?

 

Boy, this thread is an exercise in taking a simple question and making it incomprehensible.