simply put are they as a whole better? No they aren't it is a simple case of is there a great instrumental, yes there is. There are a large number of brilliant Instrumentals out there, the one that comes to mind first is Orion by Metallica. Brilliant song, but is it their best piece of music? no not really I would put Fade to black over it due to the lyrics being involved.
You're right about Fade to Black being the better song compared to Orion.... but I must say that I would have preferred an instrumental version of Fade to Black. It's an amazing song, but I find that to be the case because of the guitar work done in the song, rather than it's lyrics.
But then you get into other genres of music like Jazz where some of the best in the world didn't need vocalists, case in point Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and John Coltrane. Brilliant musicians that let their instruments sing the lyrics that were within the song.
I'm actually not that familiar with these guys, but I've heard their names many times. I'll have to look up some of their stuff, especially the instrumentals.
Some of the music that exists out there that is considered good music is classical, not just operatic stuff from Mozart, but pieces of music like Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Edvard Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King".
Yeah stuff like that is really cool in the sense that you can come up with virtually any mental image that you please when you listen to it. The possibilities are endless. This is why I prefer instrumentals. While one is playing I can just lie down, close my eyes, and make my own music videos in my head. That was one of my favorite things to do when I was younger.
However lyrics and vocals are done best when they are effectively another layer on top of a brilliantly composed piece of music. Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd is a good case for this. To go into another Genre of music Amon Amarth with "Cry of the Black Birds" the gutteral growling singing of Johann Hegg is another layer on top as well as mixing into the music as an additional instrument.
That's the thing though, they are adding another layer to the song. Often I find myself hearing songs I like and wishing I could know what an instrumental version of it would sound like, where the artist(s) rely on nothing but sound to invoke absolutely anything into your mind as you listen.
A good lyricist paints images within a mind that is different for everyone, I have been listening to my iPod on the bus and the story that is involved is played out in my minds eye to such detail.
Hmmm, I didn't think of that. Different people could hear lyrical songs and think about entirely different things if the lyrics are written well enough. Still though, I find it far easier to find a larger variety of interesting things to think about when there are no lyrics, and often that makes it enjoyable to listen to the song. An instrumental could bring a myriad of things into mind, that many lyrical songs cannot.
Really I feel that music should have lyrics that can be added to a well crafted piece of music, The music should be able to stand on its own, but lyrics are just as important if not more so when it comes to certain Genres of music.
It isn't just in classical genres though, I find guitar instrumentals and techno beats to often be on par with many of the hit singles that come out nowadays. You make a valid argument, but I still find instrumentals superior because they are the song at its core level whereas the lyrics are "the tip of the iceberg".
