It’s fair to assume that human beings started singing long before the first musical instrument was invented, but there are plenty of brilliant songs that, for one reason or another, eschew vocals completely.
While instrumentals were popular until the 1970s, pop music’s increasing reliance on vocal hooks means only one singer-free song has topped the UK charts since Mr Oizo’s Flat Beat in 1999 – the truly dreadful Animals by Martin Garrix back in 2013.
That’s reflected in our list below, which, while taking in a variety of genres, isn’t exactly packed with contemporary household names, but is full of tracks that’ll give your hi-fi system something to chew on while it’s waiting vainly for the vocals to kick in.
We’ve taken the executive decision not to include anything classical, or anything written specifically for a soundtrack (we’ve got other test track lists for that), and have only allowed vocal samples as long as they don’t sound like singing or talking. Instrumental versions of songs that normally have vocals are not allowed either.
Think we’ve missed any obvious classics? Let us know in the comments, on our forums, or via our social media channels...
Booker T. and the MG's – Green Onions
Green Onions (or Spring Onions as it would’ve been known if Booker T. and the MG's had formed in Maidstone rather than Memphis) was originally conceived as a B-side, but after a local DJ played it on the radio the reaction was so strong that Stax Records quickly re-released it as a single.
It’s not hard to see why the tune was so popular, with a wriggly Hammond organ riff, Steve Cropper’s electrifying Telecaster licks, a classic 12-bar blues bassline, and a drumbeat so solid you could build a house on it.
In fact, Green Onions is one of only two instrumentals on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest songs ever written, sitting 74 places higher than Miles Davis’s So What in 418th.
Buy Booker T. and the MG's Green Onions on Amazon
Explosions in the Sky – Your Hand In Mine
Post-rock is a genre that’s happy to let the instruments do the talking, and there’s more emotion packed into the eight minutes of Your Hand In Mine than some bands manage in a whole album’s worth of lyrics.
In truth, we could have picked almost any song from 2003’s The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place, such is the ease with which the album flows from one to the next. Critics will argue it’s actually because they all sound alike, but where other post-rock bands leaned heavily into the noisier side of the quiet/loud dynamic that often defined the genre, Explosions in the Sky’s most arresting moments are at the other end of the spectrum.
That’s not to say Your Hand In Mine won’t test your system’s power, but the shimmering guitars will test your heartstrings, too.
Buy Explosions in the Sky's The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place on Amazon
Flying Lotus – 1983
Until it ended in 2018, Low End Theory, a club night that ran at The Airliner in Los Angeles, was arguably the experimental hip-hop equivalent of CBGBs in New York. It played host to everyone from Thom Yorke to Prince, and helped launch the career of Flying Lotus, whose debut album, 1983, included this track of the same name.
The influence of legendary producer J Dilla (whose own best tracks contain just too many vocal samples to be considered for this list) is apparent in the ever-so-slightly off-time beat that makes your brain sit up and take notice, as well as the bass that shape-shifts like it’s trying to escape from underneath the song.
Buy Flying Lotus' 1983 on Amazon
Mogwai – My Father My King
Mogwai aren’t exactly short of songs that’ll test the dynamics of a hi-fi – try Like Herod for an exercise in volume management – but from the single string of a guitar that begins My Father My King, to the waves of controlled noise and feedback at its extended crescendo, this will give your system plenty to get its teeth into.
Based on melodies taken from an ancient Jewish hymn called Avinu Malkeinu, the track builds over 20 minutes, with the Glasgow five-piece gradually adding layers of guitar, viola and cello before stripping everything back down to that simple guitar again in preparation for the sonic assault at the end.
My Father My King was recorded with the late Steve Albini, an engineer known for his ability to capture a band as they sound live, and that’s exactly what you get here in all its speaker-terrorising glory.
Buy Mogwai's My Father My King on Amazon
Aphex Twin - Avril 14th
If all you know of Aphex Twin is the nightmare fuel of the Come to Daddy or Windowlicker videos, it might surprise you to learn that the famously reclusive artist is capable of composing something as delicate as Avril 14th – but he certainly didn’t play it.
Avril 14th was recorded on a Yamaha Disklavier, a piano that can be played using MIDI data rather than human fingers, making this gentle, two-minute instrumental sound like music for the uncanny valley. If you listen hard enough, and your system can pick it out, you can just about make out the sound of the mechanism at work, like there’s a pair of robotic hands manipulating the keys.
Nestled among some fairly sinister ambience, mechanical folk and melon-twisting techno, Avril 14th is the standout track on an album that contains a few uncharacteristically fragile and not-quite-completely-organic moments.
Buy Aphex Twin's Avril 14th on Amazon
Van Halen – Eruption
There’s something quite ironic about Van Halen’s most famous song, Jump, being based around a keyboard, but there’s no mistaking which instrument is at the heart of Eruption.
While it starts with the clatter of Alex Van Halen’s drums, Eruption is essentially a standalone guitar solo, but what else could it be? If this 102 seconds of string-melting musical witchcraft was sandwiched between verses and a chorus it would completely overshadow the rest of the song.
To a lot of people, Eruption will sound like the epitome of self-indulgent fretboard onanism, but it’s important to put it in context. Released in 1978, Eddie Van Halen’s double-tapping technique on Eruption pretty much defined how rock music would sound over the following decade, so there’s nothing better to test how your system handles a bit of shredding.
What’s perhaps even more amazing about this track is that Eddie always insisted that he could’ve played it better.
Buy Van Halen's Eruption on Amazon
Tortoise – TNT
The problem with a genre label like ‘post-rock’ is that it encapsulates so many different sounds. At one end of the spectrum you have a band like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, whose post-apocalyptic symphonies bear very little resemblance to the light, jazzy tones of Tortoise’s TNT at the other.
But don’t worry, this isn’t the kind of sonic wallpaper you’d hear in the lobby of an expensive hotel. It’s a track that is constructed a bit like a Lego model, with loose drums, swells of synth, and a repeated guitar riff bouncing off each other until the bass comes in and gives everything a single destination to aim for.
Rather than the end of the world, TNT sounds like the hopeful start of a new one.
Pete Rock – A Little Soul
Many people will have heard Pete Rock’s work before they knew his name. He’s the man behind the boards on Nas’ The World Is Yours, and a producer who is widely credited with popularising the jazzier side of hip-hop, particularly on the albums he released with CL Smooth.
2003’s PeteStrumentals was his first fully instrumental release, and while a lot of hip-hop sounds unfinished without somebody rapping over the top, it’s a testament to the producer’s talents that A Little Soul works as a piece of music in its own right.
It’s unmistakably the work of Pete Rock as well, built around his trademark jazzy horns sampled from a 1970 track by The Cannonball Adderley Quintet, and the hook from a Brazilian singer called Emílio Santiago.
Buy Pete Rock's A Little Soul on Amazon
Led Zeppelin – Moby Dick
When Led Zeppelin played Moby Dick live it would often stretch to way beyond the four minutes and 20 seconds that were recorded for the penultimate track on 1969’s Led Zeppelin II. There’s a 15-minute version on YouTube taken from a show at the Royal Albert Hall in 1970, but with some chemical assistance John Bonham would eventually stretch his drum solo out to over half an hour.
If you’re thinking you’d need something similar to get through that, thankfully the studio version is more restrained. Bookended by short blasts of accompaniment from Jimmy Page’s guitar and John Paul Jones’ bass, Bonzo’s solo, which at one point sees him setting aside his sticks and playing with his hands, is the ideal way to see how your system copes with a drum kit.
Buy Led Zeppelin's Moby Dick on Amazon
Elliott Smith – Kiwi Maddog 20/20
When people talk about the genius of the late Elliott Smith they often focus on his lyrics – and it’s easy to see why. The singer, who died of an apparently self-inflicted stab wound to the heart aged just 33, had an incredible talent for writing simple, unpretentious lyrics that still have the power to be completely devastating, but he was also a brilliant musician.
The majority of his debut solo album, 1994’s Roman Candle, is just Elliott’s voice and his acoustic guitar. In fact, it was recorded on a four-track recorder in a basement and was only ever intended to be a demo, but the label liked it so much they convinced him to release it as an album.
But the final track, Kiwi Maddog 20/20, has a less lo-fi feel to it. It’s the only track on the album with no vocals – although rumours of a version with words exist online – but the more hopeful vibe and less understated guitar playing hint at the more complex arrangements he would showcase on later albums.
Buy Elliott Smith’s Kiwi Maddog 20/20 on Amazon
Earth – Seven Angels
While most American rock bands, particularly in the Pacific Northwest where Earth formed, spent 1993 trying to piggyback on the success of Nirvana, Dylan Carlson (a former roommate of Kurt Cobain) had something significantly sludgier and less radio-friendly in mind.
Seven Angels and the album Earth 2 that it appears on are considered landmarks in the development of drone metal. While bands they influenced, such as Sunn O))), play at a pace that’s comparable to a tectonic plate, Seven Angels is comparatively upbeat, but it bears all the hallmarks of the genre.
What’s important with a track like Seven Angels is that you can really appreciate the rugged texture of the chugging, Sabbath-esque riff and the incessant bass drone that underpins all 15 minutes, so how much dread it instils in you will probably depend on the quality of your kit.
Buy Earth's Earth 2 on Amazon
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