How many number-one hits have been entirely instrumental?
Every so often, the timeline of music history sees a bump in popularity for instrumental music, largely impacted by specific genres—whether that be jazz throughout the 20th century, disco in the 1970s, or EDM in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Then, of course, in more recent years, moments of virality can have next-to-unexplainable impacts—Baauer’s Harlem Shake hitting the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in 2013 comes to mind. The track is the last instrumental to have held the top position.
Taking a look at the short list of instrumentals to have achieved number one status, it’s glaringly obvious that there has been a decline throughout the past 20 years, with only one track attaining the achievement since the dawn of the millennium—that is the aforementioned, with its dance craze in tow.
It makes sense. Half of the instrumentals listed during the first 16 years of the Billboard Hot 100 Chart’s history involved either an orchestra or symphony—from which we could assume most of these were classical, jazz, or film compositions, with classical and jazz arguably more popular 50–60 years ago.
Two tracks from this subsection, however, fall into the world of R&B/soul and disco, both of which were released in the early 1970s. The full list of these orchestra/symphony-supported releases in chronological order is extensive.
How many number-one songs have been entirely instrumental?
- ‘Theme from A Summer Place’ by Percy Faith and His Orchestra (1960)
- ‘Wonderland by Night’ by Bert Kaempfert and His Orchestra (1960)
- ‘Calcutta’ by Lawrence Welk and His Orchestra (1961)
- ‘The Stripper’ by David Rose and His Orchestra (1962)
- ‘Love is Blue’ by L’amour Est Bleu and Paul Mauriat and His Orchestra (1968)
- ‘Love Theme from Romeo & Juliet’ by Henry Mancini and His Orchestra (1969)
- ‘Love’s Theme’ by Love Unlimited Orchestra (1974)
- ‘The Hustle’ by Van McCoy & The Soul City Symphony (1975)
The 1969 entry, Love is Blue by L’amour Est Bleu and Paul Mauriat and His Orchestra, stands out as a contribution from the European genre of schlager.
The remaining entries throughout the 1960s and 1970s ranged widely from music that appeared in film to R&B, jazz, and rock, but disco, soul, and funk really came to the fore between 1974 and 1977. The Sound of Philadelphia by MFSB ft The Three Degrees released in 1974, synonymous with its namesake, was a Philadelphia soul disco tune, while the following year clocked in two instrumental number ones by way of the funk-infused Pick Up The Pieces by Average White Band (1975) and Silver Convention’s soulful Fly, Robin, Fly (1975).
In 1976, disco-funk track Theme From SWAT by Rhythm Heritage—as the title implies—was the opening theme music for the 1970s American television series SWAT, though the version that actually appeared on TV was performed not by Rhythm Heritage, but by Barry De Vorzon’s own orchestra with arrangement by Dominik Hauser. A Fifth of Beethoven, achieving the top charting position that same year, is a disco instrumental recorded by Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band, adapted from the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.
There were two instrumental number-ones in 1977, each massively impacted by film. Following the release of Rocky the previous year, its theme tune climbed the charts. Composed by Bill Conti, ‘Gonna Fly Now’, also known as ‘Theme from Rocky’ soundtracked one of the most iconic sequences in the film—Rocky Balboa’s daily training regimen, which sees him run up the 72 stone steps leading to the entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Later that same year, ‘Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band’ by Meco, featuring music from Star Wars and appearing on the album Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk, rose to the top of the charts.
Once the 1980s hit, instrumental music’s popularity began to decline, with only three tracks listed as number ones since. Vangelis’s 1982 composition ‘Chariots of Fire’, composed for the film of the same name, was joined only by Jan Hammer’s ‘Miami Vice Theme’ in 1985.
There have been 25 instrumental number ones since 1958, with the first coming in 1959—and that entry was never initially intended not to feature vocals. However, on the day of recording, Dave ‘Baby’ Cortez, the artist behind the historic hit, lost his voice and was forced to improvise during the making of The Happy Organ.
