What is the only instrumental single to go platinum?
One of the lost attributes of music is its ability to be transformative. Yes, as is with most art forms, its more important traits of fostering understanding, making sense of life’s rawest emotions, and posing important political and societal questions are valued higher, for good reason. But sometimes, you just want to sit in a dark room, put on noise-cancelling headphones, and escape reality with a tune.
While I am a self-professed, lyric-first kind of listener, my tastes have developed over the years. It was lyrics that got me into music, but music got me into something wider altogether. Within the exploration of more textural and experimental worlds, instrumental music has proven the most revelatory.
Be it contemporary artists like Surprise Chef and Kokoroko or perhaps their classic predecessors like Herbie Hancock or Miles Davis, immersing yourself in layers of sonic textures incites an emotional response far beyond the utterance of words. At worst, intriguing, and at its best, entirely transportative, a good instrumental album can be akin to deep meditation.
But despite my attempt at a high-brow take on instrumental music, I’m going to switch to a different gear. While Herbie Hancock is on my regular rotation, and I may think that makes me better than everyone else, the names Hans Zimmer and John Williams aren’t far behind on my instrumental cooking playlist. Yes, I may act like I love jazz, but I also love pretending that my santoku kitchen knife is the Millennium Falcon and my neatly sliced onion is intergalactic space.
Cheesy or not, some of instrumental music’s finest moments have come at the hands of film composers. Not only are they the purveyors of feelings of transformation, which I clearly hold so dear, but they squeeze out the underlying emotion of any given scene, forming a lasting imprint that leaves you, in my case anyway, crying at the kitchen counter and blaming it on the damn onions.
Many would argue the most iconic of all soundtracks is that of Star Wars, written by John Williams. Encapsulating the golden age of hero-driven Hollywood narratives, it roused audiences as they sat ready to embark on a trip to a land “far, far away”. While the box office records were smashed upon release of the films, its accompanying soundtrack didn’t leave a mark on the charts. And understandably so, it was designed for the sole purpose of elevating the movie, which it did valiantly.
It was a soundtrack more fitting for Han Solo’s crusades than for the dance moves of a booze-addled Jabba the Hutt and the smoky bar he occupies. There was no groove for Jabba to shake his wobbly hips to, and ultimately, that is one of the major tragedies of the film. And it was a wrong that Domenico Monardo, aka, Meco, was willing to right.
In 1977, he released his record Music Inspired By Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk. Suitably released through Millennium Records, its opening track was a rehash of Williams’ classic theme tune from Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope but with a rolling bass line and glittering brass section that brought a light-up dancefloor for Jabba to break out his moves on. It continued on to other tracks like ‘Other Galactic Funk’, which was a 12-minute spiral of groove that had very little spacey about it besides the headspace its instruments put you in.
But it was the third track, ‘Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band’, that saw Meco blend the sensibilities from the opening two numbers to deliver Star Wars’ true funky lovechild. Piggy-backing on the popularity of the film series and the world’s insatiable appetite for disco-infused fun, the song became the first and only instrumental single to go platinum.
How did Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope perform at the box office?
In the modern world, we are so put off by oversaturated digital effects and unrealistic action sequences that we crave something authentic. Christopher Nolan figured out how to get permission to send a commercial aeroplane into a fiery blaze at an airport hangar before conceding to the use of special effects. But when Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope was released, it was positively game-changing and set the bar for escapist dystopian storytelling and how special effects could be used to transport viewers to a whole new world.
Consequently, fans flocked to the cinemas upon its debut, which led to its smashing of box office records with ease. First released in theatres in the United States on May 25th, 1977, its earnings were huge at $461million in the US and $314m overseas. Lucas’ film surpassed Jaws to become the highest-grossing film of all time back then.
Soon after, the film received ten Academy Award nominations and emphatically won seven of them. It became one of the first films to be selected as part of the US Library of Congress’ National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. To this day, it is heralded as one of the greatest films of all time that blazed a trail so wide that an esoteric funk instrumental album made in tribute went platinum.
