When was the last time you heard an instrumental piece being played on the radio? If you have, then you’ve witnessed a rare phenomenon, because instrumental music is largely ignored in mainstream society. Songs without lyrics are disregarded, because if you can’t sing it, then surely it must be random elevator music. But with the help of a singer, you can bring it all together to make a real song!

Wrong.

An instrumental piece can be just as, if not more, beautiful and catchy as something with vocals layered over it. However, singers are portrayed as necessary in a musical band. They’re always the most attractive, entertaining, and best of all, marketable. It’s no wonder that Rihanna, Ariana Grande, and Beyonce are paraded around like musical geniuses while the ones who actually make their music are nowhere to be seen. When you think of Nirvana, you think of Kurt Cobain- not Krist Novoselic or Dave Grohl. For mainstream audiences, singers are the only ones who matter. The drummer has feelings too, guys.

Here’s a proposal: Song lyrics are not perfect and there are times when the piece is better off without them.

With the inclusion of lyrics, the song just isn’t as personal. Instead of listening to music for personal pleasure, relating it to past experiences and drawing your own meaning from it, you instead have a singer doing it for you. The song is about their experiences, their struggles, and their voice. Many people can no doubt still relate to these artists, but there is no room left for the individual listener. Having pretentious lyrics and overdone metaphors shoved down my throat is great and all, but sometimes I just like to let the music flow through me and forget about other people’s problems. Listening to music is a personal experience, and sometimes another voice is not appreciated. Instrumentals are perfectly capable of portraying emotions like happiness, grief, anger, or fear, and we don’t need the singer telling us how to feel.

I would like to clarify that many songs I enjoy actually contain lyrics. Most of the time I just ignore the lyrics and listen to the music in the background, but there are singers whose vocals are so raw and emotional that they can carry the piece all on their own. For genres like rap or hip hop, which are often used for discussing social issues, lyrics are quite needed for them to exist at all. I’m not trying to argue why lyrics in a song are inherently bad, but I do think that instrumental music deserves more attention than it gets.

So next time you listen to your favorite song, watch a movie, or play a video game, take some time to appreciate the music in the background!