There were a handful of popular instrumentals in the '80s as well, such as David Foster's Love Theme from "St. Elmo's Fire", and the "Miami Vice" theme by Jan Hammer.

I always liked The Horse by Cliff Nobles & Co.

Radio embraced a lot of genres in the '50s, '60's and '70s. Instrumental groups were all over the charts. I picked a CHUM chart from January 1962 at random and there were 4 instrumentals on there. Bill Black's Combo had "Twist-Her" at # 29 (a song I do not remember), Ronn Metcalfe had "Twistin' At The Woodchopper's Ball" at # 27, "Up A Lazy River" by Si Zentner at # 38 and Sandy Nelson's "Let There Be Drums" at # 43.

For contrast, I went to a September 1966 chart. The only instrumental on there was The Ramsey Lewis Trio's "Wade In The Water" at # 50.

Speaking of 60's instrumental groups, Johnny & The Hurricanes had a ton of hits in Canada and the U.S. One of the later members of that group was drummer Pat Bergin aka CHUM DJ Scott Carpenter.
  

Last edited by Doug Thompson (August 21, 2026 4:58 pm)

Chrisphen wrote:

Alan Parsons' instrumentals are prolific even today. I played 'Sirius' to test out my kid's stereo and he was all like, "oh yeah I know that."

The kiddos would recognize that one from sports... the Chicago Bulls famously used that for their starting lineups. Out here, my wife (DJ for the junior hockey teams in Renfrew; I'm the PA guy) uses it when/if a game goes to a shootout.

One of my favourites was “Hungry For Love” by San Remo Golden Strings.  They were a hybrid group consisting of members from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Funk Brothers.

Which version of "Fanfare" did they use, the radio-edit, or the 9 minute version?

Silly question on my part actually - I can't imagine them expecting people to sit through all of this (I love it though)

This was apparently filmed at Olympic stadium, although the audio is the studio version.

Glen Warren wrote:

Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells     (theme for The Exorcist)

ELP  -  Fanfare for the Common Man   (used as a theme for the Montreal '76 Olympics)

Last edited by RonaldS (August 22, 2026 4:20 pm)

A couple of 'almost'-instrumentals you might remember, or enjoy if you're hearing these for the first time:

"Fire On High" by Electric Light Orchestra. Originally appeared on ELO's 1975 album, Face the Music, this edited version appeared on the B-side of "Sweet Talkin' Woman" in the US and Canada. Back in the '70s, this song was used as the theme for CBS Sports Spectacular. It's not completely an instrumental, because you can hear the choir singing throughout, and if you listen closely towards the end, you can hear them singing the song title. The LP version has some weird stuff at the beginning before launching into the main part of the song, with Jeff Lynne having some fun with backwards masking. Some fundamentalists were accusing the group of putting hidden messages in their songs, so the group figured they'd give the critics something to discuss.




Another one from a few years later was Elton John's "Song For Guy", which originally appeared on Elton's 1978 LP, A Single Man. Elton, who said he was obsessed with thoughts of death at the time, said he imagined himself "floating into space, looking down at my own body", as he wrote this song. A day later, he was told that the band's 17-year old messenger boy Guy Burchett was tragically killed while riding his motorcycle the previous day. Elton dedicated and name the song after the young man. Elton can be heard singing "Life isn't everything" repeatedly towards the end of the song.





PJ 


 

Don't forget the Art of Noise. 
They had a few hits. Peter Gun was their biggest in the 80's.