Sometimes you just want to kick back and listen to something without lyrics. What are your favorites? Some of mine are:
Booker T and the MGs - Green Onions
Harry J All Stars - The Liquidator
KC and the Sunshine Band - The Hustle
Average White Band - Pick up the Pieces
I just realized there’s a lot of funky stuff in there. Also, the last two are not strictly instrumentals, but they’re near as damn it. 
Anyway, recommend me some stuff. What would you pick?
I’d have to go with Santo & Johnny’s “Sleepwalk”.
I also enjoy Husker Du’s “Reoccurring Dreams”, but I wouldn’t recommend it for most people.
The 50’s and early 60’s were golden for instrumentals – the Ventures, Duane Eddy, and that surf music guy whose name I’ve forgotten.
Favorites are Apache by Jordan Ingman (sp?) and Wonderland by Night by Bert Kaempfert (sp). If you haven’t heard Roy Buchanan’s version of Sweet Dreams, check that out.
Beethoven’s 9th, hands down.
AuntiePam: Dick Dale?
Many Frank Zappa tunes; if one must be picked, let it be “Peaches in Regalia” from the Hot Rats album (which has only a few lines of lyrics on the whole album, BTW).
Do yourself a favor and pick up the Beastie Boys’ The In Sounds From Way Out. I’m not kidding.
All time fave.
Outside of classical music, my other favorite is Steroid Maximus’s Gondwanaland.
That’s him!
And Bill Justis – Raunchy is the earliest rock and roll instrumental that I can remember.
Here’s a thread that went around trying to ID a song…and ended up with a lot of instrumental cites.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=470163&highlight=Hocus
Someone uploaded “Space Race”/Billy Preston on youtube, which I couldn’t find before.
While we’re in the 1970s, “Rockford Files” (Mike Post?) had a good theme:
“Bob Newhart” theme…
Excellent choice !!!
Willie the Pimp also. (1% lyrics, 99% music)
Beatles - Cry for a Shadow.
John Barry - Theme from Midnight Cowboy.
Edgar Winter Group - Frankenstein.
Chantays - Pipeline.
This is one of my alltime favorites. Its hard to come up with all off the top of my head, but here’s a few other faves:
Fourtet - Smile Around the Face (ok, no instruments were actually played but w/e)
Jimi Hendrix - 3rd Stone from the Sun (has some talking, no singing)
Rush - La Villa Strangiato
Metallica - Orion
Cream - Toad.
I’ll give whole albums
Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds of Fire and Inner Mounting Flame, especially “One Word” on the former.
And of course Mike Oldfield, TB I, II and most of III, Ommadawn, Amarok, Platinum, QE2, especially the title track and Taurus 2 on Five Miles Out. There are vocals on these, but they are in Celtic or Hindi, and are really used as an instrument, not as words.
“Nouveau Calls”, Wishbone Ash’s contribution to IRS Records’ “No Speak” series, is probably my favorite.
In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, Hot 'Lanta, Les Brers in A Minor, Jessica and Little Martha, by the Allman Brothers Band
Sierra Leone and Sonido Alegre by the Derek Trucks Band.
Clair de Lune by Debussy.
For “kick back & relax” music, how about Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, especially starring the great, great Leonard Bernstein on piano: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiyc9Ak3EtQ & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOcuvv01nO4
Love, Phil
Afro-Blue by John Coltrane. The opening passage is just stunningly evocative for me.
Little House I Used To Live In and Eat That Question/Cleetus Awreetus-Awrightus by Frank Zappa. As with many folks I have multiple Zappa faves, but I tend to gravitate to his “late-early” to “mid-period” stuff.
Mediterranean Sundance/Rio Ancho by Al di Meola and Paco de Lucia. Acoustic relic from my fusion phase. Most of the super-loud electric jazz fusion stuff I don’t listen to anymore, but the 100 mph acoustic stuff still gets my blood pumping.
Mother Africa by Santana. Kind of an odd choice, given the lack of typical Santana guitar heroics ( he played bass ). But again, very evocative and gives me visions of panoramic African scenery as seen by a slowly moving aircraft. I always imagine the camera speeding up at Michael Shrieve’s explosive drum solo as it pans over Olduvai Gorge. More typical Santana piece, off the first album - Treat, great back and forth guitar and piano.
Fast Life Rider by Johnny Winter. Not entirely instrumental, though largely so . Really kind of a stand-in for any of several interminable JW blues-rock jams from the 1970’s, I guess.
Rites of Spring by Igor Stravinsky. I can “blame” Zappa for the Stravinsky love.
9th Symphony by Beethoven, of course. Undoubtedly the most powerful piece of classical music ever written.
Hot 'Lanta by the Allman Brothers. I long ago largely lost my taste for most southern rock bands like, say, Lynyrd Skynyrd ( stuff like ‘Freebird’ or even ‘High Tides and Green Grass’ will make me run screaming ). But early Allman Brothers is eternal.
Beck’s Bolero by Jeff Beck. Oddly, this one still works for me, even though the rave-up versions of old standards has become a cliche. I sorta like Ravel’s original at that.
Krill 'Slippin by The Mermen. Just to throw some psychodelic surf in there.
New World Symphony by Earth Wind and Fire, off the live album. I like instrumental funk. HUGE fan of the band War.
Icarus or any of a couple of other tracks off the early Paul Winter Consort albums Icarus and Road. In general I am not at all a fan of “New Age” music. I make an exception for these.
Kaba Mustapha/Valle E Gadjes by 3 Mustaphas 3. At least I think that’s the track I’m thinking of. Doesn’t matter - all 3 Mustaphas 3 rules, no exceptions.
And about a billion more. I could list tracks all night.
Little Rock Getaway by Jimmy Bryant and Kaiowas by Sepultura.
Oh, and From Skin to Liquid by Cannibal Corpse for that pure evil vibe.
Aw, dammit. Most of these were gonna be my first picks, and I was excited at the possibility of being first to post them. [Insert random pointless grumbling about people with good musical taste who check forums more often than me here]
Anyway, of those, my personal favorite is Jessica. It’s one of the songs I cue up whenever I’m in a bad mood and want to get back into a good mood. And to date, it has never failed.
For some other suggestions, please feel free to check out:
-“She’s a Woman” by Jeff Beck. I mean, the whole Blow by Blow album is filled to the brim with pure awesome, but this song in particular is another one that will always, always, always put me in a good mood.
-“Orange Wedge” by Chemical Brothers. Something about that slinky dirty synth part always strikes me as super cool (as a side note, “The Sunshine Underground” from the same album is pretty spiffy too, but technically it has a few words in it so I suppose it doesn’t count for purposes of this thread)
-“Black Eyed Pea” by Galactic. The frantic sax solo is nifty, but the build at the end is really where it’s at.
-“Mnemonics” by DJ Logic. I’ll admit that I’m a little biased on this one, but only because I saw the dude perform it live with the sax solo done as a duel between live sax and sampled sax, and it pretty much kicked everyone’s ass.
-“Bubblehouse” by Medeski, Martin and Wood (not the remixed one - the original version). Now, MMW is often given to musical tangents that I find spectacular, but that I understand everyone else may not like so much. But on this song, they did something I think a lot of people can enjoy.
-“Belgian Tom’s Hat Trick” by Whitesnake. That’s right, I said Whitesnake. Mock me if you must, but give it a listen.
-“Always with Me, Always with you” by Joe Satriani. I’m actually only a lukewarm fan of Mr. Satriani overall, but this song just came out really well.
Watch this. Seriously. Watch it.
Amazing music. Amazing game. I highly recommend both the game and the soundtrack, which are the best.
I’ll go a different direction:
Seven Cities - Solarstone
Communication Part 3 - Armin van Buuren
Sublime - Ferry Corsten
Airwave - Rank 1