Is there a difference between lyric and instrumental pop music? What is it that words add to music, and do they take something away as well?
By pop music I mean everything that isn't 'classical' music; by non-lyrical I mean that there is no layer of meaning provided by words. I want to include bands like Sigur Ros, which sing in languages that very few of us understand (they're an extreme example in that they sometimes use a made-up language. They know what they're doing.) There seems to be a lot of this on the Rough Trade 100.
In a lot of music, the lyrics aren't actually about the meanings of the words. They just add a different kind of texture. So maybe there isn't so much difference between bands that sing and ones that don't. But in pop music singing seems to have been so dominant (from both work-song and choir-song roots, I guess) that not using it means something in itself. If only that we recognise the meaninglessness of the words themselves.
What kind of meaning does a song, a piece of music, express? By omitting lyrics, is there something less fixed, something less open to argument? Because we have always disputed what words mean in pop songs, or even what words actually are being sung. Are non-lyrical pop songs an escape from that arena of dispute? Are they less analytical; does that make them somehow more cowardly? There are two sides to the recognition that meaning is difficult to pin down. In this way, non-lyrical pop music is a genre of postmodern relativism.
But perhaps they are really more than that. Perhaps they are not really hiding from the problems of verbal communication, but experimenting in a way of solving them. They are brave, existential essays (tries, attempts, shots) in imagination, empathy, connection, and emotion beyond words.
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