Brian Lipschultz has served as director of the Bremer Financial Corporation and co-CEO and trustee of the Otto Bremer Foundation since 2012. Away from his work at Otto Bremer, Brian Lipschultz enjoys performing as both a vocalist and an instrumental musician.
In 2013, the song “Harlem Shake” by Baauer reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking the first time in more than a decade that an instrumental song reached Billboard's top 10. Instrumental songs have not always been such a rarity in mainstream music, with ten different instrumental tracks achieving top-10 positions in 1963 alone.
Over the years, instrumental singles have ranged from the lackadaisical surf rock of the Chantays’ “Pipeline” to grand orchestral compositions. In some cases, determining which songs should be considered instrumentals may be difficult. “Tequila” by the Champs, for example, is a former chart topper almost devoid of vocals, though the word “tequila” is uttered several times. Billboard recognizes the track as an instrumental.
While the 1960s and '70s were rife with instrumental top-10 hits, such as “Hawaii Five-O” and “Jungle Fever,” songs without vocals became less frequent in the following decades. Only six instrumentals reached the top 10 in the 1980s, while “Theme from Mission: Impossible” in 1996 and “Auld Lang Syne” in 2000 were the two most recent top-10 instrumentals until “Harlem Shake.”
