People want the beat without the singer, and occasionally the singer without the beat. Across 205 Billboard No. 1s since 2004, US searches for "[song] instrumental" total ~12,036 a month and "[song] acapella" ~2,389. "Golden" (Huntrix: Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami) is the most-wanted vocal-free No. 1, followed by "Not Like Us" and "All I Want for Christmas Is You". The a cappella list is a different crowd: remixers and singers go for "Golden" (212/mo) and "Somebody That I Used to Know".
Top 20 No. 1s people want without the vocals (US, monthly)
| # | Song | Artist | First No. 1 | Instrumental/mo | Acapella/mo | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Golden | Huntrix: Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami | 2025 | 785 | 212 | 997 |
| 2 | Not Like Us | Kendrick Lamar | 2024 | 457 | 24 | 481 |
| 3 | All I Want for Christmas Is You | Mariah Carey | 2019 | 302 | 33 | 335 |
| 4 | Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) | Beyoncé | 2008 | 284 | 11 | 295 |
| 5 | Viva la Vida | Coldplay | 2008 | 227 | 39 | 266 |
| 6 | Ordinary | Alex Warren | 2025 | 245 | 17 | 262 |
| 7 | DTMF | Bad Bunny | 2026 | 242 | 16 | 258 |
| 8 | Somebody That I Used to Know | Gotye featuring Kimbra | 2012 | 130 | 117 | 247 |
| 9 | California Gurls | Katy Perry featuring Snoop Dogg | 2010 | 234 | 10 | 244 |
| 10 | Shake It Off | Taylor Swift | 2014 | 226 | 13 | 239 |
| 11 | SexyBack | Justin Timberlake | 2006 | 216 | 19 | 235 |
| 12 | Die with a Smile | Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars | 2025 | 185 | 22 | 207 |
| 13 | Call Me Maybe | Carly Rae Jepsen | 2012 | 182 | 21 | 203 |
| 14 | Uptown Funk | Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars | 2015 | 182 | 17 | 199 |
| 15 | All of Me | John Legend | 2014 | 185 | 12 | 197 |
| 16 | Sicko Mode | Travis Scott | 2018 | 178 | 16 | 194 |
| 17 | Janice STFU | Drake | 2026 | 164 | 22 | 186 |
| 18 | Like That | Future, Metro Boomin and Kendrick Lamar | 2024 | 166 | 11 | 177 |
| 19 | Hate That I Made You Love Me | Ariana Grande | 2026 | 96 | 74 | 170 |
| 20 | See You Again | Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth | 2015 | 152 | 13 | 165 |
Top 10 a cappella requests
| # | Song | Artist | First No. 1 | Acapella/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Golden | Huntrix: Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami | 2025 | 212 |
| 2 | Somebody That I Used to Know | Gotye featuring Kimbra | 2012 | 117 |
| 3 | Hate That I Made You Love Me | Ariana Grande | 2026 | 74 |
| 4 | Viva la Vida | Coldplay | 2008 | 39 |
| 5 | Set Fire to the Rain | Adele | 2012 | 38 |
| 6 | All I Want for Christmas Is You | Mariah Carey | 2019 | 33 |
| 7 | Not Like Us | Kendrick Lamar | 2024 | 24 |
| 8 | Poker Face | Lady Gaga | 2009 | 22 |
| 9 | Die with a Smile | Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars | 2025 | 22 |
| 10 | Janice STFU | Drake | 2026 | 22 |
What it means
Viral formats reward speed and a sound people already know. For anyone who wants the track without the singer, a free vocal remover splits any song into vocals and instrumental in seconds. Anyone who wants to sing it themselves can turn the original into a backing track with a karaoke song maker.
Method
- US Google search volume (English), monthly, Oct 2022–Sep 2026. 'Avg/mo' = mean of the latest 12 months (Oct 2025–Sep 2026); '3-yr change' = latest 12 months vs Oct 2022–Sep 2023.
- Universe: the 295 distinct Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 songs, Jan 2004–2026 (Billboard list), cleaned title.
- Ambiguous titles (common words or titles that collide with products/brands, e.g. "Umbrella cover", "Happy karaoke") were excluded per query type.
Cite and download
Free to use and cite with a link back to this page.
aisong.lol Research. (2026). The songs America most wants without the singer. aisong.lol. https://aisong.lol/research/the-songs-america-most-wants-without-the-singer
Use this data. Every table in this study as one spreadsheet-ready file.
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