[Malte Müller]

Things like instrumental film music was definitely considered ‘anorak’ and super un-cool.

I think this also applied to instrumental music in general, too. Many people (still) need the singing apparenty. No idea, is it less abstract, can they better connect because of the voice maybe? Or because they can sing along? Surely there studies about that.

One of my earliest LPs was this one and I still have it:
https://www.discogs.com/de/release/9483271-Various-James-Bond-Greatest-Hits
I don’t think it was right in 1982 already – I was 9 then – but around mid 80s for sure. Funny thing is I was already aware that a lot of these compilation didn’t have the originals and I was please this had.