In the days of New Wave (and particularly the New Romantic branch of that genre), say circa 1978-1984, many of the chart-topping groups of the day included an instrumental track or two. B-Sides were often instrumental tracks as well. I'm thinking of bands like Ultravox, Visage, Adam Ant, Human League, Gary Numan, etc. In fact in Numan's case, if you listen to his two biggest albums (Replicas and The Pleasure Principle) back-to-back, you'll hear three consecutive instrumentals.

Do artists do this anymore, or is it a fad that came and went.

I think instrumentals have mainly stayed in the rock realm for about 20 years now. I haven't kept up on my pop though in the past 10 years so someone else may know better.

Sure; everyone from Sufjan Stevens to Gnarls Barkley.

Just look for the track with the bizarre, long title.

Of Montreal's latest record has two (out of thirteen tracks) instrumentals. They're neat.

Don't know how "pop" you would classify them as but Box Car Racer's self-titled (and only) album had an instrumental track.

Is Blue Man Group considered pop these days, or just niche? Most of their stuff is instrumental. (and sweet!)

Well, "pop" in this context just means popular, as in Top 40-ish. It's not surprising that indie and the more "artsy" bands and artists would include instrumentals, but how many of the CDs that are aimed at topping the charts do so?

Okay. We can bury this guy then.. Someone post what the current top 40 albums are (loosely is fine), and then we can check the albums.

Edit: I found this "topish 40" list. There may be no hope (in the US)...

http://top40-charts.com/chart.php?cid=28