given I would need to approve of such a guideline change before that happened, it’s fairly unlikely to happen outside what I’ve already mentioned about karaoke-heavy markets
You can’t just pull the decades-old rug out from under all of us. You are suggesting that at least 3 of us long-tenured editors are all mistaken with how to recognize the difference between a “karaoke” recording and an “instrumental” recording of a work, and that others who have accepted this guidance are mistaken in doing so. In the issue linked to be jesus2099, multiple people had liked this explanation of the difference prior to this issue coming up today:
It was never supposed to do with whether the popular music came from a “karaoke-heavy market” or not.