Awesome Music

The world’s most stoic pianist Lord Vinheteiro tickles the ivories in an attempt to get his equally expression-free friend Laura Kassab to crack a smile. He plays tunes in a wide variety of moods to try and break through, but with little luck. In the end, he made us smile too.

Prior to watching this clip from percussion ensemble HarvardTHUD, we weren’t aware of an instrument called a “boomwhacker.” Get a listen to its unique sound with this whimsical cover version of Journey’s 1981 hit Don’t Stop Believin‘.

After filling our ears with his wonderful classical and Disney medleys, Grant Woolard is back with an epic composition, which flawlessly blends 46 different melodies from Nintendo games in a single track. See if you can identify them all.

Pianist Vinheteiro catalogs some of the many memorable bits of music dating all the way back to 1500 through 2018. For the most part he manages to keep his eyes off the keyboard, but ever Lord Vin couldn’t pull off some of the trickier tunes without looking at the keys.

The Floppotron regales us with yet another tune that suits its sounds perfectly. Crank up the volume, bang your head, and bite off a bat’s noggin while you enjoy this electromechanical cover version of Ozzy Osbourne’s 1980 hit single, Crazy Train.

Band, who needs a band? The multitalented PAB_Music manages to turn in a perfect cover version of System of a Down’s 2001 hit Chop Suey!, performing each of its instrumental and vocal parts, then editing them together into a seamless multitrack recording.

(PG-13: Language) “Steak. Affirmative rare. From a bear.” Musician and madman Stepasaur performs a kind of bad lip reading of his own, as he raps poetic about what the crew of the Starship Enterprise is having for dinner, and the aftermath of Captain Kirk’s poor choice.

Guitarist Davie504 has certainly proved that he has mad bass skills. But if you can’t keep up with his fingers, he’s here to show you how all you need is some basic video editing skills to perform just about any tune you’d like.

An amazingly good cover version of Earth, Wind & Fire’s 1978 classic September from an unlikely source. Hailing from Russia, Leonid and Friends completely nailed the instrumentation of the original, powered along by rock solid vocals. Check out Leonid’s YouTube channel for more.

The Mellotron is an extremely desirable tape-based sampling keyboard that’s been used on numerous rock, pop and other tunes over the years. Keyboard expert Doctor Mix got his hands on one and played us a little medley of four memorable mellotron riffs.

CineFix presents its picks for the best movie soundtracks. There are soundtracks that seem like scores, familiar ones that evoke nostalgia, anachronistic soundtracks, ones that introduce us to new genres or artists, soundtracks that inspired the movie itself, and more.

The music video for Beck’s track Colors was initially only available for Apple Music subscribers. Now everyone can watch it for free on YouTube. Edgar Wright’s vibrant and perfectly edited clip features choreography by Ryan Heffington, and co-stars Alison Brie.

Have your turntable join in on the Halloween fun with the first vinyl release of Stranger Things: Halloween Sounds from the Upside Down. The record contains ominous tracks previously exclusive to the Apple Music release of the Stranger Things 2 soundtrack.

We can pretty much guarantee that you’ve never heard Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean quite like this. Sit back, relax, and enjoy a beautiful cover version played on the sitar by musician Ronobir Lahiri, who gives the King of Pop’s megahit a whole new vibe.

During a recent episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Bret and Jemaine teased us with one of the songs we’ll be hearing when we tune in for their new HBO special on 10/6/18. Father & Son features an occasionally very honest dialogue between a dad and his kid.

We’ve already heard Weezer cover Toto’s 1982 hit Africa, and now we have an official music video. But Weezer is nowhere to be seen. Instead, “Weird Al” Yankovic stands in for Rivers Cuomo, lip syncing lead vocals, while poking fun at Undone – The Sweater Song.

Pianist Jonny May asked his subscribers what 1980s songs should never be played in the ragtime style, then went ahead and did it anyhow. Listen and enjoy his unique and shockingly good covers of Don’t Stop Believin‘, Livin’ on a Prayer, and Africa.

Banjo Guy Ollie goes back to the ’80s once again, with another great cover version of a classic TV theme song. This time out, he performs the synthtastic opening title track from Airwolf on banjo, mandolin, accordion, and various other instruments.

Polyphonic takes us through the blues and rock scenes from the ’40s to the ’80s to look at the invention and evolution of the electric guitar distortion. For such an important and flexible effect, its funny to think that its origins and development mainly came from accidents.

Julian Palmer of The Discarded Image takes a look back at the unique sound textures found in movies from the 1980s. While some of the highly-synthesized soundscapes feel dated or shallow, others were pioneering and perfectly suited the content on screen.

Bill Wurtz latest little ditty has a decidedly “glass half-full” vibe to it, as he does his best to convince us to look on the bright side of (or simply turn a blind eye to) some of the more catastrophic possibilites in life. It’s gonna be a fine swell day!

(PG-13: Language) ThunderCats’ malevolent antagonist channels Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and tells us how much he likes it raw in this hilarious edit of cartoon footage by swedemason. It makes perfect sense, because Mumm-Ra is a bit of an ODB himself.

“I’m gonna get some peaches, gonna put ’em in a pan…” You don’t need to know K-Pop boy band BTS to get a chuckle from Bad Lip Reading’s latest music video. Funny thing is, these could be the actual lyrics to IDOL, and it would make just as much sense to us.