THE BEST Music

Musician Jamie Dupuis offers up a great acoustic cover version of the 1970 Black Sabbath classic Paranoid, performed on his unusual hybrid string instrument that combines a guitar and a harp. This arrangement replaces the angry electric sounds of the original with a softer, but still ominous sound.

Inspired by a mechanical drum-playing machine designed by Leonardo Da Vinci, this LEGO music maker by Giuseppe Acito uses a series of pegs placed onto a spinning wheel to trigger sound sequences as its “fingers” press keys connected to synthesizers.

(PG-13: Language) Created as an April Fools joke back in 2011, the Clone Hero track Soulless 6 was designed to be impossibly difficult. It took 10 years, but someone has finally beaten the track with a 100% Full Combo score. Don’t blink, or you might miss CarnyJared’s fingers as they go flying across the frets of his video game guitar.

Imagine for a moment that The Beach Boys hired Ozzy Osbourne as their lead vocalist. Now click play on this video and imagine no longer. DJ Cummerbund’s unlikely mashup combines Ozzy’s earnest track Mama, I’m Coming Home with the California surf sounds of Fun, Fun, Fun.

As a follow-up to their track All Together Now, the guys from OK Go asked their fans and followers to submit collaborative art and media that illustrates people’s appreciation for each other. Among the videos is this great Symphony from Home collaboration performed by musicians located all around the globe.

The music from the first couple of Sonic the Hedgehog games is some of the best in the history of video games. Among our favorites is the music from the Chemical Plant Zone, which drummer gotobejake made even better by adding a live rhythm track. We also enjoyed Jake’s take on Duck Tales.

A guitar typically has six strings. Even if you break one, you still have five to make music with. A follower of guitarist Ichika Nito wanted to know if he could play a song with just a single string, so he obliged. Can you imagine what he could do with a two-string guitar?

When you first click play on this video, you’re gonna get Rickrolled. But let it keep going and you’ll be treated to 49 more memorable songs that have become Internet staples, all played with an energetic rock edge by TheDooo on his electric guitar. How many can you name without looking?

Deftones enlisted The Invisible Man director Leigh Whannell to bring to life this unnerving music video. Actress Cleopatra Coleman stars as a woman who must pass a series of tests in order to gain access to an extremely exclusive club. We’re just not sure why anyone would want to go in there.

The Osipov State Russian Folk Orchestra is best known for their classic Russian tunes, but they also enjoy the occasional rock and roll song. Here, their balalaika section performs a cover of the 1971 Led Zeppelin classic Stairway to Heaven. We had no idea that a contrabass balalaika was a thing.

Since witnessing the horror of The Exorcist when we were kids, Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells gives us chills every time we hear it. We think it’s even more creepy when performed on a church pipe organ, as demonstrated by musician Theo Hes and his unnamed helper flipping some of the controls.

Musician Grégoire Blanc previously wowed us with his cover of The Great Gig in the Sky. This video isn’t quite as melodic, but it’s just as entertaining. Enjoy as Blanc demonstrates 10 ways to make interesting and captivating sounds by playing a saw and a violin bow in concert with effects pedals and synthesizers.

Anyone working in a creative line of business can relate to the emotions you feel when your pitch for a concept falls flat on its face. Giant Ant’s animation and accompanying tune should serve as the official theme song for failed pitches.

Are you an ’80s or ’90s kid? Then you’ll want to hit play on Estuera’s two-part video series about the synthesizers and presets that defined the sounds of two decades. Along the way, he performs excerpts from more than 40 tracks and makes them sound just like the originals, thanks in part to Arturia’s synth emulation tech.

The Foo Fighters’ track Everlong is already a pretty emotive song. But vocalist Anthony Vincent has taken things to a whole other level, turning the tune into a smooth and soulful jazz ballad with the help of producer and pianist Joey Izzo.

Scary Pockets teamed up with the Frankfurt Radio Big Band for a supremely funky arrangement of the Daft Punk classic Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, complete with one of the maddest talkbox solos ever. The track sounds so awesome with all of that brass instrumentation.

The crunchy electronic beats of The Prodigy lend themselves especially well to the lo-fi analog synth noises produced by a Stylophone. MaroMaro1337’s 11-track medley is a blast. Someone in the YouTube comments on put it best: “Prodigy on Stylophone sounds like the greatest OST from Sega Genesis.”

The A capella group Maytree is really good at making mouth sounds. In this clip, they replicate the music and sound effects from Nintendo’s classic 8-bit arcade game, Donkey Kong. Though like many of us, they couldn’t make it past Level 1.

A few years back a video made the rounds of a window air conditioner that produced a sort of funky jazz rhythm. Musician Sam Ross thought the clip could use some accompaniment, so he created the perfect piano melody to go along with the clickity-clack sounds of the malfunctioning unit.

The music video for the Talking Heads track Once in a Lifetime is one of the most memorable clips of the 1980s. Using Valve’s Source 2 engine, Corey Laddo managed to perfectly replicate the clip, replacing the lanky and awkward David Byrne with the mysterious G-Man from the Half-Life series. Here’s the original for comparison.

We’ve previously enjoyed the talents of Ted Yoder when he performed a great Tears for Fears cover. As good as his remakes are, his originals are even better. Sit back, crank up your headphones, and enjoy this enveloping track performed on hammered dulcimer, marimba, drums, violin, and bass guitar. From the album Shadowlight.

We’ve always enjoyed the enchanting musical style of Luna Lee, who reinterprets popular rock music with traditional Korean instrumentation. Here, she takes on the Jefferson Airplane classic Somebody to Love, rocking out as usual on her 12-string gayageum.

We first heard from the Open Reel Ensemble back in 2018 when they showed us how to make music by drumming on reel-to-reel tape. In this video, they create a different kind of sound by tugging on tapes, fighting against the motors as each tape pulls against its magnetic playback head.

Those little felt-covered things that strike the strings in piano are known as hammers, but they definitely couldn’t drive a nail. Musician Mattias Krantz wanted to see what would happen if he replaced all 88 of the piano hammers with real metal hand tools. The resulting sound is surprisingly pleasant and melodic.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, a group of 70 musicians and singers joined together remotely to perform this wonderful medley of music from the James Bond series. Many of the performers are based in Wales, with many folks being alumni of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

Break of Reality performs an emotive orchestration of Soundgarden’s 1994 hit track with three cellos providing the rich melody and harmonies, and a djembe on the rhythm track. While no string instrument can replace Chris Cornell’s vocals, we still got the feels.