Awesome Music

You can do all kinds of fun things with magnets, but we never thought of them as musical instruments. The guys from Magnet Tricks and Magnetic Games teamed up to create a series of sounds from magnetic vibrations, sampled them, then turned them into a synthwave track.

There’s no question that Jack White’s music features a heavy blues influence. Musician Justin Johnson took things to their logical conclusion by performing The White Stripes’ anthemic Seven Nation Army on a steel guitar with a slide, giving it that classic Mississippi Delta Blues sound. (Thanks, Jennifer!)

When we hear the word “bass,” it conjures up the funky sounds that Flea bashes out for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. But there are so many other kinds of noises that basses can make. Musicians Bart Soeters and Joris Holtackers show off some of the distinctive sounds made by the string instruments in this original composition.

Filmmaker Brett Morgen (Cobain: Montage of Heck) directed this visual and auditory spectacle about the late, great David Bowie. Rather than present his life as a documentary, the film celebrates Bowie and his personas through concert and archival footage, some of which has never been seen before. In theaters 9.2022.

When There I Ruined It isn’t making horrible versions of classic songs, they’re creating other kinds of musical mayhem. This brief but awesome mashup combines bits of Bohemian Rhapsody, All-Star, Never Gonna Give You Up, Lose Yourself, and a few other sound snippets. Follow their TikTok feed for more fun.

Director Balázs Simon and Blinkink created this beautiful and soul-stirring music video for the Odesza and Ólafur Arnalds track Light of Day. It combines stop-motion animation and digital illustration techniques to tell the story of a lonely man seeking hope in the frigid and desolate world around him.

Barcelona’s Maestros de la Guitarra stole a gimmick from the 2012 viral hit version of Somebody I Used to Know, performing with multiple musicians on a single acoustic guitar. Their four-person cover of Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean is our new favorite version of the track.

Musician Andre Antunes is back with another musical reinterpretation of a viral video. This time, he took footage of a preacher speaking in tongues during her sermon and gave her chant an uplifting ska-reggae riddim. Todor Tchobanov, Pedro Azevedo, and Paulo Fragoso provided the brass and woodwind section.

It’s no Floppotron 3.0, but DJthefirst’s self-playing electromechanical dulcimer has got some serious soul. Put your headphones on, crank up the volume, hit play, and enjoy this soothing rendition of the Kate Bush track Running up That Hill (A Deal with God).

Stylophone expert maromaro1337 performed a medley of the heavy metal music hidden in plain sight in the corridors of the 1990s first-person shooter, DOOM. The game’s soundtrack swiped riffs from Metallica, Pantera, AC/DC, and Anthrax, among others. See how many you can identify without opening your eyes.

Ready to make your own horror movie? Sound effects are a big part of building the suspense, and this unique musical instrument from AzzamBells makes unsettling sounds. It has bars, springs, and clackers that reverberate to create its creepy noises. Three built-in microphones let you easily record its sounds.

Musician Leo Moracchioli has always had a thing for puppets, so it’s only natural that he’d expand his repertoire to include a song from a puppet show. His heavy metal cover of the theme from Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock will have you dancing your cares away and saving your worries for another day.

Now that Stranger Things 4 is complete, we were finally starting to get Running Up That Hill out of our heads. But the Kate Bush earworm is back since we heard this version by KestrelTapes in which he played the track on a 30-pound keyboard while actually running up a hill. As far as we know, no deals were made with God.

If AC/DC came from China instead of Australia and Scotland, their music might sound something like this guzheng cover by musician Moyun. If it sounds somewhat familiar, it’s because her arrangement of Thunderstruck was inspired by Luca Stricagnoli’s version of the song.

“Girls with blue whiskers tied up with noodles… These are a few of my favorite things.” Sound collage artists Negativland’s deranged edit of My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music dates back a decade but was too hilarious to pass up. Their take on There’s No Business Like Show Business is similarly bonkers.

Musician and visual artist VJFader shows off a trippy 3D universe he created using Unreal Engine 5 and Mandelbulbs produced by Machina Fractals: Essence. The otherworldly astronomical forms were generated in real-time, and the lighting changes with the music.

When you think of pop music, it’s usually pretty upbeat stuff, but back in the 1960s, a strange trend emerged – pop songs about tragic accidents and death. Yesterday’s Papers offers an intriguing look back at this unusual fad and some of most popular “splatter platters”. It’s worth watching for Wayne Cochran’s epic hair helmet alone.

Two bands we’d never picture on a double-bill would be Slipknot and Coldplay. But that didn’t stop musical mashup master Bill McClintock from pairing the unlikely groups, combining Viva la Vida and Psychosocial into a schizophrenic chant.

The recently upgraded Floppotron 3.0 is here to show off just how much better it sounds now that it has more than 500 floppy drives at its core. The precision-orchestrated machines channel Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon with aplomb with a cover of the 1984 track I Want to Break Free.

After an attempt to sell jars of candied eggplant, a group of grandmas from the Greek isle of Crete decide it’s time to market to a broader audience. So they put their heads together and made a rap video about living the eggplant (aka aubergine) life. Watch with captions on.

During the 2022 Glastonbury Festival, Jack White performed one of his biggest hits, and blew the roof off of the place – despite it being an outdoor event. The White Stripes’ 2003 classic Seven Nation Army sounds as killer as ever, and is the ultimate crowd-pleaser.

Thanks to its prominent placement in the storyline of Stranger Things 4, the Kate Bush song Running up That Hill (A Deal with God) is enjoying a major comeback. Korean group Maytree unleashed their vocal talents with this a cappella version that had us feeling those emotions from the Dear Billy episode all over again.

The Ramones most definitely were not old-fashioned. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get an old-fashioned version of one of their songs. Musician Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq. and his voluminous beard are here to entertain us with a splendid ukulele cover of 1977 track Sheena Is a Punk Rocker.