Awesome Music

(PG-13: Language) “I get so lonely, I forget what I’m worth. We get so lonely, we pretend that this works.” R&B star Solána Rowe aka SZA sings about the recipes and results of failed romances in her solid debut album.

Using an array of effects pedals, musician Nathan Navarro was able to replicate not only the familiar theme music, but the in-game sounds from Super Mario Bros. World 1-1 using his bass guitar.

During a recent appearance at The Kennedy Center, musician Ben Folds showed off his ability to rapidly improvise, as he composed an entire song live in less than 10 minutes, including all the parts for the National Symphony Orchestra so they could play along.

Keyboardist Seth Everman decided to test out a bunch of the different sound modes on his Yamaha synth again, this time using Toto’s 1982 hit Africa as his test music. The pizzicato one sounded too much like Enya to us, and nearly put us into a sleep trance.

Remix master DJ Cummerbund latest effort brillantly combines another group of unlikely tunes, seamlessly melding the music of Dave Matthews, DeBarge, Spin Doctors into a single juicy track which will have you shaking your butt and shaking the ants out of your picnic blanket.

(PG-13: Language) YouTuber Anastasia Vasilieva combined the Jemaine Clement song Goodbye Moonmen from Rick and Morty with the trippiest sequence from Doctor Strange, and it works just perfectly. It works surprisingly well with Star Trek: The Motion Picture too.

Postmodern Jukebox and vocalist Ariana Savalas teamed up to transform Shaggy’s raggamuffin hit It Wasn’t Me into a ’60s-style version that sounds a whole lot like Tom Jones’ classic It’s Not Unusual. It’s one of those things that shouldn’t work, but somehow it does.

Scooby Scooby Doo, where are you? A joyful cover version of the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon theme song, performed in the Ska style by The Holophonics. In the mood for more? Be sure to give their cover of the Pokémon theme song a listen.

“Oh, but I can hear you, loud in the center. Aren’t we made to be crowded together, like leaves?” Fleet Foxes’ latest album pushes the boundaries of folk while conducting a hopeful exploration of the dull blades of life.

“…that no memory, no matter how sad, and no violence, no matter how bad, can darken the heart or tear it apart.” Indie folk artist Mike Hadreas aka Perfume Genius dropped by NPR Music to sing songs from his new album No Shape, as well as his 2012 hit Normal Song.

YouTuber Michael Boyers captured this incredible street performance by Newcastle, London musician Steve Ojay, as his fingers work some serious magic on the strings of his inexpensive Squier bass, proving that talent trumps equipment any day of the week.

“A dancer writes a diary entry.” Actress Niamh Wilson dances in front of a glow-in-the-dark acrylic sheet, leaving her shadows behind with the help of a strobe light. This is Jonah Haber’s music video for Working For The Future In The Interlake by Yes We Mystic.

(PG-13: Language) “And we be saucin’, I love her so you know I got to floss, and I’m not a dentist but a man flossin’, I’m fresh to death, they say I should be coffin.” Young Thug grows up with this mainstream summer banger. He’s still trollin’ Weezy though.

His hair was all yellow… Two of our favorite musicians, Leo Moracchioli and Davie504 teamed up to create a heavy metal version of Coldplay’s 2000 hit Yellow, poking fun at Chris Martin’s beach stroll along the way.

Somebody’s Heine is crowding my icebox… Postmodern Jukebox features a Blue Note style cover of the 1994 Weezer ballad Say It Ain’t So, with the vivacious vocals and equally vibrant red hair of Dani Armstrong (aka “Jack Dani”) leading the charge.

You know what we love about the Internet? It lets us discover talented people we never would have heard of. Case in point – singer Anna Blanchard, who fills her YouTube channel with soul-stirring covers of songs by Todd Rundgren, Radiohead, alt-J, Nirvana, and more.

A portable record storage rack that provides easy access, and lets you display an album cover. It’s made from bent stainless wire with a semi-gloss powdercoat finish, and comes in two sizes: the small one holds up to 70 7″ records, while the big one stores up to 45 12″ records.

Shoegaze pillar Slowdive is back with its first album in 22 years. If not for the clearer recording, you’d be fooled into thinking that this was an old record. Watch the band perform Sugar For The Pill, one of the tracks from their new album.

Guitarist Joe Bonamassa takes on cellist Tina Guo in an epic speed battle. They lead off with Flight of the Bumblebee then head straight into the track Woke Up Dreaming. We couldn’t pick a clear winner, other than the audience at Carnegie Hall.

Pennsylvania’s Ringing Rocks Park is packed with boulders which create a unique sound when struck with a hammer. The percussionists of Square Peg Round Hole decided to use the park to record an original song using only rocks and hammers as their instruments.

Big Bada Boom! Eclectic Method’s catchy EDM track is chopped up from sound bites from Luc Besson’s cult classic, and it actually sounds like a track which might have been played in a dance club in the world in which Korben, Leeloo, and Ruby Rhod reside in.

POW! BIFF! THWAP! Guitarist 331Erock pays tribute to Adam West and the character he defined for generations with a rollicking hard rock take on the spy flick slash surf rock sounds of Neal Hefti’s 1966 classic Batman theme song.

“The most raw form of energy in music that we have in the UK.” Drake’s latest album More Life brought grime to the mainstream. Vox spoke with Beats 1 UK radio host Julie Adenuga to find out the origins and characteristics of this fast rising genre.