Awesome Music

“I’m different. I know that I’m different.” An 11-year-old boy wrote a rap about his so-called friend who started bullying him. He was too nervous to perform it himself, so he sent it to Mac Lethal, who obliged. Isaac, it’s time to show Thomas the door. You deserve better, kid.

We’ve been fans of Puddles Pity Party since he first hit the scene. Now, he’s about to break wide after appearing on America’s Got Talent. To kick off his almost certain domination of the competition, he performed a rendition of Sia’s Chandelier, arranged by Postmodern Jukebox.

There’s something about the high-pitched sound of the scannner stepper motor that suits itself so well to Gorillaz Feel Good Inc., it now takes its place as our favorite cover track from Paweł Zadrożniak’s electromechanical orchestram, beating out The Final Flopdown.

The Rainer Hersch Orkestra performs a medley of tunes which will be awfully familiar to those of you with iPhones. Every time that marimba sound goes off we reach for our pocket. They also did something similar for Windows XP a few years back.

If you thought the expressions beatboxers make while producing sounds were weird, wait till you get a load of this. Tom Thum allowed a doctor to place an endoscopic camera with a view of his throat while he beatboxed. The video is equal parts fascinating and disgusting.

Comprised of a group of skilled session musicians and engineers, Introducing was formed with the goal of performing entire albums once thought impossible to replicate live. In this 2013 clip, they played a medley of Daft Punk’s classic tracks. More here.

While we love “Weird Al” Yankovic for his silly novelty songs, he’s got other talents too. Here, he pays a tribute to the late George Harrison with a fantastic performance of What Is Life during George Fest. Randumbify did a great editing together various cellphone vids.

After wowing us with his Folsom Pinball Blues, Puddles Pity Party is back with another awesome combo track, seamlessly melding Foo Fighters’ My Hero with John Lennon’s Imagine into an entirely new song. Puddles is our hero.

Besides Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, one thing that’s been consistent in Gorillaz’ ever-changing 16+ year run is the use of samples. Kirima Nagi put together this video which catalogs some of the many sound bites which have made their way into the group’s tracks.

We can think of few stranger combinations than Hansen’s MMMBop and The Ramones’ Blitzkrieg Bop, yet somehow the masterful DJ Cummerbund mixed them up like creamy peanut butter and rich milk chocolate – with a dash of Slug and a pinch of Cotton Eye Joe.

Remix masters Melodysheep dig into their 1990s time capsule to give us our once-every-20-years recommended dosage of Family Matters’ bespectacled, suspendered, catchphrase-slinging ladies’ man.

(PG-13: Language) The rumored collaboration between T-Pain and Lil’ Wayne actually happened. We don’t know when exactly Teddy and Tunechi recorded this mixtape, but it certainly sounds like a late 2000’s throwback. Nothing more, nothing less.

Your Kung Fu is not good enough! Step up your Arrow Fists and Double Dragons with Eclectic Method’s latest track, diced and sliced from a collection of classic and not-so-classic martial arts fight sequences.

2BTruman demonstrates his custom-built synth, which looks like something off of a starship’s bridge. The system is powered by a Mac Mini, Ableton Live and Analog Lab, but the custom interfaces make it truly one of a kind. You’ve gotta check out the epic power-on sequence.

Musician Fredde Gredde turns in not one, but two joyful medleys packed with songs from Disney films. The first clip features better known tracks, while the second clip digs a little deeper. Apologies in advance for “We are Siamese.”

Musician/technician Giuseppe Acito aka Opificio Sonico created a tiny set of bandmates using LEGO Bionicle robots he’s programmed to play a mix of sensors, smartphones, and other inputs. Here, they perform Kraftwerk’s The Robots and Daft Punk’s Da Funk.

Send a 20,000 inch meat lover’s where the cheese is gooey… and a female driver dat’ll feed it to me. Mac Lethal likes pizza. After all, he’s the guy who bought his whole audience a stack of them. Here, he calls his favorite pizza place, and orders the only way he knows how.

Blade Runner is one of the most visually influential films of all time, but there’s also much to be said about the film’s sound design, which seamlessly blends Vangelis’ score with atmospheric audio. Nerdwriter1 points out just how integral sound is to this 1982 masterpiece.

Musician Sungha Jung turns in a wonderfully warm and technically flawless performance of Stevie Wonder’s classic Isn’t She Lovely on his acoustic guitar. We were blown away by his harp ukulele rendition of Dust in the Wind too.

(PG-13: Language) Isaiah Howard (@isaiahxavier10) uses the smartphone app musical.ly to create totally trippy selfie music videos, which feature fast camera movements, and rapid edits which are at once completely disorienting and hypnotic.

In the wake of musician Chris Cornell’s tragic suicide, this 2015 acoustic cover has been making the rounds. You’ll be hard-pressed to hold back tears as Cornell lends his soulful voice to a track written by another great musician we lost far too soon. Rest in peace.

No longer just a man exorcising his own soul, John Darnielle’s latest album wields an entire arsenal of instruments and accompaniments. But Darnielle remains as relatable as ever, weaving tales about growing up an outcast.

“This song is called ‘You Never Loved Me’ — it’s another extremely cheerful, optimistic number,” Aimee Mann offers up four tracks from her album Mental Illness on NPR’s consistently excellent concert series, accompanied by Jonathan Coulton, Paul Bryan & Jamie Edwards.