Awesome Music

Well my baby, oh she drives me crazy. Because she’s always putting the toilet roll on the wrong way on the thing. Elliot Mason performs a version of his track The Toothpaste Song in front of the cameras. If we can’t have Flight of the Conchords, at least we’ve got Elliot.

We can think of no more fitting tribute to the late George Michael than this incredible performance of Queen’s Somebody to Love that he sang in tribute to another great musician taken from us far too soon.

“The jewels come quick, all gold and bricked. Click, click, boxer cutter spit.” Killer Mike and El-P’s Holiday gift is their highly anticipated third album. They also uploaded the entire album on YouTube and are giving it for free if you subscribe to their newsletter.

NPR Music shares an hour-long set from Bon Iver at Pioneer Works, a contemporary art institution in Brooklyn, New York that counts Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon as one of its advisors. The band mostly played songs from their latest album 22, A Million.

We’re going to have to wait all the way until 2018 to find out what happens next on Westworld, but for today, we’ve got The Warp Zone’s richly-layered vocal rendition of Ramin Djawadi’s latest earworm of a theme song from our new favorite TV series.

Electronic musician Kaskobi brings classical music into the 21st century with a seriously danceworthy arrangement of Beethoven’s 19th century classic, in a battle between his Novation Launchpad and Launchkey digital music controllers.

Greg Johnson of Acoustic Labs performs a fantastic fingerstyle medley of some of John Williams’ music from the Star Wars saga. We’d pay good money to see a whole performance of this done live with the films on screen. Check out more great music over on Alvarez Live.

(PG-13: Language) During a recent performance in Sydney, Australia, Chris Martin and the guys from Coldplay brought a little bit of their own holiday cheer with a charming original tune. And with that, we’ve filled our weekly quota of Australian Christmas songs.

Musician Seth Everman returns with a special holiday version of his game genre music video, in which he plays classic Christmas tunes in the style of classic games. Our favorite is the Super Mario 64 version of Deck the Halls.

It’s Chrissy time in the Land of Oz, so save a prawn for me! The guys from Aunty Donna sing us a little holiday tune that teaches us some of the many differences in the way that Christmas is celebrated in the Southern hemisphere compared to here in the U.S.

During his recent appearance on The Late Show, Michael Stipe joined Stephen Colbert and James Franco to sing a little ditty to send off 2016, a year that wasn’t exactly on most of our “best year ever” lists.

Musician Leo Moracchioli takes on the 1993 track All That She Wants by Ace of Bass and applies a fresh and heavy coat of screaming, shredding, and devilish looks to the cheesy Swedish pop hit. Seriously though, how does Leo still have a voice?

Go back to the ’80s with this catchy remix of memorable scenes and sound bites from Weird Science, the movie that made millions of horny boys think they could conjure up the girl of their dreams by hacking into a government computer and wearing bras on their heads.

Bruno Mars talks hats, the glaring absence of Versaces on James Corden’s floor and more. Even in his latest album, Bruno’s songwriting can’t do justice to his production and persona, but no one can deny that he’s a great performer.

“Deck the halls with human bodies.” Samurai Guitarist’s talkbox-enhanced take on Brenda Lee’s classic ’50s Christmas track is essentially what would happen if the Flight of the Conchords’ classic The Humans are Dead put on a holiday special.

What happens when you mix together the sounds of Rick James, Foo Fighters, The Beach Boys and Led Zeppelin? Unexpected musical magic, that’s what. DJ Cummerbund managed to make this unlikely combo of tunes somehow meld perfectly.

There are but a few other songs which have served as the basis for so many memes as Smash Mouth’s 1999 hit All Star. In this video from William Hutchinson, we hear the song ever so slightly tweaked so the vocals never change pitch after the initial note.

New York-based duo Brian Close and Justin Tripp aka Georgia are more than just musicians – they also do video production and installation art, which makes us even more envious of their seemingly effortless melding of world music and electronica.

A fantastic performance by DJ Brace as he shows off his dexterity and timing between his twin turntables and mixing board. These days, the discs control digital sounds instead of analog ones – but he’s still got mad skills.

Director Carlín Díaz presents a charming and wonderfully animated music video about two strangers who share a wonderful day together, but will never see each other again – except in their dreams and memories. The song comes from Norwegian indie rockers KMF.

If you don’t remember Wintergatan’s marvelous marble machine, go back and watch the video first, then watch this clip, in which they arranged a version of the memorable track that can actually be played on a piano. You can grab the sheet music or MIDI file for yourself.

Made from a bunch of bent metal rods and a wooden soundbox, the kalimba is one of the more rudimentary musical instruments. But Acoustic Trench shows how it can still make some sweet sounds, with a soothing cover of the 1999 Blink-182 hit on the little music box.

We’ve featured several videos of musician Luna Lee playing modern tracks on her gayageum, but this cover of Gorillaz’ Feel Good Inc. might be the most natural fit yet, thanks to the abstract and complex rhythms of Damon Albarn’s original track.