Awesome Music

March 14 is Pi Day, so there’s no better time to learn as many digits of the mathematical constant as possible. AsapSCIENCE is here to help. While it’s definitely harder to memorize than The Alphabet Song, if you’re paying attention to the lyrics, you should at least get further than 3.1415926.

We’ve heard some of Peter Bence’s fantastic piano playing before. Like his other flourish-filled performances, Peter’s arrangement of The Police’s creepy stalker track Every Breath You Take has him tickling the ivories and live-looping notes to create layered rhythms.

For the first minute or so of this video, we thought it really was a Doors cover. Then the lyrics kick in and it’s clearly Metallica. Musician Denis Pauna seamlessly blends two very different styles of rock music in his remake of Enter Sandman. It’s a slow burn, but a hot one.

Mardi Gras might be over, but Jazz Fest is just around the corner. So there’s no better time to enjoy this New Orleans-style cover of the Oasis track Don’t Look Back in Anger, performed with aplomb by vocalist Robyn Adele Anderson, accompanied by musicians Ben Covello, Charlie Himel, Shareef Taher, Ben Golder-Novick, and Jacob Melsha.

AC/DC sant all of its songs in English. Irish student band TG Lurgan performed this unique cover of the band’s hit Thunderstruck in traditional Gaeilge (aka Gaelic). If you’d like to sing along, the word “toirneach” means “thunder,” and “tintreach” means “lightning.” The band has also done gaelic covers of songs by Oasis, The Killers, and Billie Eilish.

This enormous pipe organ is located at the Atlantic City Convention Hall, and is not only the world’s largest organ, it’s the world’s largest and loudest musical instrument according to the Guinness World Records. Turn up the volume and enjoy as musician Felix Hell performs the haunting Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for Organ by Johann Sebastian Bach.

This impressive yet creepy AI tech can take a single still image and make it appear to speak or sing any audio. Developed by researchers from Alibaba’s Institute for Intelligent Computing, EMO: Emote Portrait Alive’s model was trained on more than 150 million images to work its magic. The video is peppered with examples of the convincing deepfakery.

We’ve featured a number of funny songs by The Kiffness, but somehow we missed this one when he posted it back in 2022. Instead of a cat making weird noises, this hilarious take on AWOLNATION’s Sail stars a dog that makes silly sounds while sleeping. Blame it on his floppy cheeks.

Daft Punk were masters at incorporating talkbox and Vocoder effects in their music. Nashville-based musician Russ Pahl shows off his skills with an excerpt of the robots’ track Within, performed on a pedal steel guitar, with his vocals processed through an analog talkbox. We also enjoyed Russ’ otherworldly tune Butt Call from Mars.

Musician Alex Melton is known for taking popular songs and changing up their genres. His cover of Van Halen’s Jump is unlike any we’ve heard before. His toned-down indie pop arrangement of the track imagines what the song might have been like if John Mayer or Hozier sang it. Melton’s version could totally be a hit on its own merits.

French vocalist Sarah Schwab is a master of musical impressions. We’re not familiar with all of the singers she mimics, but her imitations of Kate Bush, Christina Aguilera, Celine Dion, Cher, Cyndi Lauper, Sia, and others are uncanny. Check out her Instagram channel for more, including her take on Bohemian Rhapsody.

The Boston Typewriter Orchestra is hoping to score a spot on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert. Their 2024 submission to the popular show is this mechanical tour de force titled Selectric Funeral, a rhythmic and enigmatic track performed on four vintage typewriters, bells, and effects pedals. It’s also their first song to incorporate an electric typewriter.

The Daft Punk track Face to Face brilliantly chopped up samples from 20 songs from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Music producer Nickster challenged himself to create a new version of the track using newer samples from songs by LCD Soundsystem, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, MGMT, and others. We’re impressed with how he captured the spirit of the original.

A while back, we saw a bass guitar made from LEGO bricks. Musician BERNTH built a LEGO acoustic guitar. Other than the neck, strings, and bridge, his guitar is pure LEGO goodness. Rather than focusing on the build process, his video showcases his new song, Memories. We’re impressed he was able to such a rich sound from its plastic body.

We gon’ boogie oogie oggi, jiggle, wiggle, and dance… and the price is set. Combining Rage Against the Machine’s Testify with Pitbull’s Fireball seems like a match made in hell. Leave it to mashup master DJ Cummerbund to make it work, turning the angry political track into a dancefloor banger.

Because the theme song from Super Mario Bros. never gets old, here’s a banjo cover version by the trio Foggy Mountain Spaceship. After bringing their twangy styling to World 1-1, they head down the warp pipe for a banjo version of the Underworld theme. But it’s not all bluegrass here, and things head down a psychedelic prog-rock path by the end.

Harpist Emily Hopkins has shown us before how technology can make ordinary musical instruments more interesting. In this video, she challenged herself to make video game music with unusual sound-making gadgets. The list includes a musical Tamagotchi, a meowing cat keyboard, and a crazy motorized synthesizer.

UK band Deco took The Verve’s 1997 hit Bitter Sweet Symphony and imagined what it might have sounded like if it came out a decade earlier. Their version replaces the violins with a synth-pop sound inspired by bands like The Human League, OMD, and Pet Shop Boys. Also, their Soft Cell-ized take on Smells Like Teen Spirit is so wrong, it’s right.

It’s time to put on your best polyester suit and hit the dance floor. Van Halen meets The Miracles in this fantastic disco-rock mashup by Bill McClintock. Come for the music, stay for the outfits.

We’re lovestruck by Patator’s animated music video for French trip-hop group Chinese Man’s poetic track Too Late. The stop-motion clip drops us into a magical world where horses breakdance and scratch records and storied lives play out on a human-sized hamster wheel.

There’s no question that the members of 40 Fingers are incredibly talented guitarists. For this mini-concert, they performed an acoustic medley of hit tracks from Michael Jackson (and the Jackson 5), including excerpts from Black or White, Smooth Criminal, Beat It, I Want You Back, Human Nature, and more.

Hey, Ya! Playing card company, Theory11 teamed up with beloved duo Outkast to create this fantastic deck. The cards come packed in a red velvet box with gold foil artwork, and their backs are decorated with woodcuts of speakers, UFOs, and Cadillacs. The card fronts are illustrated with custom artwork of André 3000, Big Boi, and references to their music.

Puddles Pity Party takes on two prog rock classics from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. The sad clown’s back-to-back covers of Brain Damage / Eclipse are dark, brooding, and every bit as intense as we hoped they would be. Credits to James Beaton for the arrangement and piano, Tim Delaney on the bass and drums, and Derek Ennis on guitar.