Awesome Music

The rising tide doesn’t raise all boats. There are some of us who can’t float. The music video for The Flood features stunning cinematography and a passionate underwater performance by singer-songwriter Ben Caplan. Kudos to filmmaker Eduardo de la Cerda for the creative vision and stellar submerged scenes. Check out the behind-the-scenes video here.

We’ve heard some great covers of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs, but never one like this. Led by the amazing Amharic vocals of Asnake Gebreyes, Ethiopian rock band uKanDanZ’s version of the Black Sabbath classic is something truly special. Lionel Martin’s tenor sax is a highlight of the band’s killer instrumentation.

Anthony Vincent never disappoints, once again showcasing his vocal and impressionist talents with a cover of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida — reimagined in the style of Queen. His Freddie Mercury-inspired vocals are solid, and the arrangement brings to mind Queen classics like Don’t Stop Me Now.

Sampling other songs has been a staple of music production since the 1980s. Tracklib’s compilation doesn’t go back quite that far. Still, it provides an excellent retrospective of the use of samples in the most popular electronic and dance tracks since 1990, kicking things off with Deee-Lite’s Groove in the Heart. For more, check out their hip-hop sample breakdown.

Dig through the ditches and burn through the witches, uh-huh, uh-huh. Rob Zombie meets ROSÉ & Bruno Mars in this insane but insanely good mashup from DJ Cummerbund. The groovy dance track also mixes in samples from the B-52s, Britney Spears, Toni Basil, Rammstein, the Ting Tings, and more.

Dharni and Mamikoyoko are each amazing performers, but when they collaborate, something magical happens. Their multitrack beatbox recordings of trance and dance tracks like Children, Sandstorm, Castles in the Sky, and Better off Alone are so well-executed that if you close your eyes, you might think you were listening to synthesizers, not humans.

OK Go’s 2025 album, And the Adjacent Possible, is filled with wonderful tracks, including Love. The uplifting song and its accompanying music video have everything we’ve come to expect from the band’s creative vision. It’s a beautiful ballet of humans and robots working together to prove that the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts. BTS video here.

During their appearance on triple j’s Like A Version, alt-pop group Magdalena Bay turned in this swell cover version of David Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes. The 1980 track is one of our favorites, and Mica Tenenbaum’s warm vocals and Matthew Lewin’s killer bass and guitar do the song proud. Bonus points for the Keytar.

Did you know it’s possible to play an electric guitar by putting it up to your neck? This reaction video from Music Is Win shows how the vibrations of one’s vocal cords can be transmitted through the strings and into the guitar’s pickup to make music. You don’t even need to know how to use the frets to play a tune.

Musician Matheus Lodewijk demonstrates a modern version of an unusual electronic instrument known as a Trauntonium. The custom-made analog synthesizer is controlled using long metal wires stretched across a pair of metal bars. Changing finger position along each wire controls pitch, while pushing down on the bars adjusts amplitude.

Musician GRAYSSOKER’s primary instrument is a customized accordion that he uses as a sound source for some incredible, genre-bending electronic mayhem. He uses a number of effect pedals to augment its sounds and to create mesmerizing, live-looped sequences. Can’t get enough? Enjoy another cool live performance.

Beethoven’s Für Elise is one of the best-known pieces of classical music. While it’s typically performed on a piano and sometimes accompanied by an orchestra, Ichika Nito’s energetic modern arrangement demonstrates the musician’s masterful fingerstyle guitar skills, backed by drum and bass rhythms.

We can think of a few music genres that are less compatible than soft rock and grunge. But leave it to mashup maestro Bill McClintock to find their common ground. His combination of Al Stewart’s Year of the Cat with Nirvana’s unplugged version of Come as You Are is as unexpected as they come, but it’s also fantastic.

Beatbox champion and human sequencer Gunho Kim aka WING shows off his incredible talents with the original techno track Dopamine. We’re amazed by his ability to maintain a rhythmic backbeat while interspersing vocals and drum breaks. For more of WING’s smooth beats, check out Triviallusion.

In 2007, Jack White was hired by Coca-Cola to provide the music for a commercial spot. The track, Love is the Truth accompanied an amazing one-shot video, titled What Goes Around, was created by the late Japanese pop artist Nagi Noda, who had the idea to use dozens of similarly costumed actors to freeze time. For some reason, the spot was only aired one time.

Brighton Denevan makes captivating, temporary artworks by drawing large letters in the sand, while capturing time-lapse footage of his creations from a drone hovering above. Many of his pieces are timed to sync up with the lyrics of famous songs. Each of his ephemeral works is washed away as the tide rolls in.