Awesome Music

Author Nick Duerden interviewed 50 popular musicians, including Bob Geldof, Stewart Copeland, and Robbie Williams, to learn about the psychological, physical, and financial impact of coming down off of the high of success. The print edition drops 6.28.22, but you can buy the Kindle edition now.

A group of students from John Burroughs High School performed a musical inspired by Rapture, the dystopian undersea world of BioShock. The connections to the game’s plot are loose at best, but the Powerhouse choir took home multiple awards in the Hart Encore 2022 show choir competition for their performance.

Filmmaker Danny Boyle directed this fictionalized 6-episode series about the legendary punk band The Sex Pistols. Based on guitarist Steve Jones’ memoir Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol, it follows the band on its explosive rise to fame against the backdrop of mid-1970s England. Drops 5.31.22 on Hulu.

The idea that you could sing a coherent song while your mouth is full of wine seems implausible. But this guy not only can gulp down a bota full of wine while singing, but he also does it without so much as a gurgle or a drop of liquid dribbling out of his mouth.

Throughout his 60-year jazz career, double bass maestro Ron Carter has always been the coolest cat in the room. To celebrate his 85th birthday, the national treasure jams supreme in an NPR Tiny Desk Concert filmed onstage at the Blue Note Jazz Club. The jazz deity will be fêted at Carnegie Hall on 5.10.22.

A rambling, improvisational style is a trademark of jazz saxophone great John Coltrane’s sound, making them notoriously difficult for others to perform. Listen as harmonica player Cy Leo shows off his incredible breath control as he keeps perfect time with a passage from Coltrane’s 1960 classic Giant Steps.

Whether or not you’re into the bedroom pop sounds of Cuco’s, the music video for his track Caution is a must-watch. Director Cole Kush and Grin Machine take us on a wild and trippy ride with the singer-songwriter through a dreamlike virtual world. It’s a face-melting good time!

Little Shop of Horrors is one of our favorite musicals of all time. Turning a B-movie about a man-eating plant into a hit Broadway musical was sheer genius. To celebrate its 40th anniversary, composer Alan Menken was joined by the cast of the off-Broadway revival to perform five of the show’s instant classic songs.

Musical mashup maker Bill McClintock took Survivor’s track Eye of the Tiger, slowed it down a bit, and combined it with the old Merle Haggard Goodbye Comes Hard for Me, turning the formerly energetic Rocky III theme song into a twangy bluegrass ballad.

The Stylophone is a very basic analog electronic instrument that uses a conductive pen and a metal circuit board of “keys” as its input device. But with the help of a Digitech Whammy effects pedal and some quick pen play, maromaro1337 jammed out some iconic rock riffs on the monophonic keyboard. More here.

The Melodicka Bros. are back with another cool cyberpunk/synthwave cover version of a classic tune. Their synth-heavy cover of Pink Floyd’s Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) pays tribute to their supporters, who took on the part of the prep school chorus.

Musician and inventor Nicolas Bras is known for his weird homebrew musical instruments. He recently put a band together to perform live on these unusual music makers. For his “Trash Orchestra,” Nicolas was joined by fellow musicians Vinz Vonlanthen, Nicolas Strazzini, Andrei Pervikov, and Máté Drippey.

Cake already proved that the Gloria Gaynor track I Will Survive could do quite well with the addition of a trumpet. NYC bands Too Many Zooz, Lucky Chops, and the High & Mighty Brass Band teamed up to perform the disco classic primarily on brass instruments, and it sounds pretty stellar.

Franzoli Electronics is back with another great musical performance on his trio of tesla coils. This time the high voltage towers zap out an energetic cover of Koji Kondo’s oft-played theme music from Super Mario Bros. More of a Zelda fan? Be sure to check out his Tesla cover of The Legend of Zelda’s theme.

Musician Leo Moracchioli is here, there, and everywhere with energetic heavy metal cover of the Huey Lewis and the News 1986 hit Hip to Be Square, a song you might also remember from the novel and film American Psycho.

The always entertaining Cybertronic Spree is back with another awesome rock cover. This time, the musical Transformers took on the 1973 Sweet track Ballroom Blitz and peppered the music video with references to Wayne’s World, which featured a version of the song performed by Crucial Taunt.

Musician Alex Payler shows off the symphonic capabilities of Yamaha’s Electone Stagea ELS-02C electronic organ with an epic arrangement of Monty Norman’s James Bond theme music. The rich layering and realistic sounds really do make it sound like Alex has an entire orchestra right there with him.

After his tribute to Aladdin, CG artist David Scott of Enbiggen is back with another musical marble machine. Hit play and enjoy as Indiana Jones relives the mine cart chase from The Temple of Doom and the boulder scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The soothing kalimba music was performed by BluntoMarx.

To celebrate the final season of Better Call Saul, musician Brandon Ethridge added a jazzy ragtime soundtrack to a scene from the series where Jimmy/Saul takes advantage of news coverage to advertise his low-cost legal services.

Dustin over at There I Ruined It absolutely annihilates another classic song by turning it into the worst version of itself. His terrible Dixieland jazz version of Queen’s We Will Rock You will certainly have Freddie Mercury turning over in his grave.

Musician and inventor Nicolas Bras shows off another one of his unusual musical instruments. By grafting together multiple pieces of PVC pipe, he created a wind instrument unlike any we’ve heard before. The addition of a loop pedal turned his improv performance into an EDM track.

During his show at Coachella 2022, composer Danny Elfman brought an orchestra and chorus to the stage, and among their eclectic and energetic performances was this incredible live version of The Simpsons theme. They also performed music from Batman and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Guitarist Rob Scallon previously played his guitar through the world’s largest effects pedal board. This time, he and fellow musician Andrew Huang ran the sounds of this electric guitar through his enormous wall of modular synthesizers, resulting in some of most interesting sounds ever produced by a string instrument.