Awesome Music

When is a bass not a bass? When it’s a piano, of course. Musician Charles Berthoud demonstrates what that sounds like with a fingerstyle bass rendition of Scott Joplin’s ragtime classic The Entertainer, incorporating some insane flourishes.

In the midnight hour, I want to wish you a merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart. DJ Cummerbund has done it again, mashing up Billy Idol’s hit Rebel Yell with José Feliciano’s seasonal classic Feliz Navidad. With special guest appearances by Rob Zombie, Wham!, and Rush, it’s sure to bring joy to your holiday festivities.

Packed with biographical insight, the graphic novel Miles Davis and the Search for the Sound is also jazz for the eyes. Author/cartoonist Dave Chisholm — a Jazz Trumpet doctorate recipient from the Eastman School of Music — takes readers on a visual journey through Davis’ dynamic evolution from childhood through his mastery of jazz improvisation.

(PG-13: Language) “I’ma give you my North Pole like you’re Missus Claus.” MC Spotz, Killah C, Dr. Shellz, and Xzibit bring the cheer with a special Christmas gift that deserves a place on your holiday playlist alongside Dick in a Box. We’re looking forward to carolers singing this tune outside our front door.

Luke from Instrument Maniac bests his 91 instrument performance, with 20 additional ways to play music. This, the snippets connect into a single song rather than just playing the same lick repeatedly. For a real challenge, try naming as many instruments as you can with your eyes closed.

Now you do what Robotnik told ya. Chiptune musician fxsnowy took Rage Against the Machine’s track Killing in the Name and programmed it to play with the 16-bit sounds of the SEGA Genesis game console. It’s time for Sonic and Tails to rise up and take the power back.

We enjoy watching Drumeo’s series, where they ask musicians to create the drum track for a song they’ve never heard. In this session, they challenged Julliard jazz professor Ulysses Owens Jr. to perform the Nirvana song In Bloom. Ulysses’ interpretation both touches on the original and adds some new flourishes compared to Dave Grohl’s original.

Oi! Oi! Deck the halls with boughs of holly! AC/DC and Brenda Lee lock horns, giving us the perfect cure for Mariah Carey’s annual auditory assault. Bill McClintock’s latest mashup deftly blends metal with cheerful mid-century pop, giving us a new classic to add to our Christmas playlist.

Netherlands-based musician Laszlo Buring likes to cover songs in the styles of different bands than initially sang them. His cover of The Beatles Come Together, melded with Dire Straits’ Walk of Life, gives the track a totally different and unexpected new sound. His Dire Straits version of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid is equally entertaining.

Whether or not there was a true rivalry, the media loved to play up the competition between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Dog & Rabbit’s brilliantly executed short film plays out this battle through a series of slapstick collages animated using the dueling rock bands’ album art. Terry Gilliam’s Monty Python animations were clearly a source of inspiration.

Musician Alban Claudin shows off his performance and production skills with a great live cover version of the M.I.A. track Paper Planes. Though without the vocals, it could almost be called a cover of The Clash song Straight to Hell, which M.I.A. sampled heavily. His version of Doja Cat’s Paint the Town Black is wonderful too.

When it comes to bardcore covers of popular songs, Hildegard von Blingin’ is at the top of the game. Her interpretation of Chris Isaak’s 1989 hit Wicked Game is just as impassioned as the original, with Aaron Dolan’s uilleann pipes and whistle helping to set the medieval mood.

Electronics and industrial design masters Teenage Engineering created the EP–133 K.O. II., a portable synth, sampler, and composer for electronic music. It offers instant sampling with 999 sample slots, six stereo voices, 12 mono voices, a high-res sequencer, real-time FX, looping, and more. Ports include stereo audio, sync, MIDI, and USB-C MIDI. In-depth demo here.

Who here thought that an Ozzy Osbourne song would sound good played on bagpipes? The talented and beautiful Ally the Piper proves that with the right arrangement, it can definitely work. Her cover of the 1980 hit Crazy Train is as solid as any we’ve heard. And if you’ve ever wanted to know how bagpipes work, Ally is here to help.

Wheatus revisits their 2000 pop-punk hit Teenage Dirtbag with this special holiday edition. Christmas Dirtbag updates the lyrics to be about a kid who doesn’t think he’s getting any presents from Santa. Though, in the animated music video, it’s a dog who feels left out. From the EP Just a Dirtbag Christmas, which also includes a string quartet version.

DoodleChaos imagines what it might be like if Minecraft was a rhythm-matching game like Beat Saber or Guitar Hero. This crazy, mashed-up world is filled with fanciful voxel art characters and sees blocks and objects popping up for players to hit with their tools as they roll along the rails and fly through the air. The track is Fly Away by TheFatRat f/Anjulie.

Yippee-I-aye, Yippee-I-o… the Melodicka Bros. took the oft-covered western staple Ghost Riders in the Sky and transformed it into a synth-heavy cyberpunk jam. The track is accompanied by an appropriately neon-lit, smoke-filled music video that imagines a cybercowboy riding his steel horse to round up some cybercows.

Leo Moracchioli turned Britney Spears’ 2000 hit Oops!… I Did It Again into a shockingly good heavy metal track. Leo is at the top of his guitar game while wearing a blue bodysuit which seems like it would be a good canvas for applying visual effects. And for more unexpected Britney covers, check out Toxic on toothbrushes.

We’ve come across some weird musical instruments over the years, so why not add another to the collection? Artist Philipp Läng’s spring-loaded Flötenkreis makes its music by pushing air through a dozen plastic recorders, each set to play a single note. The sounds it produces are more annoying than melodic.

Amsterdam’s Our House is a wonderland for fans of electronic music. One of their interactive installations is a wall-sized sequencer, which lets you create your own looped rhythms by pushing its buttons. Here’s a look at it being programmed to play the Eurythmics 1983 hit Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).

Director of photography Nikita Khatsarevich captured this amazing tracking shot for the video for Mata’s track M. Shooting the sequence involved connecting a drone to a handle that could be grabbed in mid-air, handed off to a passenger in a car, and then attached to its trunk. Watch the behind-the-scenes video to see exactly how it was done.

Obey your master and crank your speakers up to 11 for Gamazda’s latest performance, an absolutely killer grand piano arrangement of Metallica’s Master of Puppets. We never thought we’d bang our heads to a piano concerto, but we’re making an exception here.

Here we are now; entertain us. The One Hacker Band features no humans except the man programming its servo-powered, robotic members. Crank up the volume and do the pogo dance as the animatronic musicians perform a cover of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit.