Awesome Music

Do you like music and math? Then you’ll dig polyrhythms. JLChnToZ (Vistanz) created this captivating video that displays a representation of these complex and often hypnotic sounds in concentric circles. For maximum effect, put the video on full screen, dim the lights, and crank up the volume.

Speedbag Bard has a unique talent – he can punch a speed bag in time with music. Here, he shows off his bag skills with a rhythmic performance of the hit Gorillaz track Feel Good Inc. His YouTube channel is packed with other speed bag covers, includingPost Malone & Swae Lee’s Sunflower, and Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger, and Sisqo’s Thong Song.

To create this pleasantly hypnotic sequence of sounds, musician Jeremie Carter played 15 different notes on a marimba. He performed each note repeatedly at a rate of 0.2 bpm faster or slower than its neighbor, then edited them side-by-side. He says every time you hear a bell ring, a subdivision has been reached, progressing from quarter notes to various tuplets.

veridiz vz•tv put together a full-length recreation of Pink Floyd’s classic album Dark Side of the Moon using 8-bit synthesizer sounds. After a very monotonous start with Speak to Me, things kick into gear by the time they hit On the Run and Money. veridiz has also made chiptune covers of Another Brick in the Wall, Echoes, and The Final Cut.

Singer Otu Suurmunne of Moonic Productions replicated the powerful scream of AC/DC’s Brian Johnson with this remake of Queen’s hit We Will Rock You. Both the original and Moonic’s versions are ideal arena rock anthems, but this interpretation definitely has a harder edge.

To celebrate the release of his new album Everything I Thought It Was, Justin Timberlake and 14 musicians from The Tennessee Kids crammed into the NPR Music offices and turned in this fantastic short concert. The seven-song R&B set includes Señorita, Rock Your Body, Pusher Love Girl, Until The End of Time, Selfish, What Goes Around, and SexyBack.

You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’, Billie Jean. Mashup maestro Bill McClintock took these two very different songs and combined them with Steely Dan’s Do It Again to create the heaviest pop song imaginable. We think Rob Halford’s spiked leather sleeves would look great paired with MJ’s sequined glove.

Borrowing a page from Drumeo’s book, the YouTube channel Pianote invites keyboardists to create their interpretations of popular songs they’ve never heard. In this video, Snarky Puppy’s Justin Stanton takes on Dua Lipa’s Don’t Start Now, imparting the dance-pop hit with a smooth blend of jazz and funk after only hearing the drums and vocals.

“It’s living on your own after kids and a wife. It’s the question you ask in the middle of the night.” New York City’s soft rock sibling band Infinity Song broke out with their sarcastic hit Hater’s Anthem. But the latest single from their debut album Essentials is a melancholic earworm about the dull pain that inevitably grows and gnaws at us.

Musicians Alexandr Misko and Alexander Boldachev performed this powerful acoustic arrangement of The Cranberries song Zombie as a tribute to fallen Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The duo’s nuanced performance serves to remind us not to be indifferent zombies and to stand up to oppression.

On 3.11.2024, NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert dropped this excellent short performance by alt-rock band 311. Lead singer Nick Hexum and his bandmates sound as good as ever, with a four-song set that includes Beautiful Disaster, All Mixed Up, Amber, and Down. We always loved the way they blened rock, reggae, and funk sounds.

Without The Beatles, rock and pop music might have evolved very differently. We’re not sure if there’s a direct connection to bands like Green Day and Blink-182, but it sure seems like it after listening to Daniel Swisher’s medley of Fab Four songs performed in ’90s pop-punk style. Like what you hear? There’s a second video with eight more tracks.

From Star Wars to Raiders of the Lost Ark to Jurassic Park, composer and conductor John Williams is the maestro behind some of the best and most memorable movie music ever. Williams sat down with Variety to discuss his approach and inspirations behind some of his best-known scores. His exuberance and positivity make 92 seem young.

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.