Do you need a break from your regular music playlists? Then open up this video, hit play, and drop it into a background tab. Jorf assembled this epic 10-hour and 53-minute mix of 227 tracks programmed by various chiptune musicians and played with the classic 8-bit sounds of the Nintendo Entertainment System.
(PG-13) Jack Black never plays video games anymore… except for all of them. That’s what we gleaned from this Tenacious D track and its animated music video by Oneyplays’ Chris “Oney” O’Neill and Adam Paloian. By the end, you’ll be rooting for Kyle Gass to exact his revenge. And here we thought they were friends til the end.
Musician Leo Moracchioli is back with another pop song converted into heavy metal. We always thought The Proclaimers’ 1988 song I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) was a little cheesy, but we have to say we’re warming up to Leo’s significantly edgier take on the track.
To celebrate the release of Guardians of the Galaxy 3, musician and producer Jared Halley performed a wonderful a cappella version of Redbone’s 1973 hit Come and Get Your Love. Jared’s multi-layered approach gives added depth to an already great song.
Robyn Adele Anderson and her bandmates knocked it out of the park with this vintage Broadway-style performance of the My Chemical Romance hit Welcome to the Black Parade. That’s Demi Remick clacking her feet and proving what pop-punk always needed was more tap dancing.
System of a Down is known for its ferocious guitar shredding and staccato vocals. Musician Andre Antunes replicated their guitar sounds and melded them with the similarly rapid-fire vocals of Punjabi singer Daler Mehndi and his energetic 1998 Indi-pop track Tunak Tunak Tun. We’ve struck internet gold, baby.
When There I Ruined It isn’t laying waste to popular songs, he’s experimenting with them like Victor Frankenstein in his laboratory. He created this lovable monster by grafting the DNA of Smashmouth’s All Star onto Eiffel 65’s Blue (Da Ba Dee). Get ready for a bad case of earworms.
Scratching records on a turntable takes a bit of practice to even get the basics right. In this video from Wired, DJ Shortkut shows us just how far you can take the art of turntablism by gradually ramping up the difficulty level. He does a great job explaining each technique, so it serves as an excellent tutorial too.
Not every song translates well to medieval instruments like a lute, zither, and recorder. But this hardcore cover of the R.E.M. track Losing My Religion by musician Algal the Bard plays out perfectly. Perhaps the Athens alt-rock band was born in the wrong century.
One of the most elaborate custom pianos in history, Pictures at an Exhibition, was created by noted painter/pianist Paul Wyse. The one-of-a-kind Steinway & Sons Model D concert grand piano features 24-carat gold, cast bronze, and classically painted scenes to pay tribute to Modest Mussorgsky’s most profound composition for solo piano.
If want to be a Mandalorian, you must recite their creed, “This is the way,” to acknowledge that anything is acceptable. Auralnauts went back through the first three seasons of the hit Star Wars show and tallied up every time the phrase was spoken, and turned it into a pleasant little synthwave track.
Radiohead and The Smiths are both English bands, and they’ve both taken up political and social causes in their music. But sonically, they couldn’t be more different – until now. Musician Desmond Doom took the restrained sounds of No Surprises and gave it the jangly guitar and vocal stylings of This Charming Man.
Luca Stricagnoli is a master of acoustic guitar. His cover of the Arctic Monkeys’ track Do I Wanna Know? doesn’t involve as many guitar necks as some of his other arrangements, but it’s every bit as entertaining. Luca’s fingerstyle technique and guitar drumming add so much depth to his performance.
Musician Navzad Dabu provided late-night commuters in NYC’s Metropolitan Avenue / Grand Street subway station with a phenomenal private performance. His graveyard shift concert included back-to-back covers of a dozen Radiohead tracks. We would have stood there for the whole show and missed our train.
Musician Bob Strachan has the uncanny ability to sound just like Johnny Cash. But he doesn’t just use his talents to cover Johnny’s songs. In this case, he took Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise and turned it into a moody country song along the lines of Folsom Prison Blues.
DJ Fred again… is known for his energetic performances at dance clubs and arenas. In the more intimate setting of NPR’s offices, he demonstrates his true talents with a captivating and enveloping one-person concert that incorporates marimbas, a piano, looping, sequencing, sampled recordings, and his own live vocals.
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Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik was written for a string ensemble. But violinist Roman Kim is an overachiever. His solo arrangement has him performing multiple parts on a single violin. He’s also done the same with Beethoven’s 5th. He says those prismatic glasses help him focus, but he can clearly play without them.
“Girls with blue whiskers tied up with noodles… These are a few of my favorite things.” Sound collage artists Negativland’s deranged edit of My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music dates back a decade but was too hilarious to pass up. Their take on There’s No Business Like Show Business is similarly bonkers.
The Internet: You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave. And with fantastic videos from the other side of the globe like this, why would you want to? Musician Moyun once again flexes her finger muscles with an awesome performance of the Eagles’ Hotel California on guzheng and conga drums.
Klangphonics previously showed us how it’s possible to make techno-sounding music without using a computer sequencer. We recently came across a few more of their creative live performances, including one that incorporates a pressure washer and another with a rubber duckie and an electric toothbrush.
Musician and actor Baikaju Nakamura is seriously talented. Not only is he a masterful bass player, but he also slaps his strings in style. In this short clip, he demonstrates his skills while buttoned up in the suit and tie of a salaryman. That’s not the only suit he owns, though.
Stressed out? Put on your headphones, press play on this video, and expand it to full screen. Project JDM created this digital music box that plays notes as its dots bounce back and forth along rainbow-colored arcs. As the hypnotic visual patterns evolve, so do the soothing sounds, panning from ear to ear.
