Awesome Music

Look Mum No Computer has been working on and off for over a year on this incredibly complicated electronic music maker, a wall full of Nintendo Game Boys which work in perfect sync to produce richly-layered polyphonic chiptunes. It’s still not finished, but even as a work in progress, it’s still quite impressive.

From Dr. Dre to Eminem to Biz Markie, here are 40 popular rap and hip hop songs as you’ve never heard them before. Listen as musician Florian Mohr tickles the ivories in this toned-down, one-take piano medley of these classics.

Fans of Pink Floyd will recognize the profoundly depressing lyrics on this print from Todd Alcott Graphics. It features the words from Comfortably Numb, cleverly worked into the layout for a 1960s-style magazine advertisement for pain relief pills. The print is available in a variety of sizes. Check out the artist’s shop for more.

During a recent guest spot on The Tonight Show, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend joined Jimmy Fallon and The Roots in the green room for perform their 1971 classic Won’t Get Fooled Again on a bunch of kid-sized classroom instruments. Naturally, Pete ends up smashing his ukulele to bits.

We always thought The Beatles’ track Because a trippy and haunting tune to begin with, so it’s no wonder that the otherworldly sounds of the theremin suit the song so perfectly, especially in the capable hands of Cihan Gulbudak, one of the true masters of the unusual electronic instrument.

We loved just about every moment of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, including the opening scene where Miles is singing along with Post Malone and Swae Lee’s Sunflower. Eclectic Method sliced and diced up the track and footage from the animated flick to create a whole new EDM track.

May I have your attention, please? Musician Luca Stricagnoli is back with his triple-necked guitar to entertain us with another great acoustic cover – this time taking on Eminem’s The Real Slim Shady with some funky fingerstyle picking. As an added bonus, this version won’t offend anyone.

Device Orchestra previously amused audiences with music played on credit card terminals. Now, they’ve figured out a way to make electric toothbrushes into musical instruments. Sit back and enjoy a buzzy rendition of Jean Sibelius’ Finlandia Hymn, a popular composition in the nation the band calls home.

Musician David Gray sat down in the BBC Radio 2 Piano Room and turned in an absolutely fantastic cover version of the 1986 Peter Gabriel hit Sledgehammer. The purity of the acoustic performance truly shines a light on Gray’s oh-so-warm and ever-so-raspy vocals.

Music label INDUSTRIAL JP presents a hypnotic, close-up look at the metal bending machines at Goko Spring Co. which take spools or stiff wire and convert them into tiny springs. We could seriously put this on repeat and watch it all day long. The track is Goko Bane by Sountrive.

Say you want to make some beats, but you don’t have a drummer in the band. While you could buy a drum machine or some sampled loops, or you could do like musician Yohan Kim and use your keyboard to perform as your rhythm section.

Editor The Unusual Suspect diced up bits and pieces from 156 different movies in order to replicate the vocals from one of the greatest one-hit wonders of all time – Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega, replacing the names of his female conquests with those of various movie characters.

Musicians Jack Hues and Nick Feldman, better known as Wang Chung teamed up with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra to record new, symphonic versions of their biggest hit songs, and we think they sound even better than the originals. They even shot new music videos for Everybody Have Fun Tonight and Dance Hall Days.

Formed by Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter, along with Alan Braxe and Benjamin Diamond, the one-off French house band Stardust dusted off and remastered the music video that Michel Gondry shot for them back in 1998. The track is now available on a collector’s edition vinyl too.

Some songs lend themselves better than others to being played by Paweł Zadrożniak’s Floppotron – a band made up of old mechanical computer hardware. We can think of no better fit than the synth-heavy, robotic sounds of Gary Numan’s 1979 hit Cars.

Pianist Samuel Fu kicks things off with a rousing rendition of the Green Hill Zone theme from Sonic the Hedgehog, then moves on to Mario, Zelda, Halo, Undertale, and more of our favorite game themes, all sounding stellar as he tickles the ivories.

From the looks of things, musician, and instrument designer Wintergatan has nearly completed the build of his long-in-progress follow up to his original marble machine. After showing us the amazing marble elevator, he’s ready to play some percussion with the intricate contraption.

Marnie and Patrick Laird of Brooklyn Duo turn in a wonderfully emotive and pared-down acoustic arrangement of the 1983 Tears for Fears classic, based off of the Gary Jules and Michael Andrews version which gave the track a second life back in 2001. Also, that carbon fiber cello is sweet.

While Prince had more than his share of his own hits, he also gave many other artists their big breaks, from Shiela E to The Time, to Sinead O’Connor. He also wrote The Bangles’ hit track Manic Monday, and now we can hear his performance of the track thanks to this rare, just released recording. It’s available on the album Originals.

Jazz Emu is a very shy guy with a love for Coca-Cola Light Lime and showers with his clothes on. But that didn’t stop him from releasing a song and a music video to show us just how introverted he is. This track is so going to be our summer jam for 2019.

Public television meets public radio with a celebration of Sesame Street’s 50 years on TV, as Big Bird, Ernie, Bert, Grover, Oscar the Grouch, Elmo, Cookie Monster, Rosita, Abby Cadabby and a few people from the neighborhood regale us with 15 minutes of our childhood favorite earworms.

Ska Tune Network takes a break from performing songs in ska style, and instead plays a ska tune in 12 other styles. We’re not sure that The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ track works so well as an R&B song, but we’re suddenly convinced that Owl City could pull off a cover.

An amazing recording of the greatest rock vocalist of all time, captured back in 1986 as part of the 96-track Time. With the help of musician and producer Dave Clark, we now get to hear a stripped-down and cleaned up version, backed only by piano, along with HD footage of Mercury which will send chills down your spine.