Awesome Music

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.

(Gore) Director Ansel Wallenfang’s awesome music video for metal band Red Fang’s track Antidote looks like a level from a 16-bit video game, is packed with retro gaming tropes, and culminates with one of the greatest boss fights of all time. We so want to play that van beatdown level.

The video for Said the Whale’s alt-pop track Record Shop is noteworthy for the way its animations were produced. The video was created by spinning 129 vinyl records – each covered with a custom sticker, and syncing up the camera to produce an effect similar to a phenakistiscope. From the album Cascadia.

Fans of classic video games will love this nearly 2-hour-long recording, featuring symphonic arrangements of 8-bit game music. The audio was captured during a performance by C64Audio and Hull Philharmonic Orchestra at Hull City Hall. Available for a limited time, so listen now, or better yet, buy the box set!

What happens when you crash some test dummies, reject all americans, swing a sledgehammer, smash some pumpkins, body slam opponents, and fly like an owl in the city? You’ll get DJ Cummerbund’s latest, a “song who got into an accident and then became more songs.”

Musician Francesco Parrino splashes a shiny coat of paint on the Bee Gees’ disco classic Stayin’ Alive, giving it a vibrant and jazzy new sound from his piano bench. Be sure to give his arrangement of Elton John’s Rocketman a listen too.

Symphoniacs play orchestral arrangements of popular and classical music with a modern flair. Here, they perform an excellent cover version of Daft Punk’s Aerodynamic, on violin, cello, piano, and electronics. We also rather enjoyed their rendition of Coldplay’s A Sky Full of Stars.

What goes up, must come down, even in Russia. Musician Leonid Vorobyev and his bandmates crank out a fantastic cover version of the Blood, Sweat & Tears R&B classic Spinning Wheel, complete with the big, vibrant horn section that makes the original so damned good.

Blondie co-founder and lead vocalist Debbie Harry has been the subject of interviews for 40+ years. As a woman leading a rock band, she’s been subjected to all manner of stupid questions. Meghan Fredrich’s brilliant short film documents some of Debbie’s better ways of handling such off-putting interviews.

An awesome cover version of Coldplay’s hit track, performed by Scary Pockets. The combination of funky instrumentals with the phenomenal lead vocals of Maiya Skyes make it the best version of the song we’ve heard since the original.

Musician Luna Lee is back with another fun cover track performed on the Gayageum – the 1983 pop/rock hit Sharp Dressed Man. We like to imagine there’s a Korean version of ZZ Top somewhere with similarly long beards, hot-rodded Hyundais, and spinning gayageum in place of guitars.

Musician Cihan Gulbudak turns in an epic performance of Radiohead’s 1997 hit Paranoid Android using a theremin to replace the main vocal track. The spooky alien sounds suit the song just perfectly. Be sure to check out his cover of Massive Attack’s Teardrop too.

Musician and madman Andy Rehfeldt removed the disco backing track from the classic 1978 Village People anthem, and replaced it with the angry shredding of electric guitar. Talk about a disco inferno; this version burns down the house.

Musician Dave Rucci (the man behind that awesome SVU cover) turns in a great performance of The Rolling Stones’ 1980 track Waiting on a Friend, with some excellent acoustic guitar work, and a well-executed multi-track vocalization.

Tommy Lee Depp creates bass-only arrangements of popular songs which sound phenomenal, despite only including a single 4-string instrument. Listen as he performs Heart-shaped Box, Come As You Are, Lithium, and Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Marioverehrer presents an epically exhausting level design for the piano training game Synthesia. It takes a solid 21 hours to get through the entire sequence, which is simply a musical representation of every number from 0 to 100,000.

Check out the hook while my robotic DJ revolves it. It’s been a while since we heard from bd594 and his band of misfit computer parts. This time, they’re joined by a DECtalk speech synthesizer to provide a Stephen Hawking-esque take on Vanilla Ice’s vocals.

(PG-13: Language) “It’ll be a long day of fixing, make something else your mission, boy why this sh*t so hard to do?” Bon Iver collaborated with Jenn Wasner, Moses Sumney, Elsa Jensen, The National’s Bryce Dessner and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus for this gospel-inspired ballad.

Musician Clemens Wenners‘ YouTube channel is loaded up with impressive cover versions of tracks from the 1970s and 1980s, accompanied by perfectly selected analog synthesizers and other period-accurate instruments. Tracks include The Bee Gees Nights on Broadway, The Cars’ Drive, and Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight.

(Flashing Images) Filmmaker Páraic McGloughlin’s abstract music video serves as the perfect complement to the driving rhythm and headphone-worthy sounds of Weval’s track Someday. The imagery and sounds reflect the fragility of our planet, and humanity’s desire to hold on.