Awesome Music

The sad clown with the golden voice turns in another soulful performance, with his take on the 1967 classic, made famous by Louis Armstrong. Puddles imbues it with a decidedly bittersweet undertone given some of the awful things going on in the world these days.

To celebrate the 67th anniversary of the first LP sold in Japan, Panasonic gathered 30 of the world’s best DJs to perform composer Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, which was in the first commercial LP record ever sold.

Mashup maker Happy Cat Disco brilliantly combined House of Pain’s Jump Around with Meghan Trainor’s No Excuses, resulting in a track that will have you dancing right there in your office chair. The trippy imagery was plucked from the Disney classic Dumbo.

Musician Davie504 shows off another unusual string instrument, this time performing an impressive solo on a crazy electric bass guitar which still has just four strings, but each one is on a separate neck.

We recently came across this amazing arrangement of Radiohead’s hit Paranoid Android, performed as a series of layered cello tracks by musician George Durham, with the string instrument taking on duties of both the melodic and rhythmic parts of the 1996 classic.

(Spoilers) This music video from the band GUNSHIP serves as a wonderful tribute to the characters in Ready Player One, as told through 16-bit pixel art. The band is also giving away a custom arcade cabinet if you can figure out the secrets hidden in the video. (Thanks Lee!)

OK Go lead singer Damian Kulash takes us behind the scenes and inside the precision math and preparation which go into the creation of their music videos – in this case looking at the precision timed slow-motion mayhem of 2016’s clip The One Moment.

(PG-13: Language) Adult Swim keeps churning out hits. This time Rick and Morty unleash hell on gromflomites in an action-packed and stylish music video for Run the Jewels’ Oh Mama, from the duo’s latest album Run the Jewels 3.

The vintage electronics orchestra known as Floppotron turns in a perfectly pleasing performance of Lalo Schifrin’s classic theme music from Mission Impossible. “This floppy disk will self-destruct in five seconds.”

Postmodern Jukebox teamed up with multitalented musician Gunhild Carling to transform hair band Europe’s 1986 hit The Final Countdown into a swinging dixieland jazz tune with vintage cabaret vocals. Bonus fact: most of Europe’s members and Gunhild are all Swedish.

News recently broke that iconic toy store Toys ‘R’ Us will be closing or selling all of its U.S. stores. Yes, we’re sad too. To pay his respects to the end of an era, Chase Holfelder created a super sad minor key version of I Don’t Wanna Grow Up. Is someone cutting onions in here?

GnuS Cello presents an excellent cover version of Bastille’s 2013 hit Pompeii performed with his cello taking on lead duties, and his piano providing rich and warm color. Grab the sheet music here or download the track here.

(PG-13: Language) “Said my grace now, my light is still on, so why would I pray now?” Big K.R.I.T. dropped by NPR Music to perform tracks from his latest album 4eva Is a Mighty Long Time, and share a sweet moment that he had with his late grandmother.

With the passing of astrophysicist and big thinker Stephen Hawking, we decided to bump this back to our home page. So sit back and enjoy his charming performance of Monty Python’s Galaxy Song via his vocal synthesizer. Always look on the bright side of death.

Guitarist Alexandr Misko presents another impressive fingerstyle arrangement, with a fantastic interpretation of a-ha’s 1985 hit Take on Me, which seems to be having more than a little bit of a resurgence in popularity these days.

“Evil comes in round shapes…” Bad Lip Reading presents another musical misinterpretation of Star Wars – this time taking on Grand Moff Tarkin and his proudest achievement, THE ULTIMATE POWER IN THE UNIVERSE.

The big screen adaptation of Ernest Cline’s wonderful Ready Player One comes out soon, but we won’t be hearing Demi Adejuyigbe’s theme song because it was apparently just too good for Spielberg. This is so much better than every original song that was up for an Oscar.

Who knew that the ideal musical instrument to perform the theme from Star Wars on was a melodica? Listen up and enjoy as Tristan Clarke and Joe Buono aka Melodica Men turn in a wonderful medley of tracks using the hybrid wind and keyboard instruments.

Musical mashup master DJ Cummerbund continues to knock it out of the park with another amazing track. This time he managed to blend sounds from Stevie Wonder, Disturbed, Styx, Will Smith, and Randy “Macho Man” Savage into a rock-funk-pop symphony.

Awesomer fave Leo Moracchioli takes on The Doors classic People Are Strange, giving the track less of his typical heavy metal treatment, and more of a creepy Addams Family vibe. If you’re left craving more of a hard edge, stick around until the end.

Musician and YouTube celeb Andrew Huang got his hands on a sweet electric guitar built from LEGO by Jay Jillard, and decided to give it some appropriate accompaniment with some rhythm-making instruments which make sounds using only LEGO bricks. More LEGO music here.

Ten Second Songs‘ Anthony Vincent teamed up with synth sensation Seth Everman to perform the A-ha classic in a variety of styles, from the hip-gyrating Elvis Presley to the drunken bar sounds of Dropkick Murphys. They also gave Smashmouth’s All Star a little love too.

If you thought that Sophia the robot was creepy before, check this out, as the humanoid AI sings Bjork’s All Is Full of Love, which by no coincidence featured a singing robot in its video. Skip to 3:48 for the performance, which we suspect was aided by Vocaloid.