Awesome Covers

Musician and YouTuber Dan Mace likes to make sounds using mundane objects. After a viewer bet he couldn’t make music using bricks, he rose to the challenge, using the blocks to create all kinds of noises for a cover of The Weeknd’s hit Blinding Lights.

These days, we’ll take laughs any way we can get them. Take, for example, Real Big Boys‘ video of Seal’s 1994 hit Kiss from a Rose being sung by a choir of barking seals. We feel like the track could have used some penguin background singers, so here’s something to get you started.

We’re pretty sure not a single member of Kaboom Percussion was born yet when these tracks came out, but that shouldn’t take anything away from their playful performance of 1980s hits on their totally tubular music makers. They did a medley of tunes for ’90s kids too.

What happens when you transpose a bunch of fierce heavy metal songs from a minor key to a major key? The Paranormal Guitar Channel changed up a bunch of hard rock tracks, making them far more lighthearted than their original counterparts.

Musician Mick Mazz continues to bring the retro with another solid cover version reinterpreted for the decade of big hair and Rubik’s Cubes. This time, he reworked Radiohead’s Creep with a thick coating of frequency modulated synthesis, digital drums, and other instrumental tropes of the 80s.

Musician Dan Dubuque cranks out an awesome cover version of Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name, shredding some epic sounds from his Weissenborn slide guitar. Be sure to check out his versions of Nirvana’s Heart Shaped Box, Queens of the Stone Age’s Little Sister, and the Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black.

(PG-13: Language) Metaphump presents a cover version of Nirvana’s In Bloom unlike any we’ve ever heard before. With an big band, jazz-fusion arrangement by Léonard Piacentino, and a freestyle rap vibe, it’s basically a completely different song.

The theme music from the cartoon series Inspector Gadget is etched indelibly into the brains of all 1980s kids. We particularly enjoyed listening to Samara Ginsberg’s version of the tune, arranged for performance on eight cellos. Go Go Gadget Symphony!

Elton John’s 1983 hit I’m Still Standing has become a bit of an informal anthem in these days of self-isolation. As he’s been known to do, musician Leo Moracchioli made the catchy pop tune all his own, with an ample dose of axe shredding, head banging, and shout singing.

“My heart is human, my blood is boiling, my brain IBM.” Styx’s 1983 track Mr. Roboto represented the pinnacle of overwrought concept rock. Yet there has yet to be a more appropriate song played by Paweł Zadrożniak’s electromechanical orchestra, the Floppotron and its servo-powered instrumentation.

It’s been a while since we heard from musician Kawehi, but from the sound of this clip, she’s still rockin’ it. While staying home, she recorded a medley including Elle King’s Ex’s & Oh’s, Jace Everett’s Bad Things, her own Mona Lisa, and Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black. We love how her dogs slept through the whole thing.

Musicians Luna Lee and Han Oh teamed up to record an excellent cover version of the Stealers Wheel classic Stuck in the Middle, melding traditional asian sounds with ’70s folk rock. Of course, we can never hear this song without thinking of Reservoir Dogs.

’90s kids will surely remember the closing theme music from Cartoon Network’s classic Powerpuff Girls, as our heroes rattle off their names and skills. We think it sounds even better with the joyous instrumentals of the Ska Tune Network and the spot-on vocals of Quil Cauchon.

Shortly before going on lockdown in the UK, the musicians of Kaleidoscope Orchestra performed a medley of tracks from self-proclaimed rap god Eminem. The symphonic suite kicks off with Lose Yourself and Just Lose It, and includes classics like The Real Slim Shady, Without Me, and My Name Is.

(Loud) The track Megalovania from Undertale is one of the most frantic and challenging to play pieces of music in the history of video games. It sounds especially great when performed on high voltage tesla coils, as demonstrated by Franzoli Electronics.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ track The Impression That I Get came out in 1997, but it’s ska sounds are pretty timeless. On the other hand, Mick Mazz’s cover of the track uses the distinctive synth pop sounds of the 1980s to place it smackdab alongside songs like A-Ha’s Take on Me and Howard Jones’ Life in One Day.

The musicians of George Hinchliffe’s Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain do their part to bring a little cheer into our homes during the lockdown with a special quarantine edition of Gnarls Barkley’s hit Crazy. The ukuleles add a richly-layered sound to the track, while the lead vocals are a pleasant surprise.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee is known for its rapidfire sequence of notes, composed to conjure the image of a buzzing insect. The Melodica Men are here to show us how well the buzzy sounds of their mouth pianos suit the song.

After impressing us with his vocalization of Star Wars theme, singer Matthew Van Ness is back with another multi-track a capella cover of a John Williams track, this time taking on the familiar main theme from Jurassic Park, and again performing all of the instrumental parts with his voice. The only thing missing is the dinosaurs.

Times are rough, and we could all use a little encouragement. This cover version of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush’s 1986 duet Don’t Give Up, sung soulfully by Puddles Pity Party and Rebekah Del Rio provides some much needed inspiration – in both English and Spanish.

Musical impressionist Anthony Vincent performs Rick Astley’s track Never Gonna Give You Up in the styles of 20 different bands, with crazy interpretations from everyone from Prince to Pantera. We’re thinking that New Order version could have definitely been a hit.

Jeremy Hunter of Ska Tune Network brightens our day once again with another fun cover, this time taking on Blink-182’s punk-pop hit “All the Small Things,” and spicing it up with some much needed brass and dash of tropical riddim.

While at home doing their part to keep their distance, Sting joined Jimmy Fallon and the Roots for a remote performance of The Police’s 1980 track “Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” using a mix of random instruments and household objects they each had lying around.