Awesome Covers

Not to be confused with the bluegrass rendition by the late Chet Atkins, here’s a rock guitar version of Boots Randolph’s Yakety Sax – better known as theme from Benny Hill – and every fail video on the internet, played masterfully by musician Piotr Galinski.

Cy Leo shows off his mastery of the harmonica once again with this dynamic and appropriately operatic rendition of Queen’s classic Bohemian Rhapsody, with Roy Tan on the grand piano, and vocals by soprano Annette Wardell.

It’s not in chronological order, nor does it list any tracks, but that just means you’ve got to rise to the challenge to identify all the tracks that inspired GMC Guitar’s epic lead guitar medley. Guitarist Ben Higgins was kind enough to provide tabs if you dare attempt it yourself.

Musician Eric Case rises up, straight to the top with this exuberant arrangement of Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger, performed on grand piano. Case doesn’t pull any punches as his fingers fly across the ivories, adding lots of flourishes to the Rocky III hit track.

Punk Rock Factory has a knack for giving pop songs new life as pop-punk versions. Here, they take the 1997 Hanson mega-hit MMMBop and give the jibberish song an edge it previously lacked. From the album The Wurst Is Yet to Come, which packs 10 great covers.

The Smash Mouth track All Star has been covered in just about every possible way, but we can say with certainty that we’ve never heard it played on melons converted into wind instruments. Now, we can check that one off of the list, courtesy of improvised instrument maker Pupsi.

Musicians Aaron Grooves and Snubby J teamed up for this lively cover version of the track Megalovania from the game Undertale, performing it on a Blue Man Group-inspired PVC pipe marimba, also known as RimbaTubes. We also spotted Snubby and Heather Freed’s great pipe and harp cover of Paint It Black.

Men at Work’s Australian anthem Down Under is one of the most jangly and upbeat pop songs of all time. But in the interest of leaving no musical stone unturned, resident metalhead Leo Moracchioli still managed to turn it into an angry hard rock track.

Solo bass player Tommy Lee Depp takes on Simon & Garfunkel’s timeless 1964 classic The Sound of Silence, giving the track a smooth new texture that will stir your soul just as much as the original.

There are a zillion covers of Billie Eilish’s hit Bad Guy out there, but we’re going to have to give our vote to Dan Davidson’s group DD and the Butterlovers and their bluegrass version. We have no idea what the deal is with their outfits, but we still say “yee-haw!”

Musician Marcos Kaiser likes to arrange versions of classic movie, cartoon, and video game theme songs to play using fingerstyle guitar technique. The Spongebob theme is awesome, but we also enjoyed his Terminator, Star Trek, and Flintstones themes too.

Ukraine accordion duo Vasyl and Viktor Kravchuk turn in an impressive cover of John Williams’ Imperial March from the Star Wars saga. We can imagine Darth Vader making a typically grand entrance to the music, while an army of stormtroopers dance the polka.

Do you think you could recognize familiar video game theme songs played backwards? Musician Stemage’s digital album Retrogression: Vol 1, features rock versions of classic themes, played in reverse. Songs like Sorb Oriam Repus (Super Mario Bros), and Sirtet (Tetris) sound surprisingly good, and vaguely familiar.

The fantastically talented Luca Stricagnoli performs a beautifully multilayered fingerstyle cover of Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise, offering up a proper nod to Stevie Wonder’s original Pastime Paradise. The percussive accessory Luca is wearing on his thumb is the Guitar Ring.

(PG-13: Language) Guess who’s back, back again? Musician Lucas Brar gives Eminem’s 2002 hit track Without Me a jazzy new acoustic arrangement that only slightly softens the blow of Slim Shady’s stinging and acerbic poetry.

The 8-Bit Big Band offers up another phenomenal cover of a classic video game tune. This time, they take on block-stacking fun of Tetris, adding a bit of swing and a cinematic flair to the Soviet-era sounds of the theme song.

The talented Mariachi Entertainment System is here once again to fill our ears with wonderful music, this time bringing their South of the border sounds to Danny Elfman’s theme music from Beetlejuice. Best served with a shot of tequila.

We can feel it all over. One of the funkiest songs ever written has got to be Stevie Wonder’s Sir Duke. Recently, the members of the the artist collective known as Apartment Sessions turned in a rousing, appropriately brass-heavy performance of the track on NYC’s J Train, lead off by the soulful lead vocals of Aneesa Folds.

Callin’ it quits now, baby, I’m a wreck. But first, let’s listen to this warm and buttery cover version of Post Malone and Swae Lee’s Sunflower, performed by GnuS Cello, with accompaniment on piano and guitar.

You know, it’s basically impossible to listen to a Pomplamoose performance without it bringing a smile to your face. We were certainly grinning here as we listened to their bright and cheerful cover of Mr. Blue Sky that both nods to Electric Light Orchestra, and makes it their own.

If the Nintendo Entertainment System came out in the 1920s instead of the 1980s, the music its games played might have sounded a bit like the ragtime jazz piano arranged and played brilliantly here by musician Scott Bradlee.

(PG-13: Language) During their recent tour dates in Brazil, Weezer performed a great cover of Nirvana’s 1991 track Lithium. It’s a great tribute to a fellow band who achieved fame in the 1990s, but with a very different outcome. On a related note, we came across this little gem while researching this story.

Synthwave duo Litiowave envisions what John Williams’ Imperial March (aka Darth Vader’s Theme) might have sounded like if it came out in the early 1980s rather than in 1977, giving the track a new neon-lit electronic sound.