Awesome Covers

To celebrate the release of Guardians of the Galaxy 3, musician and producer Jared Halley performed a wonderful a cappella version of Redbone’s 1973 hit Come and Get Your Love. Jared’s multi-layered approach gives added depth to an already great song.

Robyn Adele Anderson and her bandmates knocked it out of the park with this vintage Broadway-style performance of the My Chemical Romance hit Welcome to the Black Parade. That’s Demi Remick clacking her feet and proving what pop-punk always needed was more tap dancing.

Not every song translates well to medieval instruments like a lute, zither, and recorder. But this hardcore cover of the R.E.M. track Losing My Religion by musician Algal the Bard plays out perfectly. Perhaps the Athens alt-rock band was born in the wrong century.

Despite its intense pace, the track Sandstorm really isn’t that difficult to play. Always up for a challenge, musician Charles Berthoud took Darude’s hit to a whole different level, using his bass guitar to add a bunch of complexity, nuance, and flourish to the 1999 trance track.

Radiohead and The Smiths are both English bands, and they’ve both taken up political and social causes in their music. But sonically, they couldn’t be more different – until now. Musician Desmond Doom took the restrained sounds of No Surprises and gave it the jangly guitar and vocal stylings of This Charming Man.

Viljami and Herman Morander are two of the most talented accordion players we’ve ever heard. After their explosive performance of Through the Fire and Flames, they’re back with an impressive accordion arrangement of Metallica’s Master of Puppets with a few other Metallica references woven in for fun.

Luca Stricagnoli is a master of acoustic guitar. His cover of the Arctic Monkeys’ track Do I Wanna Know? doesn’t involve as many guitar necks as some of his other arrangements, but it’s every bit as entertaining. Luca’s fingerstyle technique and guitar drumming add so much depth to his performance.

Musician Navzad Dabu provided late-night commuters in NYC’s Metropolitan Avenue / Grand Street subway station with a phenomenal private performance. His graveyard shift concert included back-to-back covers of a dozen Radiohead tracks. We would have stood there for the whole show and missed our train.

Can you truly be Rickrolled if you know it’s coming? Well, either way, we enjoyed listening to Algal the Bard’s arrangement of Rick Astley’s classic Never Gonna Give You Up, performed on traditional instruments straight out of medieval times. We also recommend his bardcore take on Fear of the Dark.

The Internet: You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave. And with fantastic videos from the other side of the globe like this, why would you want to? Musician Moyun once again flexes her finger muscles with an awesome performance of the Eagles’ Hotel California on guzheng and conga drums.

Get your day started right with this warm and enveloping arrangement of Fleetwood Mac’s 1987 hit track Everywhere performed by the always entertaining Seb Skelly on five brass instruments. Need more brass to wake up? Try a dose of Killer Queen.

Musician T-Pain isn’t the first person you’d think could pull off a Black Sabbath cover. But he proves us wrong with his incredibly compelling version of War Pigs that showcases his vocal abilities and emotional power. It’s one of eight songs on his 2023 album On Top of the Covers.

Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide. Leo Morachiolli didn’t start the fire, but he did an impressive job covering Billy Joel’s wordy 1989 hit, adding fuel to the inferno with his hard-edged guitar and gravelly vocals. If you’re waiting for Joel to update the song for the 21st century, don’t hold your breath.

During their visit to the BBC’s Radio 2 Piano Room, U2’s Bono and The Edge were joined by an orchestra for this toned-down cover of the ABBA track SOS. They also turned in an excellent orchestral version of their hit track Vertigo. Also, this isn’t the first time U2 performed an ABBA song.

The KISS song I Was Made for Lovin’ You offered a deliciously fun blend of rock and disco music. Now the 1979 track has a whole new sound courtesy of Postmodern Jukebox and vocalist Effie Passero. Scott Bradlee’s deft arrangement of the song is equal parts cabaret act and Ennio Morricone western soundtrack.

Musician Scott Bradlee has proven that just about anything can be a Ragtime song with the proper arrangement. His 1920s cover version of Radiohead’s 1997 classic Paranoid Android sounds fantastic, and we can totally imagine it being played in the speakeasy in Westworld’s Golden Age.

School of Rock is a great place for kids (and adults) to hone their musicianship and performance skills. This group of AllStar students was a the top of their game when they took on Europe’s hair-metal classic The Final Countdown in the studio. Lead vocalist Eliza could go out and record an album right now.

We recently went down the rabbit hole, creating a playlist of original versions of hit songs. SecondHandSongs helped us find lots of obscure originals and also revealed tons of unique covers we never knew existed. Like, did you know that this guy recorded Girls Just Wanna Have Fun four years before Cindy Lauper did?

Musician David Bennett performs accurate recreations of classic songs. After impressing us with his version of A Day in the Life, he teamed up with vocalist Guy Bangham to produce a spot-on version of The Doors’ Riders on the Storm. The Rhodes V8 virtual keyboard helped recreate the sound of Ray Manzarek’s keyboard.

Good morning! It’s time for your wake-up call, and there’s no better sound to get you up and going than the screaming vocals of metalhead Leo Moracchioli. This time, he sharpened the edge of the Simple Minds track Don’t You (Forget About Me</a>. Rain keeps falling, down, down, down works really well as a metal lyric.

As part of his “Should I/Can I Cover It?” series, musician Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq. performs a track that clearly wasn’t designed to be played on a tiny 4-string ukulele. But the old-fashioned musician gave it the old college try regardless. If Thomas looks familiar, it’s because he has No More F**ks to Give.

The Melodicka Bros. are really good at reinventing popular songs. This time out, they took the high-energy Blur track Song 2 and reworked it with a 3/4 time signature. The result is a very different, yet equally entertaining track, alternatively known as “Song 3.”

Multi-instrumentalist Joe Porter is back with another medley of music performed on various percussion instruments. This time, he played rock tunes from bands like Metallica, AC/DC, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Iron Maiden. It’s also likely to be the only time you’ll hear Sweet Child of Mine played on a steel pan drum.