Awesome Nirvana

We enjoy watching Drumeo’s series, where they ask musicians to create the drum track for a song they’ve never heard. In this session, they challenged Julliard jazz professor Ulysses Owens Jr. to perform the Nirvana song In Bloom. Ulysses’ interpretation both touches on the original and adds some new flourishes compared to Dave Grohl’s original.

Here we are now; entertain us. The One Hacker Band features no humans except the man programming its servo-powered, robotic members. Crank up the volume and do the pogo dance as the animatronic musicians perform a cover of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit.

After turning Y.M.C.A. into a sad song, Italy’s Melodicka Bros have done the opposite with another song. Please enjoy as they perform an upbeat ska-punk version of Nirvana’s Lithium, bringing a little bit of levity into this otherwise dark and moody track.

Imagine for a moment that Nirvana and Green Day did some kind of Freaky Friday thing and swapped bodies. Musician Steve Welsh imagines what it might have been like if Billie Joe and his bandmates performed Lithium in their trademark pop-punk style. It took a minute for us to remember this wasn’t an actual Green Day song.

We’ve heard Radiohead’s In Rainbows played with the sounds of Super Mario 64. Now enjoy another classic alternative album played in Nintendo style. Something is Real put together this epic remake of Nirvana’s Nevermind using the 64-bit game console’s sounds. The chiptune version of In Bloom is something special.

Musician Steve Welsh likes to reinterpret songs in different styles. Here, he explores what it might have been like if Pink Floyd possessed the bodies of Nirvana, and they were the ones who wrote the 1991 track Endless, Nameless. Welsh’s dreamy prog-rock version is significantly more eardrum friendly than the cacophonous original.

Musician Joe Porter is back with another round of covers performed on unexpected percussion instruments. Crank up the volume for Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train on slapaphone, Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit on marimba, Dick Dale’s Misirilou on hammer dulcimer, and Rush’s YYZ on drums and a hammered synth controller.

With songs like In Bloom, Polly, and About a Girl to their credit, Nirvana created some of the most memorable and influential music of the 1990s. Vermilion performed dozens of the band’s guitar riffs written by the late Kurt Cobain. They’re not the most complicated musical sequences, but damn they’re still brilliant.

Musician and impressionist Steve Welsh imagine what it might have sounded like of the Nirvana classic Come as You Are were performed by another band that hit it big in the early 1990s, Weezer. He totally nails the layered pop vocals and garage rock sounds of Rivers Cuomo and gang.

Hello, hello, hello, how low, indeed. There I Ruined It took the Nirvana track Smells Like Teen Spirit and gave it a cringy makeover as a K-Pop song. It’s every bit as stupid and contagious as the idea sounds.

Borrowing a page from Anthony Vincent, fellow musician Steve Welsh performs each of the songs from Nirvana’s Nevermind in the style of a different band or artist. The Green Day version of Lithium is our favorite, and we suggest listening to the full version of Weezer’s Come As You Are.

The members of the brass-forward, lo-fi NYC band Too Many Zooz turn in one of the coolest cover versions of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit ever. Matt Muirhead’s trumpet stands in for Cobain’s vocals, Leo Pellegrino’s baritone sax takes the guitar parts, and David Parks kicks out the beats on his marching band drum kit.

Musician Dan Dubuque is a master of the Weissenborn lap slide guitar. He’s previously impressed us with his covers of Killing in the Name and Where Is My Mind? Now he’s back with a mindblowing new interpretation of Nirvana’s All Apologies, performed in a idyllic forest setting.

Stone-faced musician Seth Everman is back at his synth with a performance of Nirvana’s 1991 classic Smells Like Teen Spirit done in a bunch of different styles. The steel drum version makes us want to lie on a beach sipping Piña Coladas while the sun beats down on us.

There I Ruined It manages to destroy two songs at the same time, turning John Denver’s (and later Peter, Paul, and Mary’s) folk classic Leaving on a Jet Plane into Nirvana’s Heart-Shaped Box. Or is it the other way around? Honestly, you can ruin any song in seconds just by adding a slide whistle.

What might Nirvana have sounded like if they hailed from Kingston, Jamaica instead of Seattle, Washington? Music remixer Andy Rehfeldt has the answer. So sit back, light up a spliff, dim the lights, and enjoy some Rastafarian grunge.

The 1991 Nirvana track Smells Like Teen Spirit is considered to be a classic by many. But we didn’t know it was this classic. The Miracle Aligner posted a cover of the breakout grunge hit with its lyrics translated into Latin. If you think that’s strange, try their ancient Norse cover of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song.

Despite their relatively short lifespan, Nirvana certainly left their mark on music forever. In this video from guitarist yourauntstripe, he reminds us just how many memorable guitar riffs the band produced. If you’re not banging your head or pogoing at some point during the clip, you’re doing something wrong.

Recording the video on what can only be described as a potato-cam, Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo turned in a heartfelt solo performance of Nirvana’s 1993 classic Heart Shaped Box. The clip is a lead-in to his Island in the Zoom project, which aims to bring remote Weezer fans together for interviews, music, and fun.

(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.

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.

Bluegrass musicians Iron Horse performa a decidedly more upbeat version of Nirvana’s classic All Apologies than we’re used to hearing, applying their jangly country sounds to the 1993 grunge rock track. One of 11 great covers from their album Pickin’ on Nirvana.

Jack Black posted this wonderfully wacky improv of Nirvana’s Polly Wants a Cracker – complete with mouth-sound rhythm section – which he sang Carpool Karaoke style while he was stuck sitting in traffic, . All we can say is… “Shikaflaow!”