Awesome The Beatles

Without The Beatles, rock and pop music might have evolved very differently. We’re not sure if there’s a direct connection to bands like Green Day and Blink-182, but it sure seems like it after listening to Daniel Swisher’s medley of Fab Four songs performed in ’90s pop-punk style. Like what you hear? There’s a second video with eight more tracks.

Netherlands-based musician Laszlo Buring likes to cover songs in the styles of different bands than initially sang them. His cover of The Beatles Come Together, melded with Dire Straits’ Walk of Life, gives the track a totally different and unexpected new sound. His Dire Straits version of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid is equally entertaining.

Whether or not there was a true rivalry, the media loved to play up the competition between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Dog & Rabbit’s brilliantly executed short film plays out this battle through a series of slapstick collages animated using the dueling rock bands’ album art. Terry Gilliam’s Monty Python animations were clearly a source of inspiration.

The final song to feature all four Beatles was five decades in the making. Now and Then combines sessions recorded by Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr in 1995 with vocals recorded by John Lennon in the 1970s. Thanks to modern audio tech, Lennon’s voice was decoupled from a piano track and enhanced to fit into the track. (Thanks, Rob!)

Voice mimicry is getting easier and easier to achieve thanks to rapid advancements in AI tech. Musician Kid Klava shows just how impressive the technology has become by taking a Lennon-inspired song he wrote and programming the late Beatles’ digital avatar to perform it.

Beatles fans will adore these colorful playing cards from Theory11. The box set of four decks is illustrated with vibrant, psychedelic designs inspired by the Fab Four. The boxes and Kings are based on John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s look from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, while the other face cards feature not-so-subtle callbacks to classic Beatles songs.

State Bicycle’s collaboration with The Beatles is our favorite thing from them since their National Parks collection. We love the limited-edition Beatles cycling apparel and eye-catching bikes: the 8-speed 4130 Road Bike with Brooks Saddle and cool Abbey Road design elements and a Klunker cruiser in a Yellow Submarine motif.

The Beatles’ A Day in the Life was one of the most ambitious songs they ever recorded. Musician David Bennett explains how the track was created, then endeavored to replicate it as closely as possible by recording the individual parts and layering them together. That’s Chris Vince on vocals and Zal Jones on drums.

If you poke around musician Eli Gilbert’s YouTube channel, you’ll quickly realize he’s a very talented banjo player. In between the numerous bluegrass and tutorial videos, we stumbled onto Eli’s warm and enveloping performance of The Beatles’ 1968 classic Blackbird, and had to share it because it’s just that good.

The Beatles song I’m Only Sleeping debuted on the 1966 album Yesterday and Today. Now has a brand new music video, and it’s a true work of art. Filmmaker Em Cooper created this dreamlike animated video by painting each and every frame by hand. The video was comissioned to celebrate the Special Edition remaster of Revolver.

Desmond Doom likes to rearrange and perform songs in the styles of different musicians. Here, he entertains us with a jangly reinterpretation of the Joy Division track Love Will Tear Us Apart as if it was an early 1960s Beatles track.

Guitarist Bloxsy imagines what The Beatles might have sounded like achieved fame in the 1990s and recorded in Seattle alongside Soundgarden and Nirvana. The grunge tracks include clever titles like Flowman, Oregon Wood, and Lucy in the Hole. Be sure to listen to Part 2 here.

Remember Freddie Gredde, the guy behind those classic TV theme song and Cartoon medleys? Well he’s back with a brand new medley, a lovely 23-song collection from The Beatles, accompanied by a delightful animation he created himself – with a little help from his friend Kang Seunghyun.

We’re pretty sure The Beatles envisioned a much larger ship when they proclaimed “We all live in a yellow submarine.” But as Living Big in a Tiny House shows us, you don’t even need to live beneath the waves to dwell in such a golden vessel. If you happen to be visiting New Zealand, you can even stay there.

Here’s an oldie but a goodie. Back in 2011, the members of MercyMe performed this exuberant cover of The Beatles’ classic Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da in a very long hallway. Along the way, they got by with a little help from their friends.

Despite their very different sounds, The Beatles and Muse have at least a couple of things in common – they’re both English and both have filled large stadiums. Andre Antunes finds more middle ground between the two bands with this great performance of While My Guitar Gently Weeps done in Matt Bellamy’s grand style.