Anthony “Bones” Reid has posted a number of videos on YouTube and Facebook showing his impressive use of Chinese hammered dulcimer known as yangqin to cover rock and pop songs. Reid performs under the moniker Horns of Pan, and among his standout performances are covers of Tool’s 'Lateralus' and 'Descending', along with Nirvana’s 'Heart-Shaped Box', The Cure’s 'Close to Me', Radiohead’s 'Like Spinning Plates', Tears for Fears' 'Mad World', and Billie Eilish’s 'When the Party’s Over'.

The popular Netflix show 'Bridgerton' has resulted in a 350% increase in streams of the Vitamin String Quartet since the show was released in December. The Los Angeles based group makes classical covers of modern pop hits, including Ariana Grande’s 'Thank U, Next', Maroon 5’s 'Girls Like You', Shawn Mendes’ 'In My Blood' and Billie Eilish’s 'Bad Guy'. "We were taking what’s classic and making it fresh and similarly taking what’s fresh and making it classic" - their manager Leo Flynn told the Guardian.

A parrot Tico who likes to "sing" classic rock songs by Led Zeppelin, Guns N’ Roses, Coldplay, U2, Rolling Stones and more, has achieved internet fame this week after the former NBA player Rex Chapman shared a rendition of 'Stairway to Heaven' with his 1.1 million followers on Twitter. The clip amassed over three million views on the platform. Videos have been captured by its owner Frank Maglio, who has been uploading them to his YouTube since April. The parrot doesn’t sing any of the actual words of the songs it “covers”, but is able to quite accurately replicate each track’s vocal melody. Their latest cover - Neil Young's 'Hey Hey My My'.

King Crimson's Robert Fripp and his wife Toyah Willcox are just having fun during lockdown covering rock classics, but not really doing it the usual way. Their last cover was Metallica's 'Enter Sandman' with Fripp playing his Les Paul all buttoned up, and Willcox very much not. And she also rides an exercise bike while singing. Previously they covered Led Zeppelin's 'Whole Lotta Love' with a bit of an S&M theme, Black Sabbath's 'Paranoid' while in "prison", The Kinks' 'You Really Got Me' with Willcox dressed as the devil, and more.

Super-group Kings of Quarantine, featuring members of Limp Bizkit, 311, Mastodon, Filter, The Used, Veruca Salt, and In Flames, teamed up to perform a socially-distant cover of Jane's Addiction's 'Mountain Song'. The project is in collaboration with the Roadie Relief effort, in hopes to raise awareness for touring industry workers whose jobs have been affected by the pandemic. Buy the song on Bandcamp.

Madlib is joined by Four Tet on the uplifting track 'Hopprock'; a sad story - after Justin Townes Earle died last year, his father Steve Earle recorded an album of his son's songs, and one of his own, 'Last Words', about their last conversation they had the night the younger Americana singer-songwriter died of an accidental overdose; emo-hardcore band Holy Figures released an EP about drugs, with songs named after women, melodic and powerful 'Lucille' stands out among them; Open Mike Eagle recorded a freestyle after hearing about MF Doom's passing, titled simply 'for DOOM'.

CoS writes about an interesting cover-band, Brass Against, a brass band that originally started as a Rage Against the Machine cover band, and then expanded with covers of Deftones, Alice In Chains, Panter, Deftones, Soundgarden etc. Their latest cover, Tool's 'Stinkfist' becomes "a horn-heavy track without losing the song’s key melodies and mood", with stand-out vocals by Sophia Urista.

BadBadNotGood are back where they left with Ghostface Killah - 'The Chocolate Conquistadors' with MF Doom goes totally into the psychedelic jazz-hip-hop territory; an interesting cover - a senior man named Frank Watkinson made a lovely folk-rock remake of Slipknot's 'Snuff'.

Dave Grohl and producer/multi-instrumentalist Greg Kurstin unveiled the fourth installment in their Hanukkah cover song series with a cover of Peaches' 'Fuck the Pain Away'. Grohl and Kurstin are celebrating Hanukkah with covers of songs by eight prominent Jewish artists - so far the pair has covered Beastie Boys’ epic 'Sabotage', Drake's 'Hotline Bling', and Mountain’s 'Mississippi Queen'.

Guns N' Roses' 'Patience', John Lennon's 'Watching the Wheels' and Sinead O'Connor's 'Nothing Compares 2 U' are some of the songs covered by Chris Cornell on an album surprise-released today, Seattle Times reports. 'No One Sings Like You Anymore' is Cornell's “last fully completed studio album”, and it also includes Ghostland Observatory (with 'Sad Sad City') Harry Nilsson ('Jump Into The Fire'), Carl Hall ('You Don't Know Nothing About Love') Electric Light Orchestra ('Showdown'), Terry Reid ('To Be Treated Rite'), Lorraine Ellison ('Stay With Me Baby'), and Janis Joplin ('Get It While You Can').

Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard, Guns N’ Roses’ Duff McKagan, Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock, and Mark Lanegan teamed up to make a very nice cover of the Jimmy Webb country classic 'The Highwayman'. The backing band featured Foo Fighters’ Nate Mendel, members of Death Cab, The Afghan Wigs, The Walking Papers, and guitarist Ian Moore. The collaboration was part of SMooCH 2020, an annual benefit show for the Seattle Children’s Hospital. The hour-long event also featured sets from Angel Olsen, Jason Isbell, Clipping., Kim Gordon, J. Mascis, and Fred Armisen.

Alice in Chains were the recipients of the Museum of Pop Culture's 2020 Founders Award, and at the great virtual celebration that took place this week, Korn (almost) stole the show with their rendition of 'Would?' (watch below). Also performing were the Alice in Chains themselves, Metallica, members of Soundgarden, Nirvana and Pearl Jam, Billy Corgan, Mastodon, as well as Chris Cornell's eldest daughter, Lily Cornell Silver, who made her live musical debut with a piano cover of 'Black Gives Way To Blue'.

Mastodon guitarist Bill Kelliher, Anthrax bassist Frank Bello, Korn drummer Ray Luzier, Men Without Hats keyboardist Ivan Doroschuk, and others have joined forces to cover Faith No More's 'We Care a Lot'. The collaboration was organized by Slaves on Dope members Jason Rockman and Kevin Jardine, who contribute vocals and guitar. Refused frontman Dennis Lyxzén handles the first verse, while other vocalists include Darryl “DMC” McDaniels of Run-DMC, Richard Patrick of Filter, Walter Schreifels of Quicksand, Kevin Sharp of Brutal Truth, rapper Esoteric of Czarface, and Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace. The performance was organized to support the Roadie Relief effort, benefitting concert crew members who have been out of work in the midst of the pandemic - buy the song via Bandcamp.

Rockers cover rock songs, jazz musicians play other jazz musicians, whereas in hip-hop it's really hard to find a rapper covering other rapper's song. Music YouTuber Adam Neely tries to explain why.

The music of the late Johnny Cash - including songs 'Ring of Fire' and 'Walk the Line', will be reimagined by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for a new 12-track album that is set to arrive in November, Uncut reports. The album sees Cash’s original vocals being complimented by the orchestra. Johnny Cash’s son, John Carter Cash, says his father was a fan of the RPO: "I was around ten years old and he and I went to see three films from the James Bond saga at a festival in New York. When the theme for Goldfinger began, he leaned over to me. 'That’s the finest orchestra in the world, son', he said. ‘That’s the Royal Philharmonic’".

Phoebe Bridgers covered Radiohead’s 'Fake Plastic Trees' with the up-and-coming London musician Arlo Parks, in a church, turned out to be just a pretty song; Teyana Taylor released a powerful video for her song 'Still' with images of Black civil rights leaders and victims of police brutality; The Polyphonic Spree released a sugary cover of Rolling Stones' 'She's a Rainbow'.

Sonic Youth have added 'The Whitey Album' from side project Ciccone Youth, which featured contributions from Mike Watt and J Mascis, to their Bandcamp. Ciccone Youth explored their fascination with pop culture -- and Madonna in particular -- while toying around with samplers and drum machines. The unreleased album includes a cover of Madonna's 'Into the Groove', as well as a cover of Robert Palmer's 'Addicted to Love'.

Pine Barons released a catchy indie rock 'Sputter'; RZA and Ghostface Killah are in classic Wu-Tang mood with 'Fighting for Equality'; some big careers started off with covers - new hardcore strength Gulch might be on that same path with 'Sin in my Heart'; Open Mike Eagle went groovy-jazzy in 'Bucciarati'; Thou and Emma Ruth Rundle released melodic doom goth 'Ancestral Recall'; Mina Tindle, Kate Stables, Emma Broughton, Melissa Laveaux re-sang Nina Simone's '22nd Century'; Carcass are back with a metal banger 'The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue', their first new song in 7 years.

A group of kids from the O’Keefe Music Foundation have released a Christian metal cover of System of a Down’s 'Chop Suey!'. The music is the same, but the lyrics are new and faith-based, like "That day on the mountain side/helpless and crucified/Arms, wide, you took up your cross and died". Singer Taylor Campbell was 8 years old when this was recorded, while a quartet of teenage musicians back her up.

10-year-old Japanese drum prodigy Yoyoka released a drum-cover of Rush classic 'YYZ'. Born in 2009, Yoyoka started playing drums at the age of two, appeared live at the age of four and formed a family band at the age of two. Her first CD was released at the age of six, and she not only plays drums but has written songs, sung and played piano. She has previously covered Rage Against the Machine, Led Zeppelin and Nirvana (Yoyoka's YouTube channel).

Well, this is a surprise - a group of ordinary-looking students of the Cleveland, Ohio School of Rock aka "The Jazz Band Rejects", performed 'Waiting Room' by Fugazi in front of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. No disrespect, but this just might be the most passionate performance of the song in years!

Contemporary classical ensemble s t a r g a z e released video album accompaniment to 'Instruments', an abstract orchestral reimagining of Fugazi's 1993 album 'In on the Kill Taker'. The good-spirited video works as a pandemic lockdown diary, with all the musicians involved filming themselves over the last few months, with footage from all over the world.

56 years ago Chris Cornell was born, and in his memory, Cornell's widow Vicky Cornell and the Chris Cornell Estate have shared a previously unreleased cover of Guns N’ Roses’ 'Patience' that Chris Cornell recorded in Los Angeles in March 2016.

The BBC Philharmonic has recorded a cover of Oasis‘ ‘She’s Electric’, made from lockdown. In similar, cover news, more than 250 Linkin Park fans from 36 countries recorded a quarantine cover of ‘In The End’. The video was created by YouTube users RocknMob, who organise mass performances of famous rock songs.

Emma Ruth Rundle leads a mighty pack - Mastodon’s Bill Kelliher, YOB’s Aaron Rieseberg, and Old Man Gloom’s Santos Montano - covering Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill', a strange, serious-funny song; Jack Colwell's 'Conversion Therapy' is a dramatic pop song with a strong message; 'Lovers Fool' is a smooth jazzy rap from Osquello self-produced debut album; Bent Arcana is a supergroup featuring members of Oh Sees, TV on the Radio and others - their first single 'The Gate' goes into prog, kraut-rock, experimental ambient music; Travis were a late Brit-pop band, they still do what they did, but hey, 'A Ghost' is a good song.

10-year old Nandi Bushell has offered her support of Black Lives Matter with her cover of 'Guerrilla Radio' by the Rage Against the Machine. Bushell played the drums, bass, and guitar for the 1-minute activist performance. A description of the performance on her YouTube channel and social media pages reads, “Solidarity in the Fight to End Racism! #fightracism #blacklivesmatter #enoughisenough".

Heavy metal talk show Two Minutes To Late Night's latest cover is a funny little thing - it has members of Sleigh Bells, Poison the Well, Cloak and High On Fire covering Guns N' Roses' 'Rocket Queen'; experimental rapper JPEGMAFIA has released a new, energetic and direct song 'Cute Pie'; art rockers The Velvet Teen have released a big and atmospheric song 'Mean Mind'; Nicolas Jaar released yet another new song - 'All One', a latino psychedelic club smoothie; Bright Eyes' new song 'One and Done' is heavily orchestrated, melancholic, almost Mediterranean-sounding; 'Cannibals' by Paddy Hanna is theatrical and haunting;

Cover Me is a blog with news articles and features focusing on cover songs, and tribute albums, including The Best Covers Ever (self-explanatory, right?), Five Good Covers - examining an oft-covered song from a variety of genres, In Memoriam - paying tribute to the recently departed, etc. Their latest choice is the cover of The Cure's 'A Forest' by the Polish metal band Behemoth where "everything is turned up to eleven".

'So You Won’t Forget' is a new Khruangbin song from their forthcoming album 'Mordechai', slightly less world music, slightly more funk, a summer breeze song; Compton rapper Problem's 'Janet Freestyle' is a tribute to his friend Nipsey Hussle, it samples Janet Jackson, and features jazz musician/Kendrick Lamar collaborator Terrace Martin; Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante and Suicidal Tendencies bassist Ra Diaz covered Billie Eilish's 'Bad Guy' - that would have happened had her brother been a metalhead; metalcore outfit Misery Signals play tense and dense on 'The Tempest'; American Trappist go psych-rocky on 'Losing My Grip'; Slowthai is back with yet another new song, 'BB (BodyBag)', he's still pretty much angry; Apollo Brown & Che’ Noir feature Black Thought on soul-heavy 'Hustle Don’t Give'; dark-pop newcomer Daine sounds like a polished Billie Eilish on her debut single 'Picking Flowers'.

Jimmy Fallon has gathered a dozen artists for the latest edition of his "classroom instruments" segment for an elaborate virtual performance of Bowie/Queen song 'Under Pressure'. Tonight Show host, Panic at the Disco's Brendon Urie and The Roots covered the ‘80s classic with (mostly) home “home instruments" - Questlove played the butter knife/wine glass, bottle, jar and bowl, Black Thought worked the frosting spatula and toaster, and Dave Guy was on frisbee - and the song turned out GRRREAT!!! Watch below.