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In The Style Of / Music

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Examples of In the Style of in Music.

  • Homestar Runner probably has the silliest possible example: Two Fake Bands, each already a pastiche of a different genre (hair metal and alternative), doing this to each other's songs. Available for listening here; it has the "original" versions of the songs as well, for comparative purposes.
  • Every "Weird Al" Yankovic album (with the exceptions of his self-titled debut album, and Even Worse, his fifth album) contains a polka medley, doing snippets of these for many contemporary songs. These are basically his equivalent to Jeff Foxworthy's trademark "You Might Be a Redneck" bits; the audience feels cheated if they don't get one per album.
    • He also did "Bohemian Polka", the entirety of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" polka-fied.
    • Weird Al says that he tends to pick songs that sound better as polka tunes. He's right.
    • To add an additional layer, his polka style uses traditional instruments, but draws much of its presentation from the style of comedic orchestration found in such things as the works of Spike Jones. Common comedic elements in his polkas include the Minsky Pickup, the traditional vaudeville ending riff (does it have a name?), "Shave and a Haircut", and even a direct reference to Jones via the opening riff of his version of "Der Fuehrer's Face".
    • He also frequently writes pastiches or "style parodies" of specific bands, the most famous probably being his Devo parody/tribute, "Dare to Be Stupid", which Mark Mothersbaugh called "the perfect Devo song". Mothersbaugh was interviewed for Weird Al's Behind the Music special and said the song was "beautiful ... and I hate him for it, basically."
    • A more occasional habit of his is to take an existing work and adapt it into a parody of another song. His most famous example is setting the theme of The Beverly Hillbillies to Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" (again with Parody Assistance given Mark Knopfler plays guitar). He's also set the theme of The Brady Bunch to "The Safety Dance", Green Eggs and Ham to U2's "Numb", and in more of a stretch, an ad for the board game Twister became a Beastie Boys song. His live shows have also included an acoustic version of "Eat It" done as a modified version of Eric Clapton's unplugged version of "Layla".
  • A popular trend around the Disney offices is to take classic songs from the Disney Animated Canon and redo them as pop rock. They're usually included as special features in Platinum/Diamond Edition DVDs.
  • A recurring segment on the Australian TV show The Money or the Gun (written by Andrew Denton) was the singing of "Stairway to Heaven" in various other styles, including Rolf Harris singing "Stairway to Heaven" in the style of "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport", and the version sung in the style of the Beatles by the Beatnix.
  • This was basically the entire purpose of Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine, who perform pop, rock, metal, and rap hits in lounge-lizard style.
  • Paul Anka does the same thing, taking popular music ("Eye of the Tiger", "Mister Brightside", etc.) and doing it in a "lounge-lizard" style. But unlike Cheese, he's serious about it (covering Bon Jovi's "It's My Life", he even changes a lyric into a Shout Out to himself: "Like Frankie said, he did it 'My Way'").
  • Nouvelle Vague is a French band that does excellent bossanova covers of songs from the 80s — from Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead" to The Clash's "Guns of Brixton".
    • The band's name, by the way, is a fairly brilliant Bilingual Bonus: "Nouvelle Vague" is French for "New Wave" (the genre of the original songs), and "Bossa Nova" is Portuguese for "New Wave" or "New Beat".
  • Madness did an album of ska/reggae covers of songs like "Lola" and "You Keep Me Hanging On".note  They also did a ska cover of Swan Lake on their first album.
  • Polka Floyd is a band that does polkafied covers of Pink Floyd.
  • Public radio program Performance Today has a weekly feature called "Piano Puzzler", in which composer Bruce Adolph would play an arrangement of a popular song in the style of a classical composer, and a listener on the phone had to guess both the song and the composer being imitated.
  • Dynamite Hack's folk-rock version of Eazy-E's "Boyz N The Hood".
  • The East Coast folk group Modern Man do this in their bit "Inappropriate Song Styles", in which they demonstrate why Luciano Pavarotti should not sing Bob Dylan and vice versa, why rap groups shouldn't do Rodgers and Hammerstein, and why The Bee Gees should stay away from folk music.
  • Lore Sjöberg did Nine Inch Noëls, a medley of Nine Inch Nails songs to the tune of traditional Christmas music.
  • Tom Lehrer did a version of "Clementine" with each verse in a different style: Cole Porter, Italian opera (or as he put it "Mozart or one of that crowd"), bebop (or as Lehrer put it "the modern 'cool' school of composers"), and Gilbert and Sullivan. It can be heard on his album An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer.
  • Before Portal came out, indie rocker Jonathan Coulton was perhaps best known for his acoustic rock cover of the Sir Mix-A-Lot classic "Baby Got Back".
  • Similarly, mphtower.com's Gilbert and Sullivan rendering of "Baby Got Back".
  • William Shatner has done a handful of So Bad, It's Good lounge covers of pop songs over the years, most famously Elton John's "Rocket Man". Futurama took this to its natural extreme, when they got Shatner to parody himself by performing a spoken word version of Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady". To anticipate your next question:
    Walter Koenig: How can you do a spoken word version of a rap song?
    Melllvar: He found a way.
  • The Scissor Sisters released a disco cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" from ''The Wall' in 2004, which got mixed reactions from Floyd fans — while some considered it a butchering of the work, others found that the disco beat fits the song's lyrics pretty well.
    • The members of Floyd themselves liked the version according to reports.
  • Alanis Morissette's slow, soulful version of the The Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps".
  • Dread Zeppelin, a band that takes Led Zeppelin songs and rerecords them in reggae style (and no, we're not talking about "D'yer Mak'er" here). With an Elvis Impersonator on vocals - at times the songs would even mash-up Elvis and Led, i.e. "Heartbreaker (At The End Of Lonely Street)" ("Heartbreak Hotel"'s lyrics, "Heartbreaker"'s music).
  • The Puppini Sisters perform various pop songs, such as The Smiths' "Panic", Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights", and Beyoncé's "Crazy In Love", in the style of The Andrews Sisters.
  • Every cover performed by Type O Negative is a perfect example of this. The medley of The Beatles covers at the end of World Coming Down, in particular, must be heard to be believed.
  • California punk band Me First and the Gimme Gimmes (which features NOFX's Fat Mike and Foo Fighters' Chris Shiflett) has made their entire career out of only doing punk covers of... less-than-rockin' songs. Examples include R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly", "Tomorrow" from the musical Annie, and "Hava Nagila". Each of their albums has a different theme: Have a Ball is all '60s/'70s radio hits, Are a Drag is showtunes, Blow in the Wind is songs from the '60s, Take a Break is R&B, Love Their Country is country & western, and their live album, Ruin Jonny's Bar Mitzvah, was recorded at an actual bar mitzvah. Yeah.
  • Australian punk band Yidcore does something similar, with their punk versions of traditional Jewish and Israeli music. One of their albums is a punk version of Fiddler on the Roof.
  • British comedian Bill Bailey's version of the "Hokey Cokey" done in the style of Kraftwerk, which can occasionally be found on YouTube.
  • Hayseed Dixie (say it out loud five times fast) and The Pigs both cover other genres in hillbilly/country style. Hayseed Dixie specializes in bluegrass versions of heavy metal and other harder rock genres; their first album, "A Hillbilly's Tribute to AC/DC" was entirely AC/DC covers — from which they drew their Punny Name.
    • They also have an album called Kiss My Grass. It's an entire album of covers of KISS songs. "Christine Sixteen" manages to get even creepier.
  • Similarly, Luther Wright and the Wrongs did an entire country/bluegrass version of Pink Floyd's The Wall, entitled Rebuild The Wall. It is surprisingly good.
    • Poor Man's Whiskey did a similar version of Dark Side of the Moon, entitled Dark Side of the Moonshine. Also surprisingly good.
  • Would you believe Judas Priest did this to a Joan Baez song? They really did.
  • Devo were quite fond of this; the best-known example is probably their cover of The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" from Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!.
    • They would later do this to their own music with EZ Listening Disc, a compilation of their songs rearranged as instrumental new age / elevator music pieces. It even included a version of "Satisfaction", turning their own new wave version of the original into elevator music.
  • Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt took the N.W.A song "Straight Outta Compton" from Straight Outta Compton and turned it into a coffee-house style soft rock song.
  • Much of what the people on Overclocked Remix do is take tunes from video games and do them in different styles.
  • The opera version of "Dragosta din Tei", AKA the Numa Numa song.
  • Moby's punk rock and country renditions of his own song "Porcelain" can be viewed here.
  • Yes turned both Simon & Garfunkel's "America" and The Beatles' "Every Little Thing" into jammed out prog rock epics.
  • Ben Folds has a recurring live song, "Rock This Bitch", where he asks the audience genres or styles to play the same short song. It initially stemmed from an incident at one of his concerts as captured on the Live Album Ben Folds Live - an audience member shouted "rock this bitch!" between songs for some reason, and Ben obliged them with a short improvised tune.
  • Rockabye Baby offers rock songs by e.g. Radiohead, Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, The Cure and The Smashing Pumpkins as soothing (and oddly compelling) bedtime lullaby versions for babies.
  • Much of the music in Super Smash Bros.. Brawl are classic Nintendo tunes done in different styles. For example, "Gourmet Race" from Kirby gets turned into a metal song.
    • The version of the Super Mario Bros. Underwater theme also gets an extreme makeover twice in one track. It goes from the original 8-Bit form, to a fully orchestrated version, to a bluegrass arrangement.
  • Social Distortion's punk rock cover of "Ring of Fire" (Johnny Cash).
    • German hard-rock band H-Blockx did a similar one, with a bit of ska thrown in, courtesy of guest star Doctor Ring-Ding.
  • Hard & Phirm's "Rodeohead" is a medley of Radiohead songs, performed in a country style. No, seriously.
  • Señor Coconut is an artist who performs covers of '80s electronica, such as the works of Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra, in traditional Latin American styles.
  • Animetal is a Japanese heavy metal band who perform heavy metal covers of classic and not-so-classic anime and tokusatsu theme songs.
  • The Marilyn Manson version of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", available on Anti Christ Superstar.
  • The unplugged Korn cover of Radiohead's "Creep".
  • Johnny Cash's famous cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" as a stripped down country song.
    • It's actually a very straight cover, barely introducing stylistic changes (it's pretty much how a regular acoustic performance by Reznor would sound).
    • Another Johnny Cash example is his cover of Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage," putting a country/folk spin on a hard rock/grunge song.
  • Death Metal group Ten Masked Men do nothing but pop songs. Their version of "Blue" has to be heard to be believed.
  • Ozzy Osbourne and Dweezil Zappa did a metal cover of the Bee Gees' hit song "Staying Alive", which you can view here.
  • Coal Chamber and Ozzy Osbourne did a cover of "Shock The Monkey" for the "Chamber Music" album.
  • Disturbed recorded a version of "Land of Confusion" in their signature style.
  • Sonata Arctica did a cover of "Wind Beneath My Wings" in their power metal style.
  • Gregorian is a group that, well, does faux-Gregorian Chant style covers. Amongst their re-works are "Engel" by Rammstein and Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven Is A Place On Earth".
  • While we're on the subject, Rammstein themselves did a cover of The Ramones' Pet Semetary and Stripped by Depeche Mode. Odd, but they work.
  • The CD When Pigs Fly is composed entirely of songs sung by people you'd never expect, and many of them hit this trope flat on the head — like Devo's version of CSNY's "Ohio", "Shock The Monkey" by Don Ho, Herman's Hermits doing Billy Idol's "White Wedding" and The Oak Ridge Boys doing "Carry On Wayward Son". (And don't miss Lesley Gore of "It's My Party And I'll Cry If I Want To" fame singing "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", if only for the wonderful cognitive dissonance it induces.)
  • Canadian punk rock group The Diodes recorded a cover of the Cyrkle's "Red Rubber Ball" (written by Paul Simon) for their 1977 debut album. According to liner notes on a later album, they did so because of Paul Simon's vocal disapproval of punk rock.
  • Doo-wop group Big Daddy is known for redoing songs from the 1960s onwards in the style of specific other songs from the 1950s. Perhaps the epitome of this would be their 1992 CD Sgt. Pepper's, in which they completely recreate The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1950s musical styles. Some examples of their work:
    • "With A Little Help From My Friends" in the style of Johnny Mathis' "Misty"
    • "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" in the style of Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire"
    • "Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite" in the style of Freddie "Boom-Boom" Cannon's "Palisades Park"
    • "When I'm Sixty-four" in the style of Billy Ward and His Dominoes' "Sixty-Minute Man"
    • "A Day in the Life" in the style of Buddy Holly (cuing off the "Oh boy" refrain), ending with a plane crash sound effect.
    • From their first (LP only) album: "Ebony and Ivory" by Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis
    • From a different CD, Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing" in the style of "Sixteen Tons"
      • The folks behind Big Daddy also recorded an album as "The Benzedrine Monks of Santo Domonica," which included covers of songs like The Monkees' theme song, R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" from Out of Time and Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from Nevermind as Gregorian-style chants.
  • The Estonian early music group Rondellus has a CD, Sabbatum, which consists entirely of Black Sabbath songs sung in various medieval styles. In Latin! For example, here's "Verres Militares".
  • Tori Amos performed a cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and released Strange Little Girls, a cover album of songs such as Slayer's "Raining Blood" and Eminem's "'97 Bonnie and Clyde" in her signature style of batshit crazy.
    • Tori is known to cover anything in her signature style of batshit crazy. She covered Baby One More Time for crying out loud!
  • Dub Side of the Moon is a dub reggae cover of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon.
  • How can anyone forget Travis's famous cover of Britney Spears' Baby One More Time?
  • 8-bit remixes have become something of a YouTube fad. You have stuff like 8-bit Halo theme, at least two 8-bit versions of Motteke! Sailor Fuku, 8-bit Through The Fire And Flames...
  • Klaus Nomi's cover of "The Twist," also listed in the Paranoia Fuel article.
  • The Kuricorder Quartet, the group behind the Azumanga Daioh soundtrack, did an entire album of cover songs in the exact same style used for that soundtrack. Highlights include the Ultraseven theme, "Bohemian Rhapsody", and the Imperial March from Star Wars. Alas, it's only available as a pricey Japanese import, but at least you can hear samples.
  • Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Juice" as done by The Gourds in Country Western/Bluegrass style.
  • The band Frisky and Mannish make their act on this basis, including a "cheeky cockney" version of Pussycat Dolls' song "Beep"
  • Another YouTube fad is redoing music in G Major, which lends a pseudo-demonic air. Among the many examples are perennial favourites-or-not Scaryroll (Never Gonna Give You Up), You Are A Pirate from LazyTown and Satan Knows (aka God Knows from The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya).
  • Heigh-Ho! Mozart has tunes from the Disney Animated Canon redone in the style of famous composers of classical music.
    • There's also Mozart TV, with various TV show themes treated in the same manner. You might recognize The X-Files theme in the style of Hovhannes as background music in some of Rocketboom's episodes.
  • The 2005 compilation album Policia!: A Tribute to The Police has various contemporary bands performing songs by The Police in their own styles. Some are good, some not so much, and some are just odd.
  • Beatallica: songs by The Beatles in the style of Metallica (with new lyrics, except for an album that was Screwed by the Lawyers). Including "The Battery of John and Yoko", "And Justice For All My Loving" and "Fuel on the Hill".
  • Guns N' Roses covered Bob Dylan's song "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," as well as Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die".
    • Axl Rose says that "Sweet Child of Mine" was intended to be In The Style Of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
  • Roy Zimmerman's track What If The Beatles Were Irish? is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. And hilarious.
  • Butthole Surfers have actually done this to one of their own songs: "Something" (not the Beatles song) originally appeared on their first EP in their typical noise-punk style, then was unexpectedly revisited 7 years later and turned into a melodic Shoe Gazing song (one that was suspiciously similar to The Jesus and Mary Chain's "Never Understand" in fact).
    • Paul Leary, their guitarist, released two Lyrical Dissonance-filled "Revisited" versions of songs he wrote with the band - the Hardcore Punk spoof "The Shah Sleeps In Lee Harvey's Grave" was remade as a gospel-tinged country shuffle titled "The Shah Revisited" and the Punk Rock / Garage Rock of "Gary Floyd" became the Folk Rock ballad "Gary Floyd Revisited".
  • The Moog Cookbook covered rock songs entirely on moog synthesizers, in an Affectionate Parody of the kitschy moog cover records of the 70's, tackling 90's alternative rock with their self-titled album and classic rock staples on the followup Ye Olde Space Bande. Notably, their version of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" gets a bossa nova arrangement very reminiscent of "The Girl From Ipanema".
    • Their self-titled album apparently got them noticed by actual alternative rock musicians who wanted to hear what their songs would sound like in this style - Eels commissioned a Moog Cookbook remix of their single "Novocaine For The Soul" for a B-Side, while Foo Fighters got them to turn "Big Me" into elevator music for a quick gag in the music video for "Monkey Wrench".
  • Pick any cover song by The Residents. Any of them. For instance on The Third Reich 'n Roll
  • Ray Stevens has done this many times: a country/bluegrass version of the jazz standard "Misty"; Sammi Smith's "Help Me Make It Through the Night" in the style of Spike Jones; and Michael Jackson's "Bad" also as a bluegrass song.
    • He's also done several stylistic parodies over the years. For instance, "Surfin' USSR" is clearly Ray doing The Beach Boys, "Ned Nostril" is clearly informed by Johnny Cash (it clearly borrows riffs from "Folsom Prison Blues" and "I Walk the Line"), and perhaps most famously, "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" is in the style of Barry Manilow.
  • Blind Guardian seems to enjoy doing metal covers of old pop songs, including "Surfin' USA", "Mr. Sandman," and "Dream A Little Dream of Me."
  • German comedy band Excrementory Grindfuckers does it frequently by covering many popular songs like "The Final Countdown" and "Stayin' Alive," grindcore style. Interestingly enough, their cover of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" sounds entirely blues.
  • All of Richard Thompson's self-released live album 1000 Years of Popular Music is him doing songs ranging from 11th century ballads to Prince tunes in his own unique folk-rock style (the concept of the album is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, a sampling of the prior 1000 years of song), but for the coup de grace he introduces "Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt," supposedly a "medieval ballad from Brittany" but actually a medieval-styled version of "Oops, I Did It Again", complete with lyrics in Old English.
  • Dolly Parton and Nickel Creek collaborated on a bluegrass cover of Collective Soul's "Shine". Many accolades ensued.
  • On their Aenima album, tool takes the guitar riffs from their own song "Jimmy", plays them on a cheesy, ballpark-esque organ, and uses it as the "Intermission" that segues directly into the original song.
  • Jenny Owen Young's folk-rock version of Nelly's "Hot In Herre".
  • Joey + Rory did a bluegrass version of "Free Bird".
  • Big & Rich did a straight-up country cover of AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long".
  • Pat Boone's 1997 album, In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy, in which he performed various hard rock and metal songs big band/jazz style. One of his songs, Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train", became the theme song for The Osbournes.
  • The Mike Flowers Pops, a tongue-in-cheek easy listening/lounge revival group, released a cover of Oasis' "Wonderwall", which actually reached #2 in the UK Singles Charts months after the Oasis version did the same. A BBC DJ jokingly announced it as the original version when it was first released, and subsequently Noel Gallagher was asked by a record executive if he'd actually written it. They have also done similar covers of The Doors, The Velvet Underground, and Björk.
  • Dwight Yoakam has done this a lot, most notably with a rockabilly cover of "I Want You to Want Me" and alt-country take on "Suspicious Minds".
  • Garth Brooks re-wrote Aerosmith's "Fever" as a country-rock song about a rodeo star. He also had hits with countrified versions of two Billy Joel songs: "Shameless" and "To Make You Feel My Love", the latter of which was written by Bob Dylan.
  • The Kentucky Headhunters have been doing this for ages. Their first three albums included edgy, country-rock versions of bluegrass legend Bill Monroe (as well as a cover of Don Gibson's late 1950s hit "Oh Lonesome Me"), as well as a Beatles cover ("You've Got to Hide Your Love Away"). Later on, they released a covers album that included Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Roger Miller, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles, all done just as amped-up as their early work.
  • On The Muppet Show, the show's band, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem rendered Fryderyk Chopin's Polonaise in A flat major... in funk, much to the dismay of Sam the Eagle.
    Kermit: You can't beat the classics; you can only destroy 'em.
  • Reel Big Fish have a schtick of playing their own song "Suburban Rhythm" live, but multiple times in many different styles, such as punk rock, country, garage rock, death metal, emo, old school rap and disco.
    • Funnily enough the 'country' mosh pit is just about the most riotous of the lot.
    • They also did a euro-dance-style version of "Gigantic" for a The Pixies tribute album.
  • Mark Kozelek does this for every non-original song he touches. He released a solo EP of deconstructed acoustic AC/DC covers, and his band Sun Kil Moon released an entire * album* of acoustic Modest Mouse covers. Red House Painters did the same with "Silly Love Songs", "I Am A Rock", and The Cars' "All Mixed Up".
  • Great Big Sea (a Canadian East Coast band who play a cross between pop and traditional Newfoundland songs) redid R.E.M.'s "It's The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" in a super-fast-paced, upbeat folk style. It's really good.
  • Cadillac Sky's Bluegrass version of Green Day's "Dookie Basket Case]]"
  • Jagpanzer's power metal cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald".
  • Ace Combat uses the Agnus Dei as BGM in the final mission of its fourth game, Shattered Skies, but the "Megalith" mix is different enough that you have to strain your ears to recognise it. "Zero" from Belkan War also reused the lyrics from the eponymous song of Unsung War, but given that the former re-rendered the latter with Hispanic guitar and castanets, it's a bit hard to tell.
  • The Boss Hoss. Famous for country and western covers of various songs, among them Eminem's "Without Me", Outkast's "Hey Ya" and The Cardigans' "My Favorite Game".
  • Beatles tribute band the Fab Four have issued a couple of Christmas albums, in which they perform popular carols in a Beatlesque manner.
    • Sweden's Rubber Band also did the "Christmas a la Beatles" thing with their 1996 release Christmas! The Beatmas.
  • Mark Ronson (of Amy Winehouse producer fame) released "Version" comprising various pop covers in his distinctive brass-led arrangements.
  • Thin Lizzy and, subsequently, Metallica covered the traditional Irish folk song, "Whiskey in the Jar" in a rock style.
  • White Stripes performed the traditional English-Scots ballad "Black Jack Davey."
  • A number of Celtic Punk groups — The Pogues, Dropkick Murphys, etc. — perform their share of traditional Irish folk music in a punk style.
  • Uncle Tupelo recorded at least two versions of The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" — a country/punk version and a folk version.
  • Anya Marina's cover of T.I.'s "Whatever you Like" is performed in her typical style, that of a singer songwriter, creating hilarious levels of Lyrical Dissonance when one factors in the original's blatant Intercourse with You lyrics.
  • The Spider-Man (1967) theme song got reworked a few times, by Joe Perry of Aerosmith for the 1994 cartoon, the band as a whole for the movie (it's on the soundtrack), The Distillers for the game based on the movie sequel, The Ramones for an album of alternative covers of Saturday Morning Cartoon theme songs, and by Michael Bublé for fun.
  • American heavy metal band Prong recorded a heavy metal version of The Doors' "Strange Days" for Strange Days movie, with Ray Manzarek (Doors' keyboardist) on keyboard.
  • Would you believe that there's a techno cover of Fear of the Dark? And that it's actually good?
  • Johann Sebastian Bach had such a distinctive style that a common exam question for high school music students is: here is a totally random melody. Orchestrate it in the style of J.S. Bach.
  • Robert Newman had a routine where Robert Smith of The Cure tried to sing various cheerful songs, all of which came out as Girlfriend in a Coma style dirges.
  • Sepultura's cover of Public Enemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos from It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. There are covers of "Angel", "Mountain Song", and "Bullet the Blue Sky" on the same EP, Revolusongs.
  • An Elvis Presley impersonator named "The King" recorded several albums with songs by other bands and artists, usually with the main criterion being that the original singer also had to be dead. such as Nirvana's "Come as You Are" and Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". The latter song was already an homage to 1950s Rock 'n' Roll in its original version, but the King version Elvis-i-fied it even more.
  • Four German comedians perform as a Queen tribute "band" named "Burger Queen", with very... unique interpretations of their songs, such as a Bruce Springsteen version of "Hammer to Fall" (including a brief "Born in the UK" outro), a reggae version of "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", a country version of "Fat Bottomed Girls", a polka version of "We Will Rock You", a bellydance version of "Mustapha" and an AC/DC version of "I Want to Break Free" (using the bassline of "Under Pressure").
  • The Shins' version of The Postal Service's "We Will Become Silhouettes".
  • Matthew's Celebrity Pixies Tribute is a collection of The Pixies covers done by one person in the style of various unlikely artists, such as Prince, The Bee Gees, and The Beach Boys. The results are generally more silly than convincing, but "Levitate Me" does sound a lot like a [SMiLE]-era Beach Boys demo, and apparently the Jimi Hendrix version of "Vamos" had a few people fooled up until it quoted The Simpsons theme during the solo.
  • Merry Gear Solid 2 uses various backings made up of Christmas songs In The Style Of Metal Gear songs:
  • The Alex Skolnick Trio primarily performs jazz versions of hard rock and heavy metal songs.
  • Slaughter of the Bluegrass performs country/bluegrass covers of Melodic Death Metal songs
  • The Baseballs is a German group that does 50s rockabilly covers of modern pop songs. Really excellent 50s rockabilly covers of modern pop songs.
  • Toots and the Maytals did a reggae verson of John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads", even substituting "West Jamaica" for "West Virginia".
    • They may also be responsible for "Jamaican In New York", which surely needs no explanation.
  • The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain have performed "God Save The Queen" by the The Sex Pistols at least once.
  • Bim Skala Bim once did a ska version of Pink Floyd's "Brain Damage" (aka "Dark Side Of The Moon").
  • Here is a video of Swedish a cappella band The Real Group singing a couple songs in unrelated styles: "Yesterday" as a samba, and the operatic version of "Take The "A" Train". Even better, they are evidently improvising these on the spot.
  • Adrian Edmondson's act The Bad Shepherds is based on the idea of playing punk songs with folk arrangements. It's played totally seriously and surprisingly well.
  • Mindless Self Indulgence has a speed metal version of Rush's "Tom Sawyer", that's barely more than half the running time of the original, but still a complete cover.
  • Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street", noted for its sax lines (a favorite of Lisa Simpson's), has been redone a few times in different styles, usually without a saxophone. The Foo Fighters' version uses an electric guitar in place of the sax, with a bass guitar replacing the "whistling" synthesizer opening/bridge.
  • Each of Edward Ballantine's variations for piano on "Mary Had A Little Lamb" was written in the style of a different famous composer.
  • The entire purpose of power metal supergroup Northern Kings, who cover mostly 80s pop songs, but a range of other material, in power metal style.
  • Amanda Palmer Performs the Popular Hits of Radiohead on her Magical Ukelele, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  • Todd Rundgren did this with his own songs on the album With a Twist, which offered bossa nova tiki lounge versions of his most familiar hits.
  • Patti Smith has a cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit". With banjos.
  • Apocalyptica is a heavy-metal cello quartet whose first album consists entirely of all-cello Metallica covers. Their second album also included cello covers of Faith No More, Sepultura, and Pantera. After this, they moved on to focusing on original material.
  • Trance duo Mythos 'n DJ Cosmo did this with several tunes, including "Heart of The Ocean" (the Titanic theme tune), Real Life's "Send Me an Angel", and "Unchained Melody" from Unchained.
  • DJ Sakin & Friends's trance rendition of the Braveheart theme.
  • The South African band Seether did a metal power ballad cover of George Michael's "Careless Whisper".
  • The Pet Shop Boys did dance-pop covers of such things as the slow ballad "Always On My Mind", the very much rock "Where The Streets Have No Name" by U2 (medleyed with "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" by Frankie Valli), "Somewhere" from West Side Story, and the Madness ska track "My Girl". And then, just for fun, they did a swing version of their own hit "Can You Forgive Her?".
  • Max Raabe is a German singer who, with his orchestra, remake pop songs to sound like 1920's Weimar Republic Jazz. Covers include "Lucky" by Britney Spears, "Kiss" by Prince, and "Sex Bomb" by Tom Jones.
  • Liquid 360 turned Erasure's mellow synthpop track "Chains of Love" into a bouncy Euro-house tune.
  • Front Line Assembly's Darker and Edgier take on Madonna's Justify My Love, featuring Kristy Thirsk of FLA's side project Delerium.
  • The Talking Heads song "The Overload" was an attempt to imitate the style of Joy Division. However, none of the members had heard any of Joy Division's music; they were basing it on how they thought they might sound based on reading descriptions of their style in music reviews. Because "The Overload" isn't a Joy Division song, it's not strictly this trope, but it's very close.
  • "Friday" the way MeatLoaf or Bob Dylan might have done it.
  • YouTube user CakeJarey played this trope with Final Fantasy songs... in the style of other Final Fantasy games. Now, given the series' usual pattern, what could the result be? Still awesome.
  • Clara Moroni, better known for Eurobeat, did a metal cover of a-ha's "Take on Me".
  • Dudley Moore did "Little Miss Muffet" as Benjamin Britten would have composed it for Peter Pears to sing, and, on Not Only... But Also, Tom Jones songs in a classical style.
  • "Rap Is A Man's Soul", better known as "That rap from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann that goes 'Row Row Fight the Pow-wah!'" gets a couple of versions throughout the series. There exists a heavy fanfare version, a sadder, somewhat contemplative version, and perhaps most memorably, an epic opera version whereupon Dies Irae is sung as a One-Woman Wail.
  • As mentioned above, Paul and Storm, formerly part of the a cappella quartet DaVinci's Notebook, did a medley of various hip-hop songs in barbershop style. They called it Hip-Shop.
    • Prior to their split, DaVinci's Notebook also had a medley of heavy metal songs in barbershop style called Metal Shop.
  • The Aquabats! did a cover of Operation Ivy's "Knowledge" in the style of an acoustic campfire singalong (complete with backup vocals imitating little kids) for a tribute album. Hilarious in Hindsight, since much later one of their members (Christian Jacobs, AKA the MC Bat Commander) would co-create Yo Gabba Gabba!.
  • Beck has had fun doing this to his own songs a few times: "Burro" is "Jackass" in the style of mariachi (complete with Spanish lyrics), "Saxx Laws (Night Flight to Ojai)" is "Sexx Laws" in the style of Kenny G, and "MTV Makes Me Wanna Smoke Crack (Lounge Version)" is self-explanatory.
  • The Ramonetures are a band that covers Punk Rock songs in the style of instrumental Surf Rock (their name being a mashup of The Ramones and The Ventures, of course). Their self-titled first album covered The Ramones, while their second, Johny Walk Don't Run Paulene, covered X. Johny Walk Don't Run Paulene even has contributions by X members Billy Zoom and D.J. Bonebrake.
  • Puffy AmiYumi did this a LOT on their early albums, thanks to the influence of producer Andy Sturmer. "Asia no Junshin" is an homage to Electric Light Orchestra, "Kore Ga Watashi no Ikiru Michi" does The Beatles, "Jet Keisatsu" is The Who, "Tokyo Nights" is The Buggles, and more.
  • A Hawk and a Hacksaw did a particularly obtuse version: they took "Foni Tu Argile", a Greek Rembetika song (i.e. traditionally performed on bouzouki and other string instruments), and recorded it as an accordion-and-brass ensemble.
  • Orbital wanted a remix of "Style" (a song originally performed almost entirely on a Stylophone synthesizer) by Stereolab, in their unique style. When they couldn't get ahold of Stereolab in time, Orbital just did a Stereolab-esque remix themselves (which they named "New Style").
  • An amateur cover of A Flock of Seagulls' "I Ran (So Far Away)" in the style of American Recordings-era Johnny Cash has been making the YouTube rounds. As already mentioned, Johnny Cash himself has done this sort of thing before, so it's been mistaken for the real thing a few times.
  • Iron Horse are a bluegrass band who have put out a couple of albums of original material, but are mainly known for their Cover Albums - they have two albums of bluegrass Metallica covers, as well as albums that take on Modest Mouse, Ozzy Osbourne (including a few Ozzy-era Black Sabbath songs), and Guns N' Roses.
  • The English Beat did a lyrically dissonant ska cover of The Miracles' "Tears of a Clown".
  • Similar to the Tom Lehrer example above, Victor Borge did "Happy Birthday" in the style of... well, pretty much every serious composer.
  • Stacks Of Wax and Nicolas Wells have turned Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" from modern pop to 70's disco.
  • Jimmy Cliff's album Rebirth included reggae versions of "Guns Of Brixton" by The Clash and "Ruby Soho" by Rancid. Though it could be considered taking things full circle, since both are punk songs but were clearly influenced by reggae to begin with, and doubly so with "Guns of Brixton", which mentions Ivan, the character Cliff played in The Harder They Come. Rancid's Tim Armstrong actually produced the album.
  • The Decemberists' "Down By The Water" (on 2011's The King Is Dead) was stated by frontman Colin Meloy to be a tribute to the style of R.E.M., and it shows: it sounds exactly like what you expect the Decemberists doing an R.E.M. song would sound like. It helps that Meloy and Michael Stipe have a shared love of cryptic lyrics (albeit for different reasons—Meloy is a big fan of Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, while Stipe is just cryptic).
  • The composer and pianist Richard Grayson performs themes in a number of (mainly classical) styles. This YouTube channel contains numerous examples, such as The Pink Panther theme as a Bach Gigue, or Darth Vader's theme in the style of Beethoven.
  • Lindsey Stirling did this with her original dubstep song "Elements", remaking it ahead of Dracula (2013) coming out into a darker video about vampires with orchestral music.
  • Heir Apparent turned Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" into a Power Metal song, and it was awesome.
  • Default Corporation remixed The Frozen Autumn's "I'm Coming From Nowhere" into Kraftwerk-style analog synthpop.
  • Gabba are a unique ABBA tribute band: They play ABBA's music in the style of The Ramones.
  • Apparently, the Glam Rock band Sweet covered John Denver's folk song "Leaving On A Jet Plane" — as reggae.
  • The Who front man Roger Daltrey recorded a Celtic version of "Behind Blue Eyes" with The Chieftains.
  • Bruno Mars channels The Police in his song "Locked Out of Heaven." According to him, the key that he sang it in made him sound like Sting, and when he realized this, he decided to make the production a full-on Police homage.
  • Krillington Zero's take on The Spinto Band's "Oh Mandy": The original is mandolin-based indie-pop, while the cover version is on the heavier end of Post-Grunge (with some hints of Nu Metal). It was later revealed that Krillington Zero were a Fake Band parodying the post-grunge genre: the actual performers were a band called SW!MS, and The Spinto Band had some fun contributing to the hoax by posting the song to their official blog with a phony Alternative Press review of the cover.
  • The Punk Goes... series of compilation albums where punk rock bands cover songs from other genres, with Pop getting six albums as of the end of 2014.
  • In The Moody Blues' "House of Four Doors", the tune for the second door is in a Baroque style, reminiscent of Johann Sebastian Bach. The music for the third door is Romantic, sounding like Tchaikovsky.
  • "Geno", the Dexys Midnight Runners single, is in the style of its subject, Geno Washingtons Ram Jam Band. They used the same style again for "Come On Eileen".
  • Freezepop turned "Sweater Weather" (originally by Parks) from an uptempo indie pop song to a Synth-Pop ballad.
  • Frank Zappa performed "Stairway to Heaven" in a reggae style on The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life.
  • Originally recorded for a spy-pastiche Marks and Spencers advertisment, and released as a single much later, Dame Shirley Bassey singing P!nk's "Get This Party Started" in the style of her James Bond themes.
  • Twisted Sister did an album of Christmas songs in their hard rock style, A Twisted Christmas. It helps "O Come All Ye Faithful" fits perfectly into "We're Not Gonna Take It".
  • The Seattle-born, Los Angeles- based retro band Prom Queen have done many anachronistic '50s and '60s style covers of contemporary pop and rock tunes, such as Madonna's "Justify My Love" in the style of Patsy Cline, Guns N' Roses' "November Rain" in the style of The Everly Brothers, and Khia's "My Neck, My Back (Lick It)" in the style of The Andrews Sisters.
  • Mexican flamenco artists Rodrigo y Gabriela have recorded a number of acoustic flamenco covers of other bands' songs that were originally performed in seemingly wildly different genres, such as Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" and Metallica's "Orion". In the case of Metallica's song, this works much better than a casual listener might expect, because the original song already had a lot of flamenco influence.
  • Ever wondered what The Rolling Stones would sound like sung by Julie Andrews (with Eddie Vedder as Keith Richards)?
  • Chris Cornell searched "One lyrics" looking for U2 and the first result was Metallica. This inspired him to put the latter's lyrics in the former's music.
  • The Youtube channel PostmodernJukebox do covers of various songs starting from the 80's in older styles, such as "Sweet Child O' Mine" in New Orleans Style with singer Miche Braden bringing the soul, an Andrews Sisters-style swing jazz version of "Wannabe", and a speakeasy jazz rendition of "Gangsta's Paradise".
  • The Hungarian-American composer/paedogogue Denes Agay did a series of variations on "Happy Bithday" in the style of various composers. He wasn't the only one to do so, but he deliberately wrote it at the upper beginner/ early intermediate level so kids taking piano lessons can learn it for a parent's/grandparent's/friend's birthday.
  • The Beatles themselves indulged in this from time to time. "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away", "Norwegian wood", "Rocky Raccoon" and "Long, Long, Long" are all Dylanesque to various degrees ("I'm a Loser" is sort of Bob Dylan meets Carl Perkins). "Nowhere Man" and "If I Needed Someone" were very consciously mimicking The Byrds.
  • Movistar, a company that sells cell phones, made a version of "Maniac" in native-American style, with only folk instruments. See here.
  • Anthony Vincent's channel "Ten Second Songs", originally conceived to offer a sample of the styles he can emulate for fan-written lyrics, has become a showcase of popular songs reimagined in usually twenty but up to forty different styles, as suggested by viewers. It's an impressive demonstration of his vocal range and mastery of numerous instruments, and he occasionally teams up with other YouTube artists like Erock (of "Meets Metal") and Robyn Adele Anderson for backup accompaniment.
  • Robyn Adele Anderson is a former vocalist from Postmodern Jukebox who performs covers of modern songs in older musical styles, such as a '40s swing jazz cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", a 20s' jazz cover of "Smoke on the Water", a cabaret cover of "Poor Unfortunate Souls", and a 60s' jazz cover of "Shoot to Thrill".
  • The Ukrainians could be termed Ukrainian folk for the lulz, for example they covered a few songs of The Smiths, like "Bigmouth Strikes Again" or "The Queen Is Dead".
  • Comedy duo Hale and Pace knows this trope very well. Try "The Pavarotti Choir Sings Status Quo". Epic.
  • Allan Sherman's album Peter and the Commissar featured the "Peter and the Wolf Bossa Nova", "Beethoven's Fifth Cha Cha Cha", "Brahms' Lullaby Rock and Roll", "Pete Tchaikovsky's Blues" and "Aida (Verdi) in Dixieland".
  • Leo Moracchioli does metal(ish) covers of well known songs in a variety of genres - Disco, Pop, Classic Rock, Country, Disney songs....
  • French metal band Ultra Vomit mostly makes metal parodies and pastiches of various other songs and artists, sometimes mixing styles and lyrics.
    • Several songs of the album Objectif Thunes are made from lyrics parodying an existing song, played in the style of a very different artist. For instance, "Morbid Cocker" is a dark parody of "You Can Leave Your Hat On" in the style of Morbid Angel. "Mechanical Chiwawa" parodies the lyrics of "Le Tirelipimpon" from Carlos in the style of Marilyn Manson.
    • Panzer Surprise has a few of them as well. "Kammthaar" is a pastiche of Rammstein style with mostly original lyrics, but also has a verse parodying Marc Lavoine's "Elle a les yeux revolver". There's also several distinct covers of the children song's "La Bouillie", in the styles of Metallica, Ghost, Manowar...
  • This quickly became a standard of the Leningrad Cowboys who would perform songs in totally unexpected genres. They turned "Those Were The Days" into hard rock, "Proud Mary" into A Cappella, "Gimme All Your Lovin'" into polka, "Bad" into bebop and "Rebel Yell" into ska, just to name a few examples. And while they did play the "Säkkijärven Polkka", a Finnish traditional, "straight" as a polka both in Leningrad Cowboys Go America and on stage (with a guitar solo thrown in, though), the closing titles of the movie are accompanied by a mambo version that's also included on the soundtrack album.
  • Camper Van Beethoven have done bluegrass-infuenced covers of Black Flag's "Wasted" and Sonic Youth's "I Love Her All The Time" - the original genres were Hardcore Punk and Noise Rock, respectively. Part of the humor of the "I Love Her All The Time" cover is also that the original is a seven and a half minute Single Stanza Song, so Camper's version gets through all the lyrics of the original in the course of about two minutes. In a similar vein is a hoedown style version of "White Riot" by David Lowery's other band, Cracker.
  • "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder was covered by Ray Charles 3 years later in his own style. The two would eventually perform live on stage, mixing their styles.
  • Tears for Fears:
    • According to Roland Orzabal, "Mothers Talk" was an attempt at mimicking the style of Talking Heads.
    • "I Believe" is in the style of Robert Wyatt. The song was originally offered to Wyatt, but he declined. The band also covered his "Sea Song" from Rock Bottom on the B-side of the "I Believe (A Soulful Re-Recording)" single.
    • "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams" is essentially the lyrics of "Sowing the Seeds of Love" rapped over the chord pattern of "Shout" in a trip-hop style with "a Talking Heads-style chorus."
    • The "No Small Thing" music video takes after the experimental non-narrative film Koyaanisqatsi.
  • Kevin Miller's "The Beachstie Boys" sets the lyrics of Beastie Boys' "Fight For Your Right (To Party)" to the tune of The Beach Boys' "I Get Around" - the lyrics only needed to be slightly bowdlerized note  to seem like something the early Beach Boys would have written as well.
  • The Electronic Anthology Project is a musical project of Built to Spill bassist Brett Nelson which is centered around the idea of turning guitar-based Indie Rock into keyboard-based New Wave Music, with the help of the original songs' vocalists - thus far they've released EPs covering Built to Spill and Dinosaur Jr., as well as a single covering two Death Cab for Cutie songs.
  • Aries Beats remade Bomfunk M Cs' 2000 D&B hit "Freestyler" as a Synthwave instrumental.
  • Outto-Tune Tyrone on NoPixel, who normally makes rap and R&B songs, has a song called "Don't Tell Benji", which is done in the style of early-2000's pop-punk like Bowling for Soup, Good Charlotte, or Fountains of Wayne. OTT even lampshades this in the opening lyrics, saying it's a throwback to the early 2000's.
  • Half of Taco's debut album After Eight consists of '80s synthpop renditions of '30s and '40s jazz-pop hits, including his only international hit, "Puttin' on the Ritz".
  • Pianist George Feyer's Heavenly Echoes of My Fair Lady has ten songs from the musical on the first side, while the second contains nine of the same songs performed in the style of different classical composers.
  • Caitlin Myers, following her English Translated Cover Version of Mariya Takeuchi's "Plastic Love", produced a Japanese City Pop cover of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" with @annapantsu, @LilyPuchi, and Lizz Robinett.
  • "One Bad Apple" by The Osmonds is a very blatant soundalike of The Jackson 5, with the main difference being that they invert the J5 formula by having an older brother (Merrill) sing lead and a younger brother (Donny) doing interjections. Reportedly the song was actually written for the Jacksons to begin with.
  • Given that every track on their albums (with a few exceptions) is in a different style, Ween have done this several times. "L.M.L.Y.P." is inspired by (and directly quotes) Prince, "Bananas and Blow" is a Jimmy Buffett song about cocaine instead of margaritas, and "It's Gonna Be A Long Night" is essentially a Motörhead song.
  • '80s Synth-Pop trio Bronski Beat accordingly updated the Gershwin brothers' "It Ain't Necessarily So". In turn, Plastic Noise Experience produced an aggressive Industrial cover of Bronski Beat's Signature Song "Smalltown Boy", whilst Paradise Lost did a Goth Rock version.
  • Aggro-EBM duo Decoded Feedback covered The Frozen Autumn's "Again" on their 1998 album Bio-Vital, then TFA correspondingly covered the Title Track of said album in their signature Dark Wave style.
  • After Prince Royce sampled Cutting Crew's "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" in his bachata song "Te Espero", DJ Mambeezy did a bachata remix of the original song.
  • Chubby Checker did a rock 'n' roll version of "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady.
  • Auralnauts recorded an "epic trailer version" of "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" for their "How To Make A Blockbuster Trailer" parody. Then, they had to release it as a standalone song just because it got so popular.
  • Mariachi Entertainment System perform mariachi covers of tunes from various media, but primarily video games, hence their name. Case in point: Guile's Theme.
  • Frank Sinatra did "Baubles, Bangles and Beads" from Kismet as a samba.
  • YBZ's "Now That I Found You" is a Eurodance floor filler in its main mix, but the Pop 'n Groove remix completely reworks it into a late '80s New Jack Swing throwback.

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