I was just randomly looking around YouTube for some music to listen to and I stumbled upon “On The Rocks”, who according to their website are “the University of Oregon’s premiere all male a capella ensemble”. After watching quite a few of their videos I have to say, they are pretty good!

Looking into it a bit further, I discovered a whole a capella university thing with hundreds of these groups in universities all around America. America really does seem to know how to make university awesome fun…

My favourite so far of the “On The Rocks” performances is definitely this video in which they Rick Roll the NYC Subway:

The first video I saw of theirs which was also pretty good was their cover of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”:

Here’s another group called Discord from the University of Pennsylvania singing Everything by Michael Bublé:

Overall I’m pretty impressed. I love finding people making music through talent and great voices rather than auto tune and digital touch ups.

Reward for those making it to the end of the post – UC Santa Cruz sing “I’m on a Boat” (for those who’ve never seen the original clip – it is hilarious):

I was looking around on YouTube and started finding a few songs which have been covered by other artists. Sure, it’s great to hear average people with great voices cover songs but it’s also interesting to hear a celebrity sing a song other than their own (by celebrity I mean an established artist who has generally reached fame and status). It’s always intriguing to hear a song sung by someone else with a different sound so I thought I’d put them all in a post for anyone else interested in hearing a few song covers! My favourites are definitely the Paramore cover of Kings of Leon, Green Day’s cover of Queen and definitely Michael Buble’s cover of Maroon 5 (listen to it!).

Paramore cover Kings of Leon – Use Somebody
Absolutely love this version of the song. I’m not sure what it is but I’m not a big fan of Kings of Leon at all (not a big fan of their sound for some reason), something about Paramore’s cover really helped me enjoy the song a lot more…

Guy Sebastian covers Miley Cyrus – The Climb
He does a pretty good job, as is to be expected by the brilliant voice he has!

Daughtry covers Lady Gaga – Poker Face
It might not match the original but I still enjoyed this acoustic version!

Green Day covers Queen – We Are the Champions
I enjoyed this! It would have been amazing to be in that crowd…

Michael Buble covers Maroon 5 – This Love
Definitely not as good as the original. Please – listen to it at least until the second verse, it becomes brilliant!!!

Mandy Moore covers Rhianna – Umbrella
Totally different sound when Mandy Moore covers this song. I’m not a big fan of either version but it was interesting enough to include here.

Katy Perry covers Sam Sparro – Black and Gold
Not a big fan of either song but thought Katy Perry did it quite well.