30 Comments on “Today’s ZOMFG Moment”

1. Cool. But does it really count as a capella if there’s drums?

2. I think if someone tried to do Lars Ulrich’s drums a capella his lungs would explode. So I’m willing to give that a pass in this case.

3. That is totally awesome!

4. It seems they don’t do “disco pop”

   http://www.vancanto.de/?nav=25

   We play Heavy Metal A Capella. Melodic metal songs, arranged for 5 singers and one drummer. All instruments that would be played by musicians in a regular metalband are imitated by our voices. Bass, guitars, solos, keyboard sounds. On top we put two lead singers, a male one and a female one. But we left the drums what they are, as we do not do disco pop.

5. I think that forcing somebody to make Lars Ulrich drum noises until their lungs exploded onstage would be a very metal thing to do.

6. Amazing to be able to do that. I was amazed for the 1st 2 minutes. I have to admit it got annoying soon after.

7. Hot damn! That’s some good stuff.

8. uh?
   eba eba eba
   huh.

9. Oh, man. This just made my evening. Thanks!

10. OK, the Manowar cover, here with included video, is even better. It’s the best of the cheesy 80s metal.

    Definitely going into the playlist.

11. Thank you, this is awesome!

12. If you go to their channel on youtube, there is a version of Metallica’s Battery which is twice as cheesetastic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T57OU_32ccY

13. Oddly, that’s the second Master of Puppet links I’ve seen today. The first one involved Beaker.

14. Nice!

    I’m pretty sure I’ve heard Metallica done all-a cappella, live, including vocal percussion, at least once, probably by a college group. It requires a truly talented vocal percussionist, however, and the drum line is still just going to be close to the original at best. Possibly multiple collaborating vocal percussionists were involved.

    My first thought upon hearing the above video was “man, that vocal percussion sounds way overprocessed — no human voice can sound that much like a real drum kit”. Then I Googled the band and found the bit about “5 voices and 1 drummer”. Ohhhh.

    (Disclaimer: I may be over-sensitive to the processing of modern recorded a cappella. “Congratulations, by using computer audio processing equipment you’ve made your recording a perfect replica of the original, despite starting with voice samples! …what was the purpose of this exercise again…?”)

    That established, the background female vocals are overprocessed for my taste, and I’m similarly dubious on the “guitar” solo — somebody spent some time with an equalizer and ProTools on that part, or I’ll eat my nonexistent Fender — but it’s still pretty awesome, and if they’re anything close to this live I’d love to see them in concert.

15. This was an awesome thing to wake up to on a foggy morning!

16. The a capella version was simply awesome, and made my morning. The Muppet version, linked to in Mary @13’s comment, was so weird and right, I just don’t know what to do with myself.

    I think it’s going to be a strange day today. Indeed.

17. \m/

18. That may be the most awesome thing I’ve heard this year.

19. I absolutely love Van Canto!! Especially their cover of Blind Guardians Bards Song is great!!

20. Epic Win, FTW!

21. wow, I’m 14 again.

22. Not Heavy Metal, but here is an a capella version of Toto’s “Africa” on YouTube that includes vocal renditions of the bass and the drums – and has had over 8 million hits:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjbpwlqp5Qw

    .
    FWIW, they are an amateur choral group from Slovenia . . .

23. Sweet zombie jesus! Two \m/ up! *LOL*

24. Ladies and Gentlemen,

    Meet Dokaka, a solo Japanese a capella multitracking beatboxing rocker.

    He has worked with Bjork and is on the We Love Katamari soundrack, but is best known for covering tunes from artists such as King Crimson, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Miles Davis, and Nirvana.

    Check his website out and google for his videos and sound clips. You won’t regret it!

25. The Dokaka URL didn’t work for some reason:

    http://www.dokaka.com

26. Van Canto’s cover of Iron Maiden’s Fear of the Dark is spine tingling.

27. University of Pennsylvania’s “Off the Beat” (www.offthebeat.net) has been doing a cappella arrangements of rock songs (up to and including System of a Down) for years.

    You don’t need actual percussive drums if you have enough people beatboxing.

28. My girlfriend’s favourite band. We just got the album this is off and she’s still bouncing off the walls.

29. They’ve been playing this on the radio here in Austin for a while. It’s awesome when you hear and it takes a little bit before you realize it’s a capella.

30. I’m deeply disappointed that the title wasn’t what I initially misread it is — Master of Puppies — but that emotion was quickly replaced with impressed headbanging. Carry on.