Mental Floss

MUSIC

notthesa.me

For music videos, just standing in front of a camera and pretending to play your hit single doesn’t cut it anymore. These amazing modern videos don’t just let fans watch and listen—they give the viewers control.

Rebecca OConnell
getty images

Musicians often get inspiration from their own record collections. Beyond musical style, on-stage persona, and look, some bands directly take their names from songs or lyrics from another band.

Rudie Obias
Beethoven-Haus, Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

Stubborn and self-involved, dramatic yet loving of his friends, Ludwig van Beethoven was a virtuoso pianist and canonical composer of dozens of symphonies, concertos for piano, piano sonatas, and string quartets.

Gili Malinsky




Getty Images / Rialto Pictures

Whether it’s a large orchestral score or the hushed strumming of a lone guitar, the music in a film is an essential part of the whole. But sometimes, instead of a traditional score or multi-artist soundtrack, filmmakers choose a single act to provide the

Sean Hutchinson




ThinkStock

But making videos wasn’t all glamour. Behind the scenes, the long days were filled with vomit, blood, and diarrhea. Here’s a brief look at the injuries and ailments behind some of the decade’s most iconic videos.

Mandy Savoie








Youtube

Bill Murray is always doing awesome things—including singing any chance he can get. Here are a few videos of Murray covering famous songs.

Erin McCarthy


Getty Images

People love to complain about today’s music. All the lyrics are too bland, repetitive, and racy. So thank goodness we have a canon of treasured composers to fall back on! You know, guys like Mozart. He wrote songs with substance.

Lucas Reilly






YouTube

It was 50 years ago this week that the Beatles first landed in the U.S. and set off a wave of Beatlemania from coast to coast with their historic appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. By the end of the 1960s, their music had spread worldwide, not only in th

Arika Okrent
ThinkStock

Classical music seems to have a reputation for being straight-laced, stuffy, and obsessed with rules. But over the centuries, hundreds of composers have tested the boundaries of musical expression in strange and unique ways. Here are ten prime examples.

College Weekend
Getty Images

There are some Christmas songs that don't get a lot of attention because they're dark, even by non-holiday song standards.

Danny Gallagher