Top 10 Video Game Cover Bands!

What are the best video game cover bands out there? Well, since taste is subjective and the true quality of music cannot be measured in any objective way, this will forever be a question left unresolved. However, I have made a list here of the bands that I think are the best video game cover bands on Spotify.

I actually had to drop a bunch of bands and I feel sort of bad for those guy, maybe I'll make another post like this if this one works out.

Daniel Tidwell

I been talking around this guy for quite a while, he has come up a lot when I talked about cover bands, and I have always put him as the sort of gold standard for pure covers.

Sure, brentalfloss sings and his covers are great, Year 200X do metal covers as well, but with a somewhat dirtier sound, Entertainment System are much like Year 200X in that regards, TheOneUps, much more Jazzy  Funky, Daniel Tidewell has a very clean and very skillful cover of the songs he does.

He also does my gold standards for covers: The Moon (Ducktales) and Bubbleman (Mega Man 2), and I want to throw in my new bonus song there, Bloody Tears (Castlevania II).
(Again, where is my Bionic Commando Cover?)

Daniel has actually done a lot of non-game related stuff as well, but we don't care about that stuff on this blog, so we have 2 albums, 1 EP and 2 Single to share.

Bonus links: (Official page, Facebook, Youtube)

Armcannon

Armcannon joins the ranks of The OneUps and The Megas in making interpretations of classic video game music rather than strict covers.

Genre vise we are talking metal-prog-glam, and they are mostly in the no-vocals gang, not counting the I'm A Real Sexy American Boy and a few others that have some vocal work.

I find this band very technically capable and they have quite a few classic tunes, so I suggest you check out both their albums on Spotify.

The Megas

Ah, the Megas, I been holding off talking about these guys for a while, but only to avoid blowing my load on all the good bands right off the bat.

The Megas have been around since 2004 and released their awesome debut album, Get Equipped, in 2008. The group is composed of four lads (Mike, Eric, Greg and Josh) whose great purpose in life is to spread the story of Megaman and Dr. Light.

The Megas cover the original Mega Man 2 chip tunes, but seamlessly blend their own compositions into the mix as well as overlaying everything with lyrics.

I have been into game music since dawn of music sharing, but it was mostly chip tunes and rock/metal covers of well known game tunes. There was a full blown soundtrack here and there (looking at you Quake Soundtrack) but when I heard The Annihilation of Monsteropolis I was blown away.

This was not what the Neskimos and the Minibosses gave, (Neither of those on Spotify btw, a shame) no this told a story, and I had never thought about Megaman like that. I started to think of video game music in a different way, and found stuff like The OneUps, Armcannon the and later The Protomen.

I might have fallen into these bands at a later stage, but I could not have asked for a better start on my journey into the Video Game Music Scene.

You can find The Megas website here if you want to learn more about them.

The OneUps

The OneUps is an independent video game music cover band from Fayetteville, Arkansas, US, formed in 2000. They play arrangements of game music from companies such as Nintendo, Square Enix and Sega, with a style of funk, jazz and rock.

I first discovered these guy back in 2008 when I found the Volume 1 album while looking for some game music. I loved their Isle Delfino cover along with Town Medley from Zelda 2 - The Adventures of Link (Secret best Zelda ever).

When I discovered Volume 2 I fell even more in love with these guys. Their Air Man cover is packed with awesome along with the Punch Out! cover.

Their two last albums are Super Mario Kart Album and Intergalactic Redux. Super Mario Kart Album is 10 song compilation of all the best Mario Kart soundtracks out there.

Intergalactic Redux is a reimagining of several great classic themes,or as they describe it themselves: A collection of cosmic creations concocted for the most cognitive cochleae capable of conscious comprehension - re-imagined, re-arranged and re-recorded by The OneUps.

You can find their website here: http://www.theoneups.com/