Alex Melton and His Genius Alternative Rock Music Covers

As someone who’s obsessed with finding new and innovative covers of my favorite songs from my youth, I was quite fortunate to stumble across the YouTube channel of Alex Melton. I first became aware of Alex through a collaboration between him and First to Eleven with a cover of Dua Lipa’s “Levitating,” one of the few recent pop songs that I quite enjoy. While his true talents weren’t fully on display, his vocals were good enough to intrigue me to check out his channel.

When I actually went to Alex’s YouTube channel, I discovered that Alex plays all of the instruments on top of singing. While there are quite a few on YouTube that do this, not as many people do that as well as Alex does on YouTube, while also adding his own spin to them. I was immediately taken with his covers which turn popular 90’s and 2000’s songs into what if’s, especially the ones where he mimics Blink 182, to the point that if you weren’t paying attention, you would think it was actually Blink 182 doing the covers. He also does Y’Allternative covers where he has countrified versions of alternative radio hits. These I don’t quite as enjoy so much, but they’re good for what they are, and his performances are excellent.

In his more recent videos, he’s begun to make his covers more his own personal style, often changing the drums to half-time, which alters the entire arrangement of the song. He’s even started adding comedy sketches at the beginning and end of his covers, which are all hilarious. Alex even works in a way to mention his Patreon and Spotify page in a humorous way. Also, the Worship Band sketches are particularly fun for me to watch; they are not meant to be a disrespect in any way, but they have plenty of tongue-in-cheek humor in them, and the jokes I appreciate after growing up going to a Baptist church regularly until I was a teenager.

But, the particular cover I wish to feature here probably showcases Alex’s talent in the most succinct way possible. In this video, he performs a pop punk cover of “Fireflies” by Owl City. But, to switch things up, he plays the drums in the style of eight different bands, while also ever so slightly altering his vocal style to that of that drummer’s band’s lead singer. It’s a brilliant cover that flows quite naturally despite the quick changes between drumlines. See how many of the drummers and bands you can guess, before he reveals them in the video; I guessed them all correctly, because I like every single one of the bands featured.

If that song isn’t really your taste, he did something very similar with a cover with Every Breath You Take, except he not only did the drums and vocals, but also the bass guitar, also doing the other guitars in the background. I especially love the bit where the bass player and the drummer are having a conversation on how important the rhythm section is to the flow of a song (especially hilarious since they are both Alex.) Yes, rhythm sections are massively important, BTW.

What really impresses me most about his covers is just how seamless the editing is, and as far as I know, he does a lot of the editing by himself; although I’m pretty sure he has someone to help mix everything now. He’s done live performances, too, so this is not a product of purely software whatsoever. I can’t imagine how long each of these covers actually take to record, produce, edit, and mix.

Yes, Alex Melton is far from the only one-man band on YouTube, but he’s definitely among my favorites. Apparently I’m not alone, because in the past couple of years, his channel has exploded in popularity. As of September 27, 2022, Alex has 342 thousand subscribers. That’s a decent number, even in YouTube’s ever declining ad revenue, plus his 200 patrons on Patreon. Clearly, he’s doing a lot right, and with how hard it is to make it on YouTube these days – it took him 10 years to get to this point, by the way – I love to see success stories like this, especially when they just keep doing their own thing and never sell out.

Who are your favorite music artists to watch on YouTube?