What's up, everyone? It's Monday, and that means yet another edition of my weekly musical variety series.

Up first is a song from one of the best metal bands out of Finland (and that's saying something), Children of Bodom. Children of Bodom are an interesting case of a metal band that's very difficult to classify. They don't fit neatly into any of the hundreds of subgenres that comprise contemporary metal. They're not quite melodic death metal, and some even call them extreme power metal (though that seems wrong to my ear). This is a song from one of their better albums, "Are You Dead Yet?" This is a song I like to listen to before football games to get me pumped. This is "In Your Face"

This next one I just stumbled on, and I have to say it's much better than I expected it would be. Interpol is one of my favorite Indie bands, and I've always liked the sound of The Killers, so finding a The Killers cover of one of my favorite Interpol songs was a wonderful surprise for me. Please listen and enjoy:

In this next song, hot off the presses (literally just dropped yesterday in video form), one of the greatest rappers of our time drops a hot load of truth on his contemporaries. Humble is on its surface a celebration of the kind of decadent, braggadocious ethos of contemporary rappers, but beneath that surface veneer is a rather pointed attack against it. The standout for me is when Kendrick criticizes the unrealistic standards of female beauty in rap culture and calls for more realistic depictions of women ("Show me something natural like ass with some stretch marks"). Kendrick Lamar's done it again with "Humble"

This Saturday I'm beyond excited to get to see Zucchero live in concert again in Ft Lauderdale. Should be a fantastic show. In celebration of that, here's one of the hottest hits from his newest bluesy-rock offering, "Black Cat." This is "Ti Voglio Sposare," featuring Tomoyasu Hotei, the guitarist most famous for composing and performing "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" (AKA the Kill Bill Theme).

Lastly is a song I've wanted to get out in previous editions but could never fit in. It was supposed to go into the latest guitar-centric edition, but then I got into a rabbit hole of neoclassical music. This is an instrumental from the melodic death metal band Opeth, a song with the quite fitting name "Epilogue." Indeed, it does sound like the end of something with the mordant organ music that undergirds the shredding guitar.