I’m a professional music educator, y’all. I teach everything from children’s music to classical arias to Gregorian chant to musical theatre to thrash metal. So when you ask me to:
Choose your favorite song, artist, band, or orchestra, and blog about it, with a YouTube video attached.
I find the task understandably daunting.So I’m gonna try to provide a list as it comes to me, starting with Nirvana (because 
and 
brought them up, so they’re fresh on my mind, and 
suggested I list a favorite from the past 30 minutes when I lamented that I couldn’t possibly list them all.) I can’t promise I’ll embed videos for all of them because it’s past my bedtime and my vision is getting blurry.
Friday Night Date Night
Keith and I go out for Mexican every Friday, and then come home and crank the subwoofer for a YouTube music session. Along with Nirvana, our Friday night date night music lineup generally includes videos of live performances of rock music from the seventies through today, as well as “Songs I Like to Sing at the Top of My Lungs”. The setlist tends to include lots of the Eagles – both pre- and post- Joe Walsh; Soundgarden; Alice in Chains; Led Zepplin (both 70’s and reunion performances); Heart; Celine Dion; that Ella Langley song, “Choosin’ Texas”; RHCP; Linkin Park…
I’m running out of time to publish this post by midnight.
Seriously. This prompt is so unfair.
Nirvana’s album Nevermind includes classics like “Lithium”, “Come As You Are”, and of course, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, which is really fun to play on the drums.
Did you know that Tori Amos sang a cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”? It’s weird, much like Tori herself, and far different than the original, and I love it.
Pop Artists Who Play Piano
Speaking of Tori, I love an array of songs by artists who play piano and sing, including but not limited to Adele, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Lady Gaga, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Carole King, Billy Joel, and of course, Elton John, whose complete collection as of circa 1995 I still own on CD, including the “Rare Masters” box set (not that I have a CD player to play them on anymore.) Here’s a great Elton John song, which, I just realized, is uncannily relevant again today:
Did Mozart Write “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”?
He did not. What he did do is write a theme and variations based on the existing song, which was a French folk song called “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman”.
This is not your grandma’s Twinkle, people.
ACK! My favorite performance of this piece has disabled embedding!
Bastards.
Here’s the link: Mozart, Ah! vous dirai je maman Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star KV 265 on YouTube 
Opera
Mozart also wrote one of my favorite arias: “Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen”, commonly know as the “Queen of the Night” aria from The Magic Flute. Here is soprano Diana Damrau performing it at The Royal Opera in London.
But my favorite aria to sing – and to hear, but only if Mirella Freni is singing it, is “Si, Mi Chiamano Mimi” from Puccini’s La Boheme. It’s simple and lovely:
Fun fact: Mirella Freni – and Luciano Pavarotti – are from Modena, the birthplace of balsamic vinegar.
Musical Theatre
Speaking of La Boheme, let’s talk about Rent, one of my favorite musicals (yes, even better than Hamilton – but on equal ground with Wicked). I think my favorite song(s) from Rent is anything that Maureen sings, but especially this duet with her girlfriend, Joann. But Rent is the musical that taught us that a year has five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes… Honestly, the whole musical is fantastic.
I could segue like this all day, y’all. But I’m down to ten minutes remaining in the 16th of September, 2026, and I probably lost 99% of you eight videos ago.
I could dedicate a whole blog just to this topic.
Musically,
Michelle