Metallica, REM, Led Zeppelin & Queen Sung in the Style of Gregorian Chant

Gre­go­ri­an chants became a thing very briefly in the ear­ly 1990s, when Ger­man elec­tron­ic group Enig­ma com­bined them with the Soul II Soul “Keep On Movin’” drum loop and that ever­p­re­sent shakuhachi sam­ple for “Sad­ness Part One”. And then that song was *every­where* for the first half of the 90s, giv­ing rise to chill­out music like the Orb and The Future Sound of Lon­don.

Gre­go­ri­an music fad­ed away as a trend in dance music, but it’s nev­er real­ly gone away. Bol­stered by some claims that the sooth­ing voic­es help increase alpha waves in the brain, groups like Gre­go­ri­an (cre­at­ed by Enigma’s Frank Peter­son) set about arrang­ing pop songs in the Gre­go­ri­an style, start­ing in 1999.

Oth­ers have fol­lowed suit, or should I say fol­lowed cowl (such as Aus­cul­tate, which cre­at­ed the Queen cov­er below).

But Gre­go­ri­an (the group) is the king of them all, and Petersen’s project has gone on to sell over 5.5 mil­lion albums.

Corny or not, the project is immense­ly pop­u­lar world­wide, and has pro­duced ten “Mas­ters of Chant” albums, along with Christ­mas CDs and such. And while our cur­rent pop stars have to get into ath­let­ic con­di­tion for their Vegas-like shows, there’s some­thing to be said for a group of blokes just stand­ing around on stage singing in uni­son like they’re in a crypt. Looks like a decent gig. Here’s a full con­cert:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A YouTube Chan­nel Com­plete­ly Devot­ed to Medieval Sacred Music: Hear Gre­go­ri­an Chant, Byzan­tine Chant & More

The His­to­ry of Clas­si­cal Music in 1200 Tracks: From Gre­go­ri­an Chant to Górec­ki (100 Hours of Audio)

Expe­ri­ence the Mys­ti­cal Music of Hilde­gard Von Bin­gen: The First Known Com­pos­er in His­to­ry (1098 – 1179)

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.