14 YouTube Videos I’m Recommending Right Now

A few days ago, a reader chided me for recommending YouTube videos. He told me I was just wasting time. Ouch!

He has a point, though—many of the videos on the platform are lackluster. But if you know where to look, there’s plenty to educate, entertain, and enlighten even the most snobbish viewer.

In that spirit, I share fourteen recent YouTube videos of exceptional merit. Feel free to add your own recommendations in the comments.

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I pay close attention to those indie virtuosos who build their careers on YouTube—many have no choice, because they are ignored by the major labels. The big music companies lost interest in this kind of spectacular musicianship long ago. So these hyper-talented individuals bypass the gatekeepers, and go directly to the fans.

Polish guitarist Marcin Patrzałek is one of these self-made viral stars. In a fairer world, artists of this caliber would have institutional support. But we don’t live in that world. So Marcin takes everything into his own (very capable) hands.

He recently released a video in response to critics who insist that playing guitar at this level has to be fake. The real-time transcription is a nice addition.

Marcin didn’t invent this dazzling style of percussive finger-tapping on the fretboard. (A lot of this tradition comes out of my old Palo Alto neighborhood, where Michael Hedges and Stanley Jordan did wonderful things on their six strings.) But he is taking it to another level.

If you’re game for more, here’s another recent video from Marcin. He claims this is his hardest guitar composition. It makes you wonder why this kind of music—which is viscerally appealing even if you know nothing about the guitar—gets so little attention on TV and other corporate media platforms.

I was a formidable Scrabble player in my youth. But I could never compete with Nigel Richards, the greatest Scrabbler of them all. He’s so good he can even win tournaments in French, although he doesn’t know how to speak the language.

David Eldar, another Scrabble champion of note, has claimed that Richards is “the best player at any game that ever existed….He’s not human.”

This video gives some insight into how he does it. But it still seems like magic.

Can a nuclear engineer save Guitar Center—a company that filed for bankruptcy during the COVID lockdown. The Wall Street Journal thinks so.

I know very little about the singer featured below. But I’ve carefully trained my YouTube algorithm, and it now gives me useful recommendations from off the beaten path. The platform recently served up this gem.