The Best Ever ‘Minecraft’ Songs, Ranked
From parodies of Coldplay and Usher to epic original musicals and 10-hour remixes.
Minecraft is a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon.
From its beginnings as Cave Game in 2009, to the official first version, Minecraft 1.0, in 2011, to today — 17 versions later — it has withstood the test of time and will go down in history as one of the most iconic games ever created.
But this article isn’t about the game — it’s about the music the game has spawned. You see, not long after people discovered that gaming videos could do well on YouTube, Minecraft parodies of popular songs began popping up, usually accompanied by 3D-animated music videos.
The parodies quickly exploded in popularity, with some racking up hundreds of millions of views –soon, even original songs with stories were starting to be made, and they now exist as some of the most viewed pieces of Minecraft content on the platform.
Some of my fondest childhood memories are singing Minecraft parodies at school, watching the music videos when I got home, learning every word to all the raps. I may or may not still put the tracks on at parties.
“No one will understand the emotion and feeling we have for these songs, ” a comment reads on YouTube. “How everyone wanted to play this game and even if it wasn’t possible you would try and find a free version to play it… I just wanna say thank you to all the YouTubers, all the creators and the community itself for making my childhood an amazing one.”
So, with the reminiscing out of the way, here are the ten most iconic Minecraft songs and parodies, ranked in order of how much they’ll make you say “OH MY GOD I REMEMBER THIS ONE!”
#10. Jolly ol Brits — ‘Skelly Heart’
Starting off with our most ‘obscure’ song on the list, with the video sitting at a measly 7.8 million views, ‘Skelly Heart’ is a parody of the classic ‘Stereo Hearts’, and features a Minecraft skeleton singing to a player about how his heart is cold and he has no soul. Honestly, same.
#9. YOGSCAST Lewis & Simon — ‘HONEYDEWYEAYEA’
Hitting a million views in just 24 hours (no mean feat in those early days of YouTube), HONEYDEWYEAYEA is a parody of ‘What’s Up’ by 4 Non Blondes. The song is about Honeydew, a dwarf role-played by Simon (one half of the original Yogscast channel), who became best friends with a pig and then inevitably ended up frying and eating it. After he has put the pork into his ‘big dwarf belly’, the pig’s ghost appears and tells him that he shouldn’t feel bad for eating it. It’s a classic tale.
Two days after the song was put onto YouTube, a 10-hour version was released.
#8. BebopVox YOGSCAST –‘Don’t Mine At Night’
It doesn’t really matter whether you mine at night or in the daytime (monsters, or mobs, will spawn in a dark cave regardless), but it sure does make for a catchy chorus in this parody of ‘Last Friday Night’ by Katy Perry. The song was produced by a Minecraft YouTuber called BebopVox, who joined the Yogscast YouTube group just over a year later in 2014.
#7. CaptainSparklez and TryHardNinja — ‘Take Back The Night’
With ‘Take Back The Night’ comes the introduction of a couple of things crucial to the success of Minecraft songs: Minecraft the game and the YouTube gaming industry as a whole.
The first one is the fruitful partnership between CaptainSparklez and TryHardNinja. Jordan (who runs the former channel) is one of the oldest and most recognisable gaming YouTubers, still popular today with 11.2 million subscribers, eight channels, and over 3.8 billion views. TryHardNinja is one of the most prolific and talented gaming music creators in the space, and together the duo created the most memorable and nostalgic Minecraft songs out there.
The second thing I’m going to introduce here is their brainchild, a four-part musical epic called Fallen Kingdom, about a king who loses control of his empire and the fight to reclaim it from Herobrine, the ‘bogeyman’ of Minecraft.
‘Take Back The Night’ is the second video in this series, and follows the king’s son on the journey to reclaim his kingdom. It’s also the first original song on this list.
#6. Tobuscus — ‘I Can Swing My Sword’
Tobuscus basically is my entire childhood wrapped up in one channel. His ‘Animated Adventures’ series, songs and movie trailer parodies are what I grew up watching while my mum yelled at me to get off the computer.
This track tells the story of Tobuscus flexing his diamond sword (which at the time was the best weapon in the game), swinging it just about everywhere and breaking his floorboards, which he claims on tax.
#5. YOGSCAST Lewis & Simon — ‘Diggy Diggy Hole’
This original song follows a party of dwarves chanting in chorus while they mine for precious materials. The chorus was actually improvised by Simon from the Yogscast during a Minecraft playthrough in 2011 as a joke, but then blew up into a 54-million-view marvel.
#4. YOGSCAST Lewis & Simon — ‘MoonQuest: An Epic Journey’
Another banger produced by Lewis & Simon, it’s an inspirational tale of a young dwarf who wants to fly to the moon but is shut down by the other dwarves who say his dream is ridiculous and that “he’d fail if he tried”. Again, a classic tale.
Eventually, teaming up with the other members of the Yogscast, he builds a rocket and achieves his dream *wipes tear*. The song is based off a popular Let’s Play series the channel did of the same name.
#3.YOGSCAST Lewis & Simon — ‘Screw the Nether’ (Moves Like Jagger Parody)
The Yogscast really were a prolific group. In this parody they move to the Nether, or Minecraft’s version of hell, and then realise that it was a fucking terrible idea, that they miss nature and end up returning to the overworld. Fair enough.
#2. CaptainSparklez And TryHardNinja — ‘Fallen Kingdom’
The first instalment in the aforementioned Fallen Kingdom series, this parody of Coldplay’s ‘Viva La Vida’ depicts the epic tale of the king who lost his people and his kingdom to Herobrine. Honestly, quite a chilling song. It currently sits at 140 million views.
#1. CaptainSparklez And TryHardNinja — ‘Revenge’
No other Minecraft song could claim this spot. A parody of Usher’s ‘DJ Got Us Fallin In Love’, it opens with a player being killed by a creeper (a monster that explodes), and the most memorable words uttered in the Minecraft community — even today, if you say ‘creeper’, people will respond with ‘AWWWWWW MAAAAANNN’.
The song was such a wild success — it’s racked up nearly million views at the time of writing — that it spawned countless memes and covers, the remix of the track also slaps incredibly hard.
In 2019, alongside the resurgence of Minecraft on YouTube with creators such as PewDiePie and the rise of the Hermitcraft Let’s Play server, ‘Revenge’ hit #1 on the Genius lyric charts. To celebrate, CaptainSparklez released a spoof Genius video, which is SO good I didn’t even notice it was fake until I checked the description:
Joshi Perera is a writer, photographer, producer, and Minecraft fanatic based in Sydney. Follow him on Twitter.