Vitamin String Quartet


Vitamin String Quartet is a musical group from Los Angeles, California, that is widely known for its series of tribute albums to rock and pop acts.
Vitamin String Quartet, or VSQ, is not a string quartet in the traditional sense. Rather, VSQ is a series of string quartet projects developed and produced by CMH Label Group, an independent record company based in Los Angeles. The CMH team works with an ever-evolving cast of arrangers, producers, string players and other creatives to bring each project to life. Their albums are released through Vitamin Records and primarily performed by a string quartet, though other instruments have been used. "Vitamin String Quartet is about applying rock n' roll attitude to classical technique," says Tom Tally, a violist and arranger who has performed on and produced over fifty Vitamin String Quartet albums.
Their albums honor a wide variety of genres, including pop and rock, metal, emo, punk, techno, country, and hip-hop, and a wide variety of groups, such as Oasis, Simple Plan, Queen, Led Zeppelin, The Offspring, Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Senses Fail, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Bruce Springsteen, Jimi Hendrix, The Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Modest Mouse, System of a Down, The Killers, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coldplay, Linkin Park, Muse, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Slayer, Adele, Lady Gaga, Lana Del Rey and many more. Their discography includes over 400 albums.
The group began in 1999 "as an experiment in transforming rock songs with classical instruments." It later expanded to include a variety of popular music.
From 2012 until 2014, their music was played 24 hours a day on FM broadcast station WWHK in Concord, New Hampshire.

In popular culture

In 2008, VSQ contributed a recording of "Jack and Sally Montage" to Nightmare Revisited, on which the original score for the 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas was reinterpreted by bands like Tiger Army, The All-American Rejects, Plain White T's, Rise Against, and DeVotchKa.
Songs by Vitamin String Quartet were featured on the Fox television show So You Think You Can Dance twice in 2008. "Control" from Vitamin String Quartet Tribute To Janet Jackson appeared on an episode that aired 7/30/08 and "Hallelujah" from Vitamin String Quartet Tribute To Paramore appeared on an episode that aired 7/31/08. Songs appeared again on the show in Season 6 2009. Legacy Perez used Flashing Lights as a track for a solo elimination dance which aired 9/12/2009. "Yellow", originally by Coldplay, featured on the show as guest dancers on the Top 10 elimination show, The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers. This episode aired 2/12/2009.
In June 2009, they branched out by including a few original songs on their album Per_Versions, which also included covers of bands such as Broken Social Scene, No Age and Sigur Rós.
The Vitamin String Quartet's cover of The Rolling Stone's "As Tears Go By" was used in the season 5 finale of the TV show House on May 11, 2009.
Two songs from Vitamin String Quartet Tribute to Coldplay, "Yellow" and "Clocks," were used in an episode of TV show The Vampire Diaries on April 22, 2010.
In 2011, Vitamin String Quartet backed up Thirty Seconds to Mars for their MTV Unplugged performance, and appeared on the EP recording of the concert.
Vitamin String Quartet covered INXS's "Never Tear Us Apart" and Pat Benatar's "We Belong" in the 100th episode of Gossip Girl.
Vitamin String Quartet's cover of "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros was featured in the finale of the fifth season of Modern Family on May 21, 2014.
Vitamin String Quartet's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Something I Can Never Have" was featured in the fifth episode of the first season of the HBO series Westworld, "Contrapasso," and their cover of Radiohead's "Motion Picture Soundtrack" was featured in episode six, "The Adversary."

Partial discography

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