32 Amazing Music Tattoos for Men in 2024
Music is like tattoo art, reflecting a personal relationship manifesting time, place, emotion, and self-expression. Music tattoos for men are almost unlimited in style, theme, and manner of application. Whether it’s a music note, your favorite instrument, or a tribute to your favorite superstar, there’s a musical ink idea that’s perfect for you.
But before you go and get your music tattoo, let us help guide you in choosing the perfect piece of ink. Below we’ll show you the most impressive, exciting, and fantastic music tattoos in 2024. You’ll surely be inspired with the perfect idea of which tattoo style to get, as well as the size, and exact placement on your body.
With that said, let’s begin.
The Best Music Tattoos for Men - Men’s AC/DC Color Portrait Tattoo
This neo-traditional portrait tattoo is a colorful tribute to AC/DC guitarist Angus Young. I like the realistic portrayal of Young – famed for wearing his schoolboy uniform on stage – its combination with the band’s logo, ringing bell, and bright orange flame filler.
IG: magicinkmagz
Abstract Astronaut and Music Tattoo Design
This fine-detail astronaut tattoo melds a musical backing theme (represented by the pipes) with a geometric application style. I like how the themes merge to create the secondary imagery behind the realistic spaceman and add framing depth to the piece.
IG: koittattoo
Men’s Musical Sleeve Tattoo
This tremendous sleeve tattoo utilizes a musical theme by depicting heavily stylized parts of instruments. There’s the stylus part of a record player, the strings and inputs of an electric guitar, and a skull that’s wearing headphones. The bright blue shade filler helps accentuate the close-up details in the black and gray central imagery.
IG: pimtotattoo
“It Runs Through Me” Music Tattoo
I love how this inner bicep tattoo brings the concept of “It Runs Through Me” to life. The piece combines tremendous gray wash shading in the woman’s face with the stylized straight lines representing the strings of a guitar. The tattoo is an innovative and exciting tribute to music’s effect on us.
IG: this.is.uv
Men’s Guitar Music Tattoo Design
This man’s tattoo is a tribute to his two loves: his daughter and music. I love the deconstruction of the guitar; instead of a full-length instrument, the artist cleverly depicts the illustrated sound hole along with the guitar neck (a thoughtful use of available space). The black ink silhouette of his daughter shows her on a swing made from strings, singing in accompaniment.
IG: ericksilvatattoo
Blackwork Banjo Raccoon Tattoo
I’m always up for a large-scale thigh tattoo depicting a raccoon playing the banjo; it’s both an innovative concept and design style. The blackwork application is wicked to describe the animal rock star; I like the contrast between stipple-shaded gray fur and the clean line art of the raccoon’s neck and facial features.
IG: lipkalilla
Summer Tunes Music Tattoo for Men
I like the old-school feeling of summer this tattoo creates by crafting the throwback young lady design. She’s drinking a milkshake and listening to music on a ghetto blaster, with palm trees in the background, a classic vibe of the carefree past. The artist’s use of targeted orange ink – in the headphones, tape deck, and woman’s make-up – adds to the vibrant summer effect built around the whip-shaded blackwork in the central imagery.
IG: enfant_timide
Stipple Geometric Men’s Music Tattoo
This fine-detail inner forearm tattoo combines the love of music with fantastic geometric application. I love how the acoustic guitar is chopped, screwed, separated, and then combined with geometric shapes and an excellent pair of realistic landscape insets.
IG: yatatts
American Traditional Phonograph Music Tattoo
The phonograph was the precursor to the record player – an instrument for reproducing sounds using the vibration of a needle (stylus), following a groove on a rotating disc. This old-school phonograph is etched in the American traditional style of application, which features a flat, limited color pattern, bold black ink lines, and minimal shading.
IG: lafuitetattoo
Blackwork Drake Portrait Tattoo
The fine-detail portrait tattoo features award-winning rapper Drake. The design is a superb reproduction that could come straight from a magazine cover. The small orange owl tattooed adjacent to Drake represents his label OVO, “Our Very Own.”
IG: pelleossa_ink
Realistic Men’s Fender Guitar Tattoo
Fender electric guitars are the most recognizable on the planet (unless you love the Flying V), and this brilliant tattoo replicates one of their coolest models, the Telecaster. The artist uses base black ink for the body and stipple-shaded relief panel, then perfectly applies white ink highlights to recreate the guitar strings, frets, pickups, and pots. If you love guitars, then you’ll love this body art!
IG: yeontaan
Colorful DeeJay Music Tattoo for Men
Musical notes, upraised arms, and a stylized record deck make up this killer music tattoo. The application style – realism and street art – communicates good vibes and pumping sound, an idea accentuated by the excellent use of vibrant blue, purple, and aqua ink filler.
IG: barantattooart
American Traditional Gramophone Tattoo
Another word for the phonograph is the gramophone. This American traditional calf tattoo differs from the previous one in the gallery by using predominantly yellow ink for the color element. I like the negative space skulls applied in the gramophone’s base.
IG: niamhxgannon
Futuristic Cyber Music Tattoo
This unique sleeve tattoo combines a music theme with the Hannya mask and cyberpunk elements. In Japanese Noh theater (and tattooing), a Hannya mask transforms a woman from beautiful to terrifying- the horns represent great anger. The music in this tattoo is referenced by the bright neon colors attached to the top figure’s headpiece and transported through the other figures with aux cords, pipes, and headphones.
IG: leitetattoo
Grasshopper Big Bass Music Tattoo
You won’t find many wilder tattoo ideas than a grasshopper playing the standing bass. The masterful realistic-style design utilizes black and gray ink in various shades, patterns, and line angles. The clean geometric angles and textures used to create the insect’s shell are particularly beautiful when contrasted against the circular shapes in its’ facial features.
IG: this.is.uv
Bold-School Accordion Bear Music Tattoo
This bold black tattoo shows a bear playing the accordion. It’s a tremendous mix of fundamentals – bold black ink, thick lines, and packed grayscale shading – enhanced by a modern neo-traditional arrangement. The different gray shades depicted help showcase the artist’s impeccable technique.
Men’s Geometric Music Tattoo Design
This brilliant forearm tattoo is called “graphic vision.” I like the central music theme – represented by the stylized record in the tattoo’s middle – and how it’s built with geometric lines, shapes, and patterns. I love how the fascinating geometric style makes you want to follow different composition parts to see where they take you.
IG: judz.ttt
Watercolor Musical Note Tattoo on Man’s Forearm
I love the simplicity of this watercolor musical note tattoo. It’s clean and crisp, matching a precise black ink note with two expertly applied ink splashes. I like how the watercolor parts are flecked with more substantial dots of blue and purple ink, adding depth to the overall design.
IG: cientattoo
Slipknot (Corey Taylor) Music Tattoo
This heavy ink black and gray tattoo shows Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor in action. All the members of Slipknot wear masks; this is the version Taylor wore after the release of the 2008 album “All Hope Is Gone.” While the ink is all about the mask, the technical skill used to create leather details in the gloves and coat is exceptional, and I like the way the black microphone has a different, sleeker texture than the other dark parts of the design.
IG: stevotattoos
American Traditional “Memorial for Ty” Music Tattoo
This American Traditional piece is a memorial music tattoo done for the client, Ty. It’s about a deceased, likely elderly family member, as the DOB reads 12/01/27. The central part of the design is an expertly etched harmonica wrapped by the banner of initials and date. Old-school flowers surround the image in a wreath-like arrangement that adds framing depth and fits alongside pre-existing body art.
Delicate Woman and Music Tattoo
The music theme is a secondary concept in this beautiful, subtly crafted single-needle tattoo. The woman holds a tuning fork, and she has a conductor’s wand in one of the disembodied hands (used to create the idea of movement). Finally, deft musical notes float in the air around the woman as she plays.
IG: kromatique
“Music in My Heart” Geometric Tattoo for Men
This intelligent, incredibly unique single-needle sleeve tattoo is described as “Music in My Heart.” There are a lot of geometric images, shapes, and patterns – including Metatron’s Cube, the solar system, a light bulb, and the Tree of Life – combined with different types of musical notes, line art, and code. It’s a visionary tattoo example melding clean lines, image placement, and flow from the client’s shoulder to wrist.
IG: gab7sz
Men’s Realistic Saxophone Music Tattoo
This exceptional realistic saxophone tattoo couldn’t have been done 15-20 years ago – it would have had to be black and gray. The development in quality tattoo ink means that you can recreate the shiny instrument by pairing metallic colors and technical skills to make a life-like image.
IG: jooa_tattoo
Geometric Michael Jackson Music Tattoo
This brilliant fine-detail tattoo pays tribute to Michael Jackson by combining realism with various geometric shapes and patterns. I love how the artist has crafted the illusion of movement with the deft use of grayscale shading and the smaller MJ image adjacent to the central one.
IG: johny_bozoki
Simple Playlist Music Tattoo
This small forearm tattoo resembles a streaming player on your phone or laptop. I like the simplicity of composition, with a linework band running around the client’s arm, simple features, and a dotwork point set at 02.13 minutes into the song.
IG: ai_tattoo_
Men’s Black and Gray Cassette Tape Music Tattoo
Kids of the 80s and 90s know how important the blank cassette tape was to your love and enjoyment of music – and the horror that an unspooled tape could create. This black and gray tattoo is a remarkable ode to the cassette. I love the handwritten ‘’High Times” label, the complex composition of the cassette tape’s edge, and the tape thread that bursts free from its housing.
IG: santo_tattoo
Absurdist Men’s Music Tattoo
This “Music is the Answer Tattoo” is equally strange and wonderful – I love it! The absurdist design features a few clever application tricks: gray wash shading to craft the record/penny farthing wheel, impressive layers of squares giving the disco ball its radiance, and a nifty linework pattern that adds detail to the snail’s sticky skin. Come for the weird idea. Stay for the excellent execution!
IG: kolomnie_tattoo
Blackwork Mic and Guitar Music Tattoo
This inner forearm tattoo matches an old-school guitar body and microphone. I love the heavy gray wash shading application that gives the design subtlety and depth, but the negative space is the tattoo’s star – it’s used for the guitar’s detail work, including the strings, pickups, frets, and the wah-wah arm.
Men’s ECG and Sheet Music Tattoo
This inner forearm tattoo is a crisply delivered combination of sheet music and ECG image, depicting the idea that music is life. The artist’s skill in line art and black ink is on full display – the design looks simple but needs precise technical application to look this strong.
IG: cosy.tattoo
Men’s Skull with Headphones Music Tattoo
This skull with headphones and red rose tattoo is loaded with symbolic meaning. Traditionally, a rose and skull tattoo symbolizes duality (life and death, love and hate). Adding the headphones means that music (and the emotions it feeds) intertwines both aspects as a complex part of the journey. I like the design details throughout the piece and the clever choice to etch the rose in red ink instead of black and gray.
IG: lovins_tattoos
Anatomic Heart and Phonograph Music Tattoo
This unique line art tattoo integrates an old phonograph into an anatomical heart tattoo. The artist constructs tremendous levels of detail by applying complex line patterns and angles, paired with occasional patches of dotwork shading, to craft the idea that “music is my heart.”
IG: thortattoo
Neo-Traditional Skull with Headphones Music Tattoo
This colorful skull-with-headphones tattoo has an aesthetic focus instead of more symbolic ideals. I love the neo-traditional colors and shading patterns, which give the skull a futuristic look, and I like how the glow from the skull’s eyes influences the filler colors.
IG: k8tattoo
