Jonathan Coulton
Encyclopedia
Jonathan Coulton is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

, known for his songs about geek
Geek
The word geek is a slang term, with different meanings ranging from "a computer expert or enthusiast" to "a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts", with a general pejorative meaning of "a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, esp[ecially] one who is perceived to...

 culture and his use of the Internet to draw fans. Among his most popular songs are "Code Monkey", "Re: Your Brains" and "Still Alive
Still Alive
Still Alive may refer to:* Still Alive , the closing credits song from the Portal video game* Still Alive – the Remixes, the theme song from the video game Mirror's Edge...

".

A former computer programmer
Computer programming
Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...

 employed at Cluen, a New York City software company, and self-described geek, Coulton tends to write quirky, witty lyrics about science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 and technology: a man who thinks in simian terms, a mad scientist who falls in love with one of his captives, and the dangers of bacteria. Rare topical songs include 2005's "W's Duty", which sampled President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

, and 2006's "Tom Cruise Crazy". Most of Coulton's recordings feature his singing over guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

, bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

, and drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

; some also feature the various other instruments Coulton plays, including accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

, harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...

, mandolin
Mandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...

, banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

, ukulele
Ukulele
The ukulele, ; from ; it is a subset of the guitar family of instruments, generally with four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings....

, and glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...

.

Coulton graduated in 1993 from Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...

, where he was a member of the Yale Whiffenpoofs and the Yale Spizzwinks(?). He is now the Contributing Troubadour at Popular Science
Popular Science
Popular Science is an American monthly magazine founded in 1872 carrying articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. Popular Science has won over 58 awards, including the ASME awards for its journalistic excellence in both 2003 and 2004...

magazine, whose September 2005 issue was accompanied by a five-song set by him called Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms. He was also the Musical Director for The Little Gray Book Lectures.

Career

Coulton's best-known works include his light-acoustic cover
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

 of the Sir Mix-a-Lot
Sir Mix-a-Lot
Anthony Ray , better known by his stage name Sir Mix-a-Lot, is an emcee and producer based in Seattle, Washington. The founder of the Nastymix record label, he debuted in 1988 with Swass...

 hit song "Baby Got Back
Baby Got Back
"Baby Got Back" is a 1992 Number One single by hip hop artist Sir Mix-a-Lot, from his album Mack Daddy. The song samples the 1986 electro single "Technicolor" by Channel One. The song's title originates from an urban slang term used to express a favorable opinion about a woman's buttocks...

" and original pieces such as "Code Monkey
Code monkey (song)
Code monkey is a song by Johnathan Coulton from his album Thing a Week Three released December 2006. It is one of his most popular songs. It has been described as "a rocking anthem about dead-end programming jobs"....

", which was featured on Slashdot
Slashdot
Slashdot is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section...

 on April 23, 2006 and linked from the webcomic Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade (webcomic)
Penny Arcade is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website loonygames.com. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have established their own site, which is typically updated with a new comic...

. It was also the theme song for an animated show on G4
G4 (TV channel)
G4, also known as G4 TV, is an American cable- and satellite-television channel originally geared primarily toward young adult viewers, originally based on the world of video games...

 called Code Monkeys
Code Monkeys
Code Monkeys is an American animated television program created by Adam de la Peña. Set in the early 1980s, it follows the adventures of fictional video game company GameaVision....

.

His work has been featured on NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...

's All Things Considered
All Things Considered
All Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...

. Good Morning Silicon Valley featured a link to a video set to his song "Re: Your Brains".

Coulton accompanied John Hodgman
John Hodgman
John Kellogg Hodgman is an American author, actor, and humorist. In addition to his published written works, such as The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, and That Is All, he is known for his personification of a PC in contrast to Justin Long's personification of a Mac in...

 on his "700 Hobo Names" promotional track for Hodgman's book The Areas of My Expertise
The Areas of My Expertise
The Areas of My Expertise is a satirical almanac by John Hodgman. It is written in the form of absurd historical stories, complex charts and graphs, and fake newspaper columns. Among its sections are a list of 700 different hobo names and complete descriptions of "all 51" US states...

as the guitarist (he was credited as "Jonathan William Coulton, the Colchester Kid"). Coulton also can be heard throughout the audiobook version of the same book, playing the theme song to the book, playing incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....

, and bantering with Hodgman, who reads the audio version of his work. Hodgman has also mentioned Coulton on The Daily Show
The Daily Show
The Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...

: a Jonathan Coulton of Colchester, Connecticut
Colchester, Connecticut
Colchester is a town in New London County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 14,551 at the 2000 census. In 2005 it was ranked 57th on the "100 Best Places to Live" in all of the United States, conducted by CNN...

, was Hodgman's pick to win an essay contest on overpowering Iraqi resistance to American invasion. Coulton wrote and performed "the winning entry", a song about dropping snakes from airplanes. Coulton appeared on the tour for Hodgman's newest book, More Information Than You Require
More Information Than You Require
More Information Than You Require is a 2008 satirical almanac by John Hodgman. It is the follow-up to Hodgman's 2005 book The Areas of My Expertise. It was released October 21, 2008...

.

Coulton composed the title music for the show Mystery Diagnosis
Mystery Diagnosis
Mystery Diagnosis is a television program that airs on the OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. Each episode focuses on two or more individuals and their struggles to find out what ailments they suffer from....

, and also has contributed other songs under "The Little Gray Book Lectures", a series of audio releases from John Hodgman.
In 2006, Coulton began touring with comedy-duo Paul and Storm
Paul and Storm
Paul and Storm are an Arlington, Virginia-based comedic musical duo consisting of Paul Sabourin and Greg "Storm" DiCostanzo. They had formerly been members of the a cappella group Da Vinci’s Notebook....

. They have since toured together almost exclusively, rarely appearing with other artists. At their first few shows, Coulton opened the concerts, but soon after his rise to fame, he was headlining.

Coulton wrote and performed a song titled "Still Alive
Still Alive (song)
"Still Alive" is a song featured in the 2007 video game Portal. It was written by Jonathan Coulton and was performed by Ellen McLain while portraying the Portal character GLaDOS. The song originated in a meeting between two Valve developers and Coulton about him writing a song for the company,...

" for the ending credits of Valve
Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation is an American video game development and digital distribution company based in Bellevue, Washington, United States...

's 2007 video game Portal, with vocals by Ellen McLain
Ellen McLain
Ellen McLain is an opera singer and voice actress from Nashville, Tennessee, USA. McLain provides voices for many characters in several video games from Valve...

. On April 1, 2008, Harmonix made this track available as free downloadable content for the game Rock Band. A version with Coulton's vocals was also included on the Orange Box Original Soundtrack, in addition to the one heard at the end of the game. "Still Alive" has also made an appearance as an easter egg in Left 4 Dead 2
Left 4 Dead 2
Left 4 Dead 2 is a cooperative first-person shooter video game. It is the sequel to Valve Corporation's award-winning Left 4 Dead. The game launched on November 17, 2009, for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 in the United States and November 20 in Europe; in 2010, Left 4 Dead 2 was made available to...

. The song has been called "the most influential game music". In 2011, Coulton followed up the success of "Still Alive" with a new song at the end of Portal 2
Portal 2
Portal 2 is a first-person puzzle-platform video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. The sequel to the 2007 video game Portal, it was announced on March 5, 2010, following a week-long alternate reality game based on new patches to the original game...

, "Want You Gone".

A DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 & CD of a concert performed February 22, 2008, at the Great American Music Hall
Great American Music Hall
The Great American Music Hall is a concert hall in San Francisco, California. It is located on O'Farrell Street in the Tenderloin neighborhood on the same block as the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater...

 in San Francisco, entitled Best. Concert. Ever.
Best. Concert. Ever.
Best. Concert. Ever. is a live concert CD/DVD by internet musician Jonathan Coulton. It was recorded live on February 22, 2008 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, California.-Track list:...

 was released in 2009. At the concert, Coulton played the aforementioned song "Still Alive" on its Rock Band version, along with guest "musicians" and geek/celebrities Leo Laporte
Leo Laporte
Léo Gordon Laporte is an Emmy Award winning, American technology broadcaster, author, and entrepreneur. A former resident of Providence, Rhode Island, he now lives in Petaluma, California with his wife Jennifer and two children, Abby and Henry....

, Merlin Mann
Merlin Mann
Merlin Dean Mann III writes the blog . He received a B.A. from New College of Florida, and he currently resides in San Francisco, California with his wife, Madeline Mann, and their daughter, .-Writing:...

 and Veronica Belmont
Veronica Belmont
Veronica Ann Belmont is the co-host of the Revision3 show Tekzilla alongside Patrick Norton, and the former host of the monthly PlayStation 3-based video on demand program Qore. Formerly she was the host for the Mahalo Daily podcast and a producer and associate editor for CNET Networks, Inc...

.

Coulton opened for They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years Flansburgh and Linnell were frequently accompanied by a drum machine. In the early 1990s, TMBG became a full band. Currently, the members of TMBG are...

 for a few shows of their March 2010 tour.

Coulton had been working on his follow-up to the Thing a Week albums, tentatively titled The Aftermath. It has since been stated that the title is merely an umbrella term to classify non-album tracks released after Thing a Week. On May 25, 2010, Coulton said on his official site that he would be working on a new album, to be produced by John Flansburgh
John Flansburgh
John Conant Flansburgh is an American musician. He is half of the longstanding Brooklyn, New York-based alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants, for which he writes, sings and plays rhythm guitar...

 of They Might Be Giants, and for the first time ever with a full band, including Marty Beller
Marty Beller
Marty Beller is the drummer for They Might Be Giants. He has two solo albums. He also wrote and sang songs from TMBG's albums, Here Come the ABCs: "Alphabet Lost And Found", Here Come the 123s: "High Five!" and Here Comes Science: "Speed and Velocity".Beller became the full time drummer for the...

 of They Might Be Giants, in a professional recording studio. The resulting album: Artificial Heart
Artificial Heart (album)
Artificial Heart is the eighth studio album by rock musician Jonathan Coulton. After taking a long hiatus from songwriting after his successful 2006 Thing a Week project , Coulton started production on Artificial Heart after encouragement from John Flansburgh , also the...

, was released on September 2, 2011.

In May 2011, Coulton was interviewed on NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...

's popular economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

-related program Planet Money
Planet Money
Planet Money is an American podcast and blog produced by NPR. The podcast launched on September 6, 2008 to cover the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 in the wake of the Federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was created after the success of "The Giant Pool of Money", an episode of...

. He disclosed that he makes about $500,000 a year from his music despite lacking a record label contact. He expressed gratitude towards his fans for his surprise success, the degree of which he called "absurd". In a broader discussion of whether or not the internet is good for musicians, Coulton answered in the affirmative, while journalist Frannie Kelley described him as a "fluke" such as the Snuggie. Coulton posted a tongue-in-cheek
Tongue-in-cheek
Tongue-in-cheek is a phrase used as a figure of speech to imply that a statement or other production is humorously intended and it should not be taken at face value. The facial expression typically indicates that one is joking or making a mental effort. In the past, it may also have indicated...

 response on his blog about the comparison, saying "to which I say: snarkity snark snark!"

Licensing

Coulton releases his songs under the Creative Commons
Creative Commons licenses
Creative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. The licenses differ by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S...

 Attribution-Noncommercial license, allowing others to use them in their own noncommercial works. As a result, a number of music videos have been created using his songs, including such machinima
Machinima
Machinima is the use of real-time 3D computer graphics rendering engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation...

 as the ILL Clan
ILL Clan
The ILL Clan is a machinima production team based in Brooklyn, New York City. One of the first of the "Machinima Clans," they created their first short: Apartment Huntin' in 1997, and have continued to produce machinima since then...

's video for "Code Monkey" and a kinetic typography video for the song "Shop Vac".

Thing a Week

From September 16, 2005, to September 30, 2006, Coulton ran "Thing a Week", during which he recorded 52 musical pieces in an effort to push his creative envelope via a "forced-march approach to writing and recording"; to prove to himself that he could produce creative output to a deadline; and to see whether a professional artist could use the Internet and Creative Commons to support himself. Early indications are that the experiment succeeded in generating a large number of high quality songs, boosting sales of music downloads, expanding Coulton's public presence, and enlarging his fan base. The success of the financial objective is more difficult to judge, but Coulton was quoted in a September 2006 interview as stating that "in some parts of the country, I'd be making a decent living". In a February 25, 2008, interview with This Week in Tech
This Week in Tech
This Week in Tech–casually referred to as TWiT, and formerly known as Revenge of the Screen Savers–is the weekly flagship podcast of the TWiT.tv network...

, he stated that he made more money in 2007 than he did in his last year of working as a programmer, 40% of it from digital downloads and 40% from merchandise and performances.

Studio albums

  • Smoking Monkey
    Smoking Monkey
    Smoking Monkey is the debut album by internet rock musician Jonathan Coulton. It was released in 2003 before Coulton was well known and at first only garnered minimal sales through iTunes and other MP3 retail stores...

    (2003)
  • Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow
    Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow
    Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow is the second studio album by rock musician Jonathan Coulton. The album is named after the town motto of Jonathan's hometown, Colchester, Connecticut. The album cover art itself is a retouched photograph of a sign from the city...

    (2004)
  • Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms
    Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms
    Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms is the third studio album by comedy rock musician Jonathan Coulton. This album was made as a soundtrack for a September issue of the Popular Science magazine. Much like Coulton's previous 2004 album "Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow" this record is also a 5...

    (2005)
  • Thing a Week One (2006)
  • Thing a Week Two (2006)
  • Thing a Week Three (2006)
  • Thing a Week Four (2006)
  • Artificial Heart
    Artificial Heart (album)
    Artificial Heart is the eighth studio album by rock musician Jonathan Coulton. After taking a long hiatus from songwriting after his successful 2006 Thing a Week project , Coulton started production on Artificial Heart after encouragement from John Flansburgh , also the...

    (2011)

Compilations

  • JoCo Looks Back
    JoCo Looks Back
    JoCo Looks Back is a compilation album by internet musician Jonathan Coulton. It is Coulton's first and so far only 'Greatest Hits' compilation. It is however, his first of two compilation albums, the other being a live concert recording, Best. Concert. Ever. The album features 20 previously...

    (2008)
  • Best. Concert. Ever.
    Best. Concert. Ever.
    Best. Concert. Ever. is a live concert CD/DVD by internet musician Jonathan Coulton. It was recorded live on February 22, 2008 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, California.-Track list:...

    (Live album - 2009)

Other releases

  • Other Experiments (Rarities Collection) (2005)
  • Unplugged (Live on Second Life) (2006)
  • The Orange Box Original Soundtrack (2007)
    • 1. "Still Alive" (Sung by Ellen McLain)
    • 19. "Still Alive" (Sung by Jonathan Coulton)
  • The Aftermath
    The Aftermath (Jonathan Coulton album)
    The Aftermath is a collection of songs released following the 'aftermath' of the Thing a Week project by comedy rock musician Jonathan Coulton. The project was originally intended to be Coulton's eighth studio album...

    (2009)
  • Portal 2 Soundtrack: Songs to Test By - Volume 3 (2011)
    • 13. "Want You Gone" (Sung by Ellen McLain)


Most of Coulton's songs are published on his website as MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

 and FLAC
FLAC
FLAC is a codec which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost...

 downloads. Some of them are free, and none of them are subject to digital rights management
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...

. All of his original songs fall under the Creative Commons
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. The licenses differ by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S...

 Attribution NonCommercial 3.0 License. "Still Alive" and "Want You Gone" are the only exceptions to this, as Coulton assigned all rights for the songs to Valve
Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation is an American video game development and digital distribution company based in Bellevue, Washington, United States...

. Along with "Still Alive", Coulton's song "Re: Your Brains" appears in jukeboxes in Left 4 Dead 2
Left 4 Dead 2
Left 4 Dead 2 is a cooperative first-person shooter video game. It is the sequel to Valve Corporation's award-winning Left 4 Dead. The game launched on November 17, 2009, for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 in the United States and November 20 in Europe; in 2010, Left 4 Dead 2 was made available to...

, "Want You Gone" also features in the end credits of Portal 2
Portal 2
Portal 2 is a first-person puzzle-platform video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. The sequel to the 2007 video game Portal, it was announced on March 5, 2010, following a week-long alternate reality game based on new patches to the original game...

, all of these three games were designed by Valve.

Other versions and covers

Pianist Louis Durra
Louis Durra
Louis Durra is an American jazz pianist and composer living in Los Angeles. His biological father was saxophonist Trevor Koehler.-as leader:* The Best Of All Possible Worlds -- CD, 2011* Mad World EP -- CD, 2011...

 recorded an instrumental trio version of "Code Monkey" released on "Mad World EP" and "Arrogant Doormats" (2011).

NES Rock Band I Fight Dragons
I Fight Dragons
I Fight Dragons is a rock band from Chicago. Their music combines pop/rock songs with original electronic sounds made using Nintendo Game Boys and Nintendo Entertainment Systems. They have released 2 EPs, 2009's Cool Is Just a Number and 2010's Welcome to the Breakdown, and they released their...

covered "The Future Soon" on their "IFD Super Secret Exclusives" EP (2009).

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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