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albums
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- Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow
- Released 2004
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- Thing a Week Three
- Released 2006
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- Thing a Week Four
- Released 2006
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- Thing a Week Two
- Released 2006
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biography
When They Might Be Giants were first starting out they experimented with an answering machine service named Dial-A-Song, by means of which listeners could call them in Brooklyn and listen to a random taped song. The service was popular enough that it broke down frequently, but not before it helped them get signed to an indie label, Bar/None. Jonathan Coulton, standing on the shoulders of the Giants both musically and spiritually, found fame by the 21st century equivalent of Dial-A-Song through "Thing A Week," a podcast that delivered a new song he had recorded every week for a year. His talent as a pop architect, appealingly offbeat subjects, and propensity for combining them in bittersweet but humorous songs -- imagine Pluto's moon singing melancholy consolation to help it get over not being officially classified a planet any more -- earned him a dedicated and cultish following.
At Yale Coulton met and befriended writer and comedian John Hodgman, who would become a collaborator of his on several projects. At graduation, the two moved to Manhattan where Coulton found work as a software engineer, self-releasing CDs of quirky folk-rock like Smoking Monkey (2003) and the EP Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow (2004) on the side. At the same time, Hodgman was embarking on a series of lectures called the Little Gray Books, for which he enlisted Coulton as musical director, performing songs that related to the subject of each talk.
The September 2005 issue of Popular Science magazine was accompanied by Coulton's downloadable EP covering scientific subjects called Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms. He was listed in the magazine's masthead as "Contributing Troubadour." That month he simultaneously quit his day job at the software company and announced his intent to make a living solely from the profits of his musical endeavors, despite not being signed to a label. He achieved this with the debut of his "Thing A Week" project, giving himself the motivational deadline of one week to record each song; he spent the next year recording 52 tracks and posting them one by one on www.jonathancoulton.com. He let people listen to the songs for free as well as selling MP3s and CDs, discovering that the fans would still pay for them as he slowly built a devoted audience. He was helped when several of his songs -- especially a slow, acoustic cover of "Baby Got Back" and songs with especially geeky subjects like the mad scientist love song "Skullcrusher Mountain" and the office zombie memo "Re: Your Brains" -- gained Internet popularity.
These songs were released under the terms of a Creative Commons License that not only allowed listeners to legally copy them and pass them on to their friends, but to use them in projects of their own. Videos of his songs made with footage from computer games and cartoons became popular on YouTube, spreading his popularity by word-of-blog until he became something of a geek-rock phenomenon by the time he concluded the series with triumphant covers of Queen's We Are the Champions and We Will Rock You. After polling the fans the "Thing A Week" had brought him, he was able to play live concerts targeting the areas where enough of them lived to sell out a venue, performing short and focused out of the way tours that were profitable enough, along with his digital sales and merchandise, to earn him more money than his old day job had.
In 2007 his song "Code Monkey," inspired by his time working as a software engineer, was chosen to be the theme song of G4's cartoon Code Monkeys and "Still Alive," written for the computer game Portal, won the Game Audio Network's Song of the Year award. He also performed on The Daily Show and contributed guest appearances to nerdcore albums like MC Frontalot's Final Boss and MC Lars' This Gigantic Robot Kills. ~ Jody Macgregor, All Music Guide
At Yale Coulton met and befriended writer and comedian John Hodgman, who would become a collaborator of his on several projects. At graduation, the two moved to Manhattan where Coulton found work as a software engineer, self-releasing CDs of quirky folk-rock like Smoking Monkey (2003) and the EP Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow (2004) on the side. At the same time, Hodgman was embarking on a series of lectures called the Little Gray Books, for which he enlisted Coulton as musical director, performing songs that related to the subject of each talk.
The September 2005 issue of Popular Science magazine was accompanied by Coulton's downloadable EP covering scientific subjects called Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms. He was listed in the magazine's masthead as "Contributing Troubadour." That month he simultaneously quit his day job at the software company and announced his intent to make a living solely from the profits of his musical endeavors, despite not being signed to a label. He achieved this with the debut of his "Thing A Week" project, giving himself the motivational deadline of one week to record each song; he spent the next year recording 52 tracks and posting them one by one on www.jonathancoulton.com. He let people listen to the songs for free as well as selling MP3s and CDs, discovering that the fans would still pay for them as he slowly built a devoted audience. He was helped when several of his songs -- especially a slow, acoustic cover of "Baby Got Back" and songs with especially geeky subjects like the mad scientist love song "Skullcrusher Mountain" and the office zombie memo "Re: Your Brains" -- gained Internet popularity.
These songs were released under the terms of a Creative Commons License that not only allowed listeners to legally copy them and pass them on to their friends, but to use them in projects of their own. Videos of his songs made with footage from computer games and cartoons became popular on YouTube, spreading his popularity by word-of-blog until he became something of a geek-rock phenomenon by the time he concluded the series with triumphant covers of Queen's We Are the Champions and We Will Rock You. After polling the fans the "Thing A Week" had brought him, he was able to play live concerts targeting the areas where enough of them lived to sell out a venue, performing short and focused out of the way tours that were profitable enough, along with his digital sales and merchandise, to earn him more money than his old day job had.
In 2007 his song "Code Monkey," inspired by his time working as a software engineer, was chosen to be the theme song of G4's cartoon Code Monkeys and "Still Alive," written for the computer game Portal, won the Game Audio Network's Song of the Year award. He also performed on The Daily Show and contributed guest appearances to nerdcore albums like MC Frontalot's Final Boss and MC Lars' This Gigantic Robot Kills. ~ Jody Macgregor, All Music Guide
news
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JoCo Cruise Crazy
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- 10/29/2009
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- 3:01 PM
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- Jonathan Coulton
- Thanks for all the comments on the cruise idea everyone, it’s incredibly helpful to be able to get such direct feedback from such a large group…
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Hypothetical Question
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- 10/23/2009
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- 5:38 PM
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- Jonathan Coulton
- Let’s just say that sometime Summerish 2010 there was a cruise. It lasted a week, it left from Seattle and went to Alaska and back. The first f…
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JoCo in the Midwest, UK, Ireland
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- 10/16/2009
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- 2:23 PM
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- Jonathan Coulton
- Three notes: First I must say thank you to They Might Be Giants and especially our Chicago audience for letting us do our Flood show at Park West. I …
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Holy Cow I Think He’s Gonna Make It
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- 10/9/2009
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- 4:48 PM
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- Jonathan Coulton
- At our show in Ann Arbor last night we tried out a few Flood songs – mostly unrehearsed except for a quick run through at sound check. I think …
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I Might Also Be Giants
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- 10/1/2009
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- 8:02 PM
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- Jonathan Coulton
- As many have pointed out to me (often concluding with the phrase “Noooooooooo!”), my show in Chicago on the 10th is competing directly wi…
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comments
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Still Alive
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- By klaks
- 1/11/2009 21:13:53
- I learned of JoCo through the Valve video game, Portal, in which JoCo wrote the closing song, "Still Alive." I loved it.
The rest of his work is also smart, amusing, sometimes twisted and always well produced. As others pointed out, Zune library is missing some of his releases but they are all available on Amazon for download. - 2 out of 2 people
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Jonathan Coulton Update Needed
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- By AriesDog
- 10/15/2008 21:34:35
- The Zune database is missing a criminal amount of his work, especially the 'Thing a Week' series.
- 7 out of 7 people
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Brilliant Variety
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- By Sh0dan16
- 9/25/2008 04:26:05
- You ever grab a greatest hits CD from a band you think you like, and every track begins to sound the same (DragonForce, Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc.), but not so with JoCo. It's a shame that the Zune marketplace does not have his Thing a Week series, which contains such a wide variety of themes and styles. Ranging from the loving borderline creepy "Soft Rocked By Me" to the covers of "Famous Blue Raincoat" and, of course, the always popular "Baby Got Back." In short, you can find nearly everything in Coulton's music, whether you're an evil genius trying to woo a captive, or an average schmoe who enjoys Tab, Fritos, and Mountain Dew.
- 4 out of 4 people
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Amazing Songwriter
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- By peterandbeer
- 8/3/2008 05:27:21
- Jonathan Coulton is one of my favorite indi songwriters he has the sad he has the glad and he has geek and he has the sheik (lol) he just awesome
- 3 out of 3 people
- think this is useful
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