Customer Reviews

Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow

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Skullcrusher Mountain is the best song I've heard lately. It is a folksy love song from an evil villain to his captured damsel in destress. What could be better than that?

I dunno, maybe a pop-rock song about Mandlebrot and his fractals. These songs are such gems that it's very much worth it to buy the CD, even though there are only 5 songs.

I'm a little late to join the Jonathan Coulton Fan Bandwagon, but late is so much better than never!

Coulton's "nerd pop" sounds deceptively ordinary... for about three seconds. Once the lyrics start, the music becomes incidental; it's the words you're paying attention to. And no, I don't mean that they're moving and full of emotional impact. I mean that they're HYSTERICAL! I'm sure J.C. figured out pretty early on that the nerdier songs were getting the most attention, so he's probably been writing things like "Re Your Brains" more than anything else, and that's OKAY BY ME.

Sample verse from "Skullcrusher Mountain" off of this EP:

"I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you,
But I get the feeling that you don't like it.
What's with all the screaming?
You like monkeys, you like ponies,
Maybe you don't like monsters so much.
...Maybe I used too many monkeys.
Isn't it enough to know that I ruined a pony
Making a gift for you?"

Anyway, if that's your brand of humor, then you'll dig everything this guy has done. Check out his website, where you can preview every song in its entirety, and purchase downloads if you'd rather not buy whole albums.

Well-crafted pop music that, lyrically, explores geek themes: the mandelbrot set, middle school fantazation about the future where the girl what snubbed your anonymous note passing recognizes that the robot armies are under your command; and a naive cuckold who thinks the fertility clinic is reprogramming DNA. Uh, no, but the chorus "Baby will be better than me" sure is catchy! The artist uses creative commons license, so these songs are soundtrack to a lot of YouTube machinima.

This was bought for my son so I can't rate it personally but he tells me it is one of J. C's. best, is difficult to get hold of and he is very pleased with it. Shipping took a little longer than I expected but was within estimated timeframe so I can't fault the dealer.

This disk assembles five songs from Jonathan Coulton's job as Contributing Troubadour to Popular Science. Popular Science has an official Contributing Troubadour? Yes, they do. And I'm betting they signed him up sixty seconds after hearing him.

Judged purely as pop music, this is good stuff. Not so great that you'd go searching for it, but certainly not something that would cause you to turn off your radio.

What makes it is the lyrics. Coulton is, at various times: funny, touching, satirical, sad, snarky, and sweet. And just to edge out the difficulty factor, all of these songs are in one way or another about science, but always with a human touch. They cover the wistful boy who looks forward to a better world ("It's Going To Be The Future Soon"), the mad scientist trying to catch the girl of his dreams ("Skullcrusher Mountain"), the hopeful but self-deluded father of a genetically engineered child ("Betty and Me") and so forth.

As you might guess, I'm a big fan of Coulton. He's more than just a science geek, but if you want a good sample, this inexpensive little collection is a fine place to start. Recommended.