You probably know Jonathan Coulton. In some circles he is not just a musician, he is the musician. If nothing else you have almost certainly heard his contribution to the video game Portal: the ending song 'Still Alive,' which (while totally awesome) has gone viral-with-rabies and has since been mostly put down.
Coulton is an insanely prolific song writer. His 'Thing A Week' podcast ran from late 2005 to 2006 in which each week he would write and record a new song and release them into the wilds of the Internet. Simply managing to stick to the schedule would have been impressive in and of itself, but what's really staggering is how good every composition is. Coulton has cracked the art of the pop song in a head spinning myriad of styles and genres. From folky turns (A Talk With George) to choral ballads (When You Go) to manic acousti-punk (I Feel Fantastic) every song has slick arrangements and a decidedly powerful case of earworms (that's one of the most unpleasant compliments I've ever delivered). Every song causes itches of familiarity in your brain even upon a first listen because of how well they have cribbed, twisted and built upon the lexicon of popular music.
Coulton often gets branded as both a novelty musician and a geek-rock hero. In many ways these two titles are interlinked, and both are largely unhelpful in describing his music. He does look at social and pop culture touchstones which have become part of wider Geek culture (Cthulu-esque beasts, programming, math, zombies). Combine this with his initial breakthrough online and you have a match made in tech-pop-nerd heaven.
However taking Geek ephemera and singing about it does not necessarily make for awesome listening. The reason Coulton's numbers have become so popular and even beloved is because he has a remarkable ability for marrying the mundane with the epic in well observed ways. For example take 'Re: Your Brains' which frames the zombie apocalypse in an interoffice e-mail from the zombies to the survivors. Or 'Ikea' which turns a song about the flatpack furniture store into a power pop ballad about Vikings and home decorating. They are anthems for the everyday.
And they will make you laugh, which is where the novelty label rears its head. I think there's a tendency (and it's one true of many art forms but seems to come up particularly often with music) where if a song is funny we will often consider it to be a less valid piece of work. And Coulton is very funny (I've had to switch off listening to him in the background while writing this because of that problem). Yet he always marries the comedic with the heartfelt, the songs are funny because we recognize elements of ourselves in them (whether it's the cheerfully honest diplomatic e-mail sent from the zombies or in lines like 'You ruined everything in the nicest way.') It's because of this that in the Official Pantheon of Songwriters (definitely a real thing), Coulton seems less of a Weird Al Yankovich and more of a Loudon Wainwright.
All of this can be seen in today's Best Song Ever: 'Code Monkey.' The song is one of Coulton's better known numbers and a great slice of pop-punk. If nothing else, writing a song which will have you fist pumping along to the daily trials of a computer programmer is an accomplishment worthy of going on a tombstone. The fact that he knocked the song out in a week is just the icing on the cake.
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