Jonathan Coulton

Jonathan Coulton is a geek rock / folk rock musician active since 2003 from Brooklyn, known for his songs about geek culture. He is best known for such compositions as "Still Alive" and "Code Monkey", as well as his cover of Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back". He is the Contributing Troubadour for Popular Science magazine and the musical director for John Hodgman's Little Gray Book Lectures. Every week for a year Coulton released a new song for free on his website as part of his Thing a Week podcast Read more on Last.fm …read full bio

Jonathan Coulton is a geek rock / folk rock musician active since 2003 from Brooklyn, known for his songs about geek culture. He is best known for such compositions as "Still Alive" and "Code Monkey", as well as his cover of Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back". He is the Contributing Troubadour for Popular Science magazine and the musical director for John Hodgman's Little Gray Book Lectures. Every week for a year Coulton released a new song for free on his website as part of his Thing a Week podcast, on topics as diverse as vengeful nerds, self-loathing giant squid, partially-imagined historical figures, and devotees of a certain Swedish prefab furniture store. The Thing a Week project is now complete, and all songs can be streamed from his official website. Many of the songs on the site can be downloaded for free. The song "Code Monkey" became the theme song to the G4 television show Code Monkeys. Coulton's song "Still Alive" has been featured in Valve Software's game Portal (and has become a hit among the gamers who finished the game) . He also made a recording of this song called the "J.C. Mix" which is exactly the same except he is singing rather than Ellen McLain as GLaDOS. "Still Alive" went on to be featured in the game Rock Band, as well as Skullcrusher Mountain and Re: Your Brains In April 2011, Coulton followed up the success of "Still Alive" with a new song at the end of Portal 2, "Want You Gone". Coulton released his eight studio album 'Artificial Heart' on September 2, 2011. This was his first release since his Thing A Week project in 2006. Unlike much of Coulton's previous work, Artificial Heart's original lyricism is largely non-comedic and contains few references to geek culture overall, instead opting for heavy themes of betrayal, commitment, abandonment, and surrender. Artificial Heart became Coulton's first album to chart, placing #1 on Billboard's Heatseekers Albums, #26 on Billboard's Rock Albums, #16 on Billboard's Alternative Albums, and #125 on the Billboard 200. Since 2011, Coulton has hosted his own annual week-long affinity cruise, the JoCo Cruise. The cruise has attracted high profile performers such as Rachel Bloom, Aimee Mann, Josh Gondelman, They Might Be Giants, and Wil Wheaton, among others. Jonathan Coulton is the founder and biggest draw of the JoCo Cruise. It is a specialized nerd cruise that is a week long. It is popular with fans of board games, video games, and nerdy music. Jonathan Coulton plays his music live on each of these cruises and attends the cruise himself. In May 2012, Coulton became the house musician for the NPR game show Ask Me Another. Coulton performed some of his own songs on the show, as well as covers of other songs related to the trivia and puzzle challenges before the shows end in 2021. In 2015, Coulton also wrote the Portal-themed song "You Wouldn't Know" for Lego Dimensions. On April 28, 2017, Coulton released a new album 'Solid State' which is for sale through his website and iTunes as well as being available for streaming on SoundCloud. This was his first release since his previous album 'Artificial Heart' in 2011. On March 29, 2019, Coulton released 'Some Guys', a cover album of songs from the 1970s. Since 2020, Jonathan Coulton continues to perform at his annual JoCo Cruise and performs live shows across the United States at venues such as City Winery. He has also begun performing at events such as PAX East after taking a multiple year hiatus from attending. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

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…shrink me down again