Jonathan Coulton is an interesting cat. Yes, I wrote cat as though I thought was hip enough to get away with it and no one would notice. An interesting cat is he. Much like Radiohead's recent pay-what-you-want (which means I got it for free) album "In Rainbows", Coulton puts a ton of music out for free but also offers the option of purchasing his music.Sure, you can go to iTunes and buy his stuff. Or you can go to iTunes and look up his Thing A Week Podcast and download a lot of it for free.
You can go to his website and buy his stuff, or you can view his Thing A Week Blog and download a lot of...well, you get the point.
In this day and age of sliding CD sales and easily stolen music, Jonathan is a clever innovator and I hope he does quite well because his music is great.
There are a ton of excellent songs I could list here, from his hysterical laid back acousticish version of "Baby Got Back" to "Sky Mall", his ode to those wonderfully tempting airline catalogs...From his beautiful version of The Beatles' "I Will" to his ode to Queen's "We Will Rock You" in which he used hand claps sent in by fans.
I decided to go with a sentimental selection about his newborn daughter. It's called "You Ruined Everything" and every lyric of this song rings true for me as a new father.
Read about the song here.
Jonathan hasn't released any new music since 2006. Here's hoping for more.
