Jonathan Coulton Rocks!

I learned about this guy from my "label" - an email from CD Baby, the independent artists' web site where I sell (very few copies of) my own CD. Jonathan Coulton also sells his CD's through CD Baby, but unlike me, he has this whole independent singer/songwriter web-marketer/blogger business totally figured out. He's also really, really funny. And good. Not that I'm not, but he's better.

The CD Baby email pointed to a recent NY Times article on the whole internet music business thing, but Coulton is heavily featured. He quit his programmer job in September 2005 to become a full-time singer/songwriter, and his self-promotion angle was "Thing a Week," a project for which he pledged to write and record a new song every week for a year. I've only listened to (on MySpace) and previewed (on CD Baby) a handful of the songs so far, but they are quirky, funny, catchy, and really good. I've downloaded a few from iTunes and will probably buy a couple of his CD's on CD Baby when I get time to preview more of the songs.

"Code monkey" and "Re: Your Brains" are hilarious - Dilbert moments as excellent pop songs (although Dilbert usually doesn't have zombies in his office). His melodic version of the rap classic "Baby Got Back" is also a riot. Maybe I should make myself a songwriting/recording pledge. Thing a week? Thing a month? Thing a year?

P.S. I inserted the YouTube video for one of Jonathan's songs. I have to say he is making better use of Flickr than I ever have!