Best. Concert. Ever.

“When They Might Be Giants were first starting out they experimented with an answering machine service named Dial-A-Song, by means of which listeners could call them in Brooklyn and listen to a random taped song. The service was popular enough that it broke down frequently, but not before it helped them get signed to an indie label, Bar/None. Jonathan Coulton, standing on the shoulders of the Giants both musically and spiritually, found fame by the 21st century equivalent of Dial-A-Song through 'Thing A Week,' a podcast that delivered a new song he had recorded every week for a year. His talent as a pop architect, appealingly offbeat subjects, and propensity for combining them in bittersweet but humorous songs -- imagine Pluto's moon singing melancholy consolation to help it get over not being officially classified a planet any more -- earned him a dedicated and cultish following.

The September 2005 issue of Popular Science magazine was accompanied by Coulton's downloadable EP covering scientific subjects called Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms. He achieved this with the debut of his 'Thing A Week' project, giving himself the motivational deadline of one week to record each song; he spent the next year recording 52 tracks and posting them one by one on www.jonathancoulton.com.

After polling the fans the 'Thing A Week' had brought him, he was able to play live concerts targeting the areas where enough of them lived to sell out a venue, performing short and focused out of the way tours that were profitable enough, along with his digital sales and merchandise, to earn him more money than his old day job had.

This song 'Code Monkey,' inspired by his time working as a software engineer, was chosen to be the theme song of G4's cartoon Code Monkeys and 'Still Alive,' written for the computer game Portal, won the Game Audio Network's Song of the Year award. He also performed on The Daily Show and contributed guest appearances to nerdcore albums like MC Frontalot's Final Boss and MC Lars' This Gigantic Robot Kills.” By Jody Macgregor, All Music Guide