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Review: Jonathan Coulton's "Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow" |
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Written by Michael Salsbury
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Monday, 28 November 2005 |
 If you haven't heard Jonathan Coulton's
"Baby Got Back" cover, stop reading this review right now. Go to his site, download
it, and play it. If that doesn't convince you that you want to know
more about what he's done, I'm probably not going to do much better in
this review.
I've heard Coulton's work described as "geek rock". That might be the
best description. It's a soft, melodic, rock sound with great
vocals. The songs on this album are about "geeky" topics like mad
scientists and Mandelbrot sets. While music about these topics
might sound like something that will never rise above the level of a
"curiosity", Coulton's songwriting, instrumentals, and vocals combine
to create a sound that is just plain catchy. You'll find yourself
wanting to sing them not long after you stop listening. At least,
that's what happens to me and at least a couple of other people I know.
Jonathan Coulton's album "Where
Tradition Meets Tomorrow" is available online through CDBaby.com for the low, low price of
$7.00 plus shipping. Given that there are 5 songs on the album,
that works out to a slightly-worse-than-iTunes price of about $1.40 a
track. The nice thing about CDBaby.com's site is that you can
listen to a pretty lengthy clip of each song on the album before you
shell out that "buck forty". The disc you'll get back from CDBaby
is real, commercially-pressed disc with silk-screened artwork on it
that is shipped inside a full-color cardboard sleeve. (You
expected a jewel case for $7?! I didn't.)
On the whole, the album reminds me a little of the writing style of
They Might Be Giants combined with the kind of catchy instrumentals and
lyrics of Barenaked Ladies. Since those happen to be two of my
favorite groups, you probably have already guessed that I really like
this album, too.
The Future Soon" kind of sets
the stage that this album is about an evil genius (or at least someone
who wants to be one). It starts out telling us "Last week I left
a note on Laura's desk / It said 'I love you, signed Anonymous Friend'
/ Turns out she's smarter than I thought she was / She knows I wrote
it. Wow the whole class does, too, and I'm all alone during 'couple's
skate' when she skates by with some guy on her arm. / But I know that
I'll forget the look of pity on her face when I'm living in my solar
dome on a platform in space. 'cause it's gonna be the future
soon, I won't always be this way, when the things that make me weak and
strange get engineered away." The tune as a soft-pop kind of
sound to it and is extremely catchy. (One of the amusing things
to me in this song is the background "beeping" noises that sound like
cash register keys being pressed.) The instrumentals sound as
good and as professional to me as anything I've ever heard
before. Coulton's vocals also seem to be up to their full
potential as well. The result is a track that I'd personally rate
an 8 out of 10 (I'd give it a 9 out of 10 if the lyric "from my
spacelab in space" was something smoother like "from my workshop in
space". For some reason I find that particular line very jarring
in a song that otherwise flows beautifully.)
"Skullcrusher Mountain" is
something of a romantic ballad from the point of view of the evil
genius trying to convince a beautiful woman why she should return his
affections. The narrator tells us that "...even my henchmen think
I'm crazy. I'm not surprised that you agree. If you could
find some way to be a little bit less afraid of me you'll see the
voices that control me from inside my head say I shouldn't kill
you..." Again, a fun and catchy song that I have been finding
myself singing a lot lately. I'm giving it an 8 out of 10 also.
"I Crush Everything" is kind of
an "anti-ballad" in that it sounds like a sappy love song but its main
point is to suggest that the person the narrator's in love with
shouldn't come near him because he'll destroy them eventually. It
features some of the coolest lyrics I've heard in a while.
They're much more poetic than you'd expect to find in a song about mad
scientists and evil geniuses. For example, "Do the stars come
out? Did the world spin around? Doesn't matter that much when
you're ten miles down. In the light that filters down into my giant
yellow eye, I can see the sails unfolding, stretching white against the
sky, and I forgive them. I forgive, and I let go. 'Cause I
can't do that thing anymore. I can't be the thing I was
before. Maybe I am better off alone, because I crush
everything..." Another catchy song and one you'll find yourself
singing later. Another 8 out of 10.
"Betty and Me" is a sillier
song than most on the album. That becomes evident pretty early on
when you hear the banjo mixed in with the otherwise pretty mainstream
instrumentals. It becomes more evident as you hear the song,
which tells the story of a married couple whose relationship isn't in
good shape and decides to make a baby "from DNA" with the help of "Dr.
Martin". As the story unfolds, you're left with the distinct
impression that the wife (Betty, of the title) has decided to have an
affair with Dr. Martin and they're milking our hero for money under the
guise of using it to make the baby "better" than the narrator.
The instrumentals and vocals again are well-done. I give it a 7
out of 10.
"Mandelbrot Set" is the only
song that doesn't really work for me on this album. Perhaps it's
because the terminology in the song goes well beyond the bounds of my
own geekdom and delves deeply into mathematics and geometry. It's
not quite as catchy as the other songs on the album to me, I think
because it just about delivers a math lesson as part of the
lyrics. Still, the instrumentals are catchy and I'm impressed
that anyone can make this math topic sound at least slightly
interesting to me. I'd give it a 6.
Using my typical method for rating an album by averaging the individual
tracks, we get (8+8+8+7+6 = 37, 37/5 = 7.4) about a 7.4. Since
most of my objection to the album comes from a single track, it seems
unfair to nail the whole album for that one track when I may be the
only one who doesn't care for it, so let's give it an 8 out of
10. That means it's a definite "must buy" as far as I'm
concerned. I can't remember the last album I reviewed here that
got scores this consistently high.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 04 December 2005 )
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