BunnyM asks:
I’d love to hear your thoughts on assorted nerd musicians, who you think works, who doesn’t, and perhaps why.
I’m sure we’ve all heard of Jonothan Coulton, and most will have heard of MC Frontalot, but what other performers/bands are out there that might be good?
This is big in my mind at the moment because I stumbled over Kirby Krackle earlier this week completely by accident, and they are consuming my headspace in way that hasn’t happened since I found They Might Be Giants in the early 90′s.
Wow, I am so not the person to ask about this. I just went through my Zune (yes I own a Zune shut up) and found songs that could be classified as official nerd subgenre (as opposed to music nerds like but isn’t definitively nerdy, like They Might Be Giants): one MC Chris, one Optimus Rhyme, one Lemon Demon, one Ookla the Mok. I have about twelve hundred songs on that thing, so that’s .3 percent of my portablized music.
This is not due to lack of exposure, either. People send me links to nerd music all the time; nerds self-promoting, nerds promoting their friends, nerds sharing whatever nerd thing they found this week they think is awesome. (I just checked my email right now and I have an email from Kirby Krackle circa March of ’09 saying they liked a post and I should check them out, et cetera.) I usually give anything that gets sent to me at least a single once-over if it doesn’t look like spam.1 I’ve got a pretty wide range of exposure to nerd music, and my honest admission is that it surpasses Sturgeon’s Law quite handily.
Perhaps that’s unfair to an extent, but moments of musical genius are few and far between in nerd music. Clever lyrics, sure, there are plenty of clever lyrics, but only rarely do they raise above the level of simply making the reference and moving on; the more ambitious gambit tends to be “tell Character X’s story in song,” which is marginally tougher. Musical virtuosity is rarer; competency is generally the over/under, or maybe a bit lower.
The takeaway, for me anyway, is this: moments of genuine brilliance in nerd music are few and far between, and certainly they appear at a lesser rate than in non-nerd music. The number of nerd songs I’ve heard that can match up lyrically, to, say, Eminem on an average day? Fingers on one hand. And instrumentally, if a nerd band can be as consistent as Nickelback – friggin’ Nickelback – they’re already in the top quarter of musicality.2 Tack on top of that a general lack of interest in listening to a song about any given superhero or video game character if it’s not really, really funny and you begin to understand my lack of disinterest in nerd music generally.
(I know in comments there will probably be a bunch of “well you haven’t heard THIS,” and hey, have at it; maybe other readers will find good suggestions in the comments. But my track record for “well you haven’t heard THIS” is “no, I haven’t… and now I see why.” Four nerd songs on my Zune, people. Four songs.)
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I don`t see it as any more sophisticated than “filk” used to be. Or fanfic. Basically, a community/cottage industry based around cleverness, or the aspiration thereto.
Occasionally some rises above, and becomes a novelty breakout hit. Rarely.
I don’t see it as that different from Weird Al; though Kirby Krackle certainly is generally listenable (Ring Capacity and And On and On both stand out as rockin’ tunes), as is Darkest of the Hillside Thickets (20 Minutes of Oxygen and The Math Song are both FAR better than Nickelback), neither is as consistent or as innovative as Al, who has turned polka medley into legitimate craft.
Pfft. All nerd music is just an attempt to recreate the musical segment from Revenge of the Nerds, anyway.
This is why I might wind up skipping both sets of concerts at PAX this year. I usually catch the Saturday one, but…you’ve heard JoCo once, you’ve heard him a million times.
MC Lars.
That is all.
As much as we might get tired of conventional music about love in some form, at least it’s not something that requires explanation. The subtle wit of someone’s combination of Starcraft II with Warhammer 40K and reggae is going to sail over the heads of far too many people to generate much interest. And no matter how much someone may say any publicity is good publicity, most bands don’t want to be the freak show that does crazy songs.
What is on your Zune? I’m nosy.
I dunno if they’re necessarily “nerd music” per se – despite having written songs about entropy, Laika the dog, and colonizing the moon – but my standard response to “if you like TMBG, you’ll also like ______” is Moxy Fruvous. They’re a bit more political at times, but seem to hit the same balance of wacky, thoughtful, and very occasionally heart-rending.
Thank you. I always feel like I’m on crazy pills when people talk about how awesome a piece of nerd music and I’m just like, “That’s not a good song. At all. It’s about half of a good joke stretched out to 3 minutes and ‘sung.'”
Spam artists?
Also, I’d like to know what’s on your zune as well. You don’t right about music as often these days, it seems.
I love Kirby Krackle. Those guys are awesome and a lot of fun to hang out with.
I get my nerd music fix with old Tom Lehrer records, but that’s just me…
I’m reasonably certain there’s X-Men fanfiction that could contain an advert for penis extension with little to no change in content or story.
The Protomen seemed pretty rockin’.
I don’t know where you stand with video game stuff as opposed to comics, but The Protomen (listen for free at http://www.protomen.com) are absolutely musicians first, and on top of that are just about the nicest people you could ever meet. They probably don’t need my help getting there name out, but I’m doing it anyway.
Sorry, didn’t see Kyle’s post when I put mine up. Also, “their” not “there.”
What’s nerd music? I’m a nerd and I’ve never heard of it.
I’m sort of the same way. I can usually listen to a couple of JoCo songs or something when I’m in the car with nerd friends, but in the long run there just isn’t a solid enough base of legitimately good musicians to form a genre on. There are standouts, yes, but for the most part you’ve heard all of these songs if you’ve heard one of them.
May I suggest Action Figures by Unified School District?
It borders on the edge of hip hop and nerdcore, but they’ve got some decent skills.
http://www.myspace.com/unifiedschooldistrict
So you’ve heard of MC Frontalot (and the list of who hasn’t is certainly wider than you might realize), but have you heard any of his recent stuff? As an artist he’s improved hugely, and I expect his career to continue strong.
Recent Nerdcore HipHop that has impressed me is a bit harder to summon. Dr. Awkward is damn good. Mega Ran, too. Reaching back, I’m a big fan of Bremelanotide, Jesse Dangerously, and Nursehella (who is apparently working on some new tracks). And if you haven’t checked out the Rhymetorrent’s compilations, you should; there’s some good stuff on there.
I have to agree with you on all your points as stated. I’m pretty much the same.
Although, one big exception – “Ballad of Barry Allen” by Jim’s Big Ego.
I haven’t listened to much nerd music (I didn’t even realize this was a genre, I thought it was just a bunch of quirky/clever/funny artists who only people on the internet seem to ever care about), but my impression has largely been the same as MGK’s and some of the other commenters. Some good stuff here and there, sometimes a lyric that’s funny, but not funny enough to carry an entire song, but for the most part nothing that really grabs me.
I’m a big fan of the band I Like Trains. They market as more like post-rock than “nerd music” — similar to GY!BE or Sigur Ros — but their music has actual lyrics and subjects. Often, deeply, deeply, nerdy lyrics and subjects. Like the songs about the Scott expedition, Bobby Fischer, and the Beeching Report on the Reshaping of British Railways.
Sort of a post-rock “Hark, a Vagrant”, if you will.
BitterCupOJoe said on August 25th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Thank you. I always feel like I’m on crazy pills when people talk about how awesome a piece of nerd music and I’m just like, “That’s not a good song. At all. It’s about half of a good joke stretched out to 3 minutes and ‘sung.’”
What he said. Double for any music related to World of Warcraft, and I play WoW.
I’m seconding The Protomen. They’ve got two albums out, and rather than making jokes about Megaman they make epic rock operas about Megaman. For 95% of their songs you wouldn’t even realize it’s referencing anything, it just seems like a really awesome sci-fi story.
http://www.protomen.com/ Scroll down to “The Father of Death”. If it’s not your thing, you’re probably pretty safe passing on them.
And I’m throwing Man Factory’s hat into the ring as well. They’ve got two albums out, (Street Fight Volumes 1 and 2) and I love both of them. The best song on their MySpace atm is Vega Genesis, imo.
what about ‘legit’ musicians who are also nerds? The Mountain Goats are amazing, and song writer John Darnielle has been in the New Yorker as one of the best lyricists around. he’s also written a song from the point of view of Toad from Mario, has an album with songs like ‘Sax Rohmer #1’ and ‘Lovecraft in Brooklyn’, and at his show admitted borrowing a chorus from PS2 game Odin Sphere
then he joked about the skimpy outfits jRPG heroes wear
to a lesser extent guys like Barenaked Ladies are full of nerd references. even that amazing new Cee-Lo song, Fuck You, has that ‘i guess he’s an XBox and i’m more Atari’ line
HOLY SHIT
just as i submitted that i got an e-mail about N.E.R.D. headlining a local festival
Well, I just checked out a couple of Kirby Krackle tunes after reading this, and while it didn’t send me into any kind of rapture, it didn’t make me want to angrily shut it off immediately, which in itself puts it above Nickleback for me.
At least they’re trying for a kind of catchy power pop, which I was quite fond of in my twenties, though quite so into anymore.
As it’s really Nickleback`s tastes and influences that makes them suck more than the level of their skill at playing, I wouldn’t necessarily go along with your “doesn’t play as well as” rule, as I find even mediocre-to-middling power-pop easily more tolerable than even the most technically accomplished of hunger-dunger-dang bands (including the overly-forgiven-for-those-they’ve-influenced Pearl Jam. Bleh.)
as opposed to music nerds like but isn’t definitively nerdy, like They Might Be Giants
Your definition of “nerdy” may be a little too restrictive there.
Clever lyrics, sure, there are plenty of clever lyrics, but only rarely do they raise above the level of simply making the reference and moving on; the more ambitious gambit tends to be “tell Character X’s story in song,” which is marginally tougher. Musical virtuosity is rarer; competency is generally the over/under, or maybe a bit lower.
This, on the other hand, could with a few simple word replacements describe just about every facet of geek culture. I’m reminded of a line from Gerard Jones’ Men of Tomorrow, a withering aside delivered during a summary of Jerry Siegel’s fan fiction: “for the fan, the in-joke is always more real than the drama.”
Ahem: http://mysteryfix.com
what about Monster Magnet? they’ve got a line about crying when Jack Kirby died
Nerd music needs to die. Simple as that. Anyone who willingly calls himself a geek should not be dirtying rock or hip-hop with his lameness. I wish Paul Westerberg had the inclination to spit on these people.
Look, there used to be a system here. If you were a creepy little weirdo with obsessive interests and wanted to hang with the cool kids, you had to reinvent yourself as an aloof, unimpeachable hipster. This is the Lou Reed Method, and it’s worked for decades. You either beat the hip at their own game or you win total irrelevance. This is your choice. Deal with it, nerdcore.
Holy crap, I wrote “right” for “write”. I am so, so sorry.
Lupe Fiasco dropped references to Lupin III in a Kanye West song. And his other songs have nerdy references too.
I’m with the majority on this – there are some great individual songs but in general not enough of them to keep up any level of sustained interest on my part. It’s why I like podcasts like Hipster, Please! (http://www.hipsterplease.com/) to help me cut through the dross.
@Matthew Johnson: I’m with you.
Nerf Herder. They’re musicians first, and not everything the do is based around nerdom, but an awful lot is. Nerd Bonus, they wrote and performed the Buffy The Vampire Slayer theme.
@Dmart
“Spam artists?”
Have you seen the word salad they throw together now? Honestly it’s better than some poetry I’ve seen touted on the internet as art.
Anyone who willingly calls himself a geek should not be dirtying rock or hip-hop with his lameness.
Like those guys who named themselves after Tony Stark, Doctor Doom, and some British cartoon superspy. They should just give up already.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyc18mEZJzE
I guess a more obvious pick for nerd music would be a chiptune artist like Anamanaguchi:
http://www.dawnmetropolis.com/
or YMCK, here riffing on Giant Steps:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h76MZ3ht0l4
I wonder how often one has to make nerdish references to qualify as ‘nerd’ music. ‘Lightspeed’, off Dr. Dre’s classic ‘2001’ has the immortal line ‘making fools RETREAT! like Megatron and Starscream’, and I’m pretty sure They Might Be Giants never namechecked Transformers. But yeah, I like Coulton, I like Frontalot, but really the only one I listen to on anything approaching a regular basis is Tom Lehrer.
I guess what I don’t understand about “Nerdcore hip hop” as a genre is that it seems to be geared primarily towards people who don’t actually like hip hop. Which is weird since hip hop includes a lot of legitimately nerdy artists: MF Doom, Kid Koala, Dan the Automator, the aforementioned Lupe Fiasco, etc…
I can’t stand most nerd music. Symphony of Science is as nerdy as I get.
Menamebephil/DJA: Those are good points. I can think of like a billion hip hop artists who reference comics and old cartoons. You would think the nerds would be rallying behind that sort of thing.
“Nerd Music” could very well be an oxymoron.
It really could.
Now, being a musician and also being a nerd is not unheard of, but i’ll refer you to the Admiral Snackbar post on this same comment section for the details.
Nerd music is like Christian rock. If you’re a nerd who only makes nerdy music for other nerds, it’s probably going to suck
but if you’re a legitimate musician who happens to be a nerd and drops nerdy references in a song, it’s cool
that same Mountain Goats song that references Odin Sphere is built around a Bible verse but nobody is calling the Mountain Goats ‘Christian rock’
Exactly what are we counting as “Nerd Music” here? Because I can’t imagine that Anamanguchi and other chiptunes musicians could be call anything BUT “Nerd Music”. The defining element of the chiptune ‘genre’ as it were is the use of rewired old electronics- like NESs and Gameboys- as musical instruments. Because they want their music to sound like old videogames. Is namedropping Boba Fett in any way LESS geeky than that?
@coren: “Have you seen the word salad they throw together now? Honestly it’s better than some poetry I’ve seen touted on the internet as art.”
Hence my current band, which sets spoetry to music: http://myspace.com/reconnaissancefly
Punk seems to work better than hip hop, IMO. http://www.nokilli.com/
I like a few bits of Nerd Music. I’ll join the choir on those suggesting Protomen, I really enjoy their songs. Who’d have though a band based on Mega Man would work so well? The second album more than the other, the songs improve immensely with a personal favorite being “The Hounds” a song from Dr Wily’s perspective.
On Nerdcore, MC Frontalot is the only one I’ve had much exposure to and I like his work. I don’t really see anything wrong with Nerdcore, Nerds using Hip Hop about nerdy things without having to join the hipster crowd.
Not sure what you’re defining as nerd music here, but how about Hard N Phirm, Demitri Martin, or (a bit more obscure), George Hrab? Hrab definitely has the musical chops, but his catalog is not what I’d call exclusively nerdcore.
Is there any real difference between nerd music and filk? I guess it doesn’t matter, because you’re right, most of it kind of sucks, musically. I like songs here and there–RE: Your Brains and March of Cambreadth are favorites, and I have Ashes by Darkseid’s Bitch just to have a song by Darkseid’s Bitch on my mp3 player–but most of it just doesn’t do it for me. Then again, how many songs do you want to listen to over and over again on any album?
“I wonder how often one has to make nerdish references to qualify as ‘nerd’ music. ‘Lightspeed’, off Dr. Dre’s classic ’2001′ has the immortal line ‘making fools RETREAT! like Megatron and Starscream’,”
———————–
Hip Hop ironically is full of comic book and cartoon references. Jay-Z’s 9th studio album “Kingdom Come” was actually inspired by the famous DC graphic novel of the same name (Gimel “Young Guru” Keaton a sound engineer who frequently collaborates w/ Jay-Z is a huge comic book fan and told Jay about KC which in turn inspired the album).
Ghostface Kllah is a huge fan of Iron Man (one of his best albums is called Ironman) and of his frequently used aliases is Tony Starks. Method Man (another Wu-Tang Clan member) has also frequently used a Marvel character, Johnny Blaze aka Ghost Rider, as a source of inspiration and as an alias.
I suppose “nerd music” is different from nerds who make music. I’m thinking along the lines of, say, Frank Zappa, who was pretty damn nerdy in his youth — in the traditional sense of being fixated on technology (bicycle as musical instrument), non-mainstream cultural touchstones (Stravinsky, Webern), and nurtured a sense of his own inherent genius, which turned out to be warranted. Or a more contemporary example, Joe Bonamassa, who is a hardcore guitar-nerd with a serious amount of talent.
In fact, if you scratch the surface of most metal bands, I think you’ll find a lot of nerds.
Vance- I think a good part of that is that Punk bands are not necessarily meant to be good. A punk band that is energetic and is having a good time need not be a good band at all to succeed at entertaining a crowd or listener.