Jonathan Coulton

Jonathan Coulton is OK with being a geek. After all, his geekiness is the key to his success as a musician who writes about mad scientists, sad robots and being a code monkey.

"I'm lucky in that the things I am interested in and the things that I write about happen to resonate with the people who basically own the Internet," he allows.

In 2005, Coulton left his job as a computer programmer to pursue music full-time. He kicked things off with a project called Thing a Week, a commitment to record and release a song every week on his Web site. After several of those songs—most notably, a folky cover of "Baby Got Back" and a touching ballad of the travails of a programmer called "Code Monkey"—became minor hits, his decision to leave proved prudent.

These days, Coulton is moving ever closer to world domination. He's released a number of albums, tours frequently and has a concert DVD called BEST.CONCERT.EVER coming out in March. Then there's his Web site, his YouTube videos, his Twitter feed, MySpace, Facebook...

"There are many ways to enjoy Jonathan Coulton, whether it's listening to the music, reading the blog, coming to a show, Twitter," he says. "Please, sign up for all of these things, and I will spam/entertain you."