Top 5 "Nerd" Musicians

Much as I hate the term, I guess there's little avoiding it in this case. I can't think of any other single word that sums up "people who like comics, sci-fi, video games, anime and/or all that other tomfoolery" so succinctly, anyway. But that could be my own ignorance showing through.

The point is, my lovelies, that there's a devoted audience for this sort of music. People like things that cater to their interestes, whether they're into men in spandex (not gay*) or teenage ponies learning about friendship (also not gay**). Presumably, some of the three people who follow my insane ravings are into this sort of music, so here are my top five recommendations for "nerd" music.

 

 

5. "Weird Al" Yankovic 
 

 

Yankovic doesn’t limit himself to geek culture—pop culture as a whole isn’t safe. Still, he’s done songs about Star Wars (of course), Spider-Man, Pentiums and Pokémon. Two of his best-known and most popular songs are about George Lucas’s epic space opera, and that should be no surprise. Star Wars is great (sometimes) and so is Weird Al. Combining the two? You get one of the three good things to come from the prequel films***.

 

 

4. Cranius 
 

 

Cranius keeps his focus narrow: He primarily sings World of Warcraft folk metal, but he’s also collaborated with other artists for WoW rap videos. Most of his music, like “The Lament of Captain Placeholder” and “Big Blue Dress,” contains a strong element of humor, but the somber “Darrowshire” steals the show.

 

 

3. Jonathan Coulton 
 

Coulton sings about pretty much everything you can think of: Laptops, robots, zombies, dolls, Flickr, mad scientists, baseball, vampires and so on. You probably recognize his work from Portal and Portal 2, but Coulton’s been around longer than that. He’s released a handful of studio albums, among them the “Thing a Week” series, in which he released one song a week for an entire year. Considering many artists barely release 10 a year, that’s highly impressive.

 

 

2. mc chris 

 

Christopher Brendan Ward IV—no wonder his stage name is so short—has been all over the place. Besides his hip hop career, Ward has worked with Adult Swim as a voice actor and writer/producer, done improv stand-up and composed the theme songs for various podcasts—including one co-hosted by Kevin Smith. But he’s probably best known for “Fett’s Vette,” a song about the infamous Star Wars bounty hunter.

 

 

1. HORSE The Band 
 

 

Listening to these guys, you might think they’re a bunch of scary biker-looking dudes with tattoos and…superfluous belts and chains or something. Maybe that’s just the vibe I got. But no, they’re a bunch of geeky-looking guys as skinny as I. Anyway, their music. Right. HORSE are probably the nerdiest of the bunch; while their music is most often about very serious topics like child abuse disillusionment, they do it through the lens of video games. Mega Man, Super Mario Bros. 2—oh, yeah, and they have an entire album about pizza.

 

 

*Homosexuality is totally OK.
**No, really, it ain't no thang.
***The other two are Episode I Racer and John Williams's score.