Comments | selinker: the most beautiful nerd-rock song: Mandelbrot Set

selinker

the most beautiful nerd-rock song: Mandelbrot Set

Oct 18, 2010 13:44

What: "Mandelbrot Set," Jonathan Coulton's fantastical tribute to mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot, whose contributions to fractal geometry were only slightly less legendary than the demon-slaying versions found in the song. Here's Pisut Wisessing's brilliant video to the song, though it doesn't use the complete lyrics. For that, listen to it on ( Read more... )

nerd-rock song

Comments 16

thedan October 18 2010, 22:04:29 UTC

I submit Speck's
"Conventional Lover,", easiest the nerdiest on-disc song in Rock Band 2.

Also, if I managed to post that link correctly, I have won a moral victory over the operating system of my iPad.

thedan October 18 2010, 22:06:00 UTC

It appears to be a victory, modulo an unrequested carriage return.

selinker October 18 2010, 23:22:17 UTC

Yeah, that song is unlistenable. But I'm sure it's very funny if you think 20-sided dice are funny.

It's not possible to beat the iPad OS. It is only possible to coexist with it.

lemurtanis October 19 2010, 00:45:53 UTC

Virtually the entire oeuvre of Moxy Fruvous -- "King of Spain" and "My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors" for starters.

selinker October 19 2010, 05:18:08 UTC

Loves me some Moxy, which I first heard of through Mystery Hunt peoples. I particularly like "King of Spain," which contains the only appearance of the game Crokinole in popular music that I'm aware of.

darthparadox October 19 2010, 20:53:51 UTC

I think Moxy Fruvous is one of the few acts to outdo JoCo in terms of the emotional range of their music. I started trying to name songs, and then realized I was making a good run at reciting their entire discography, so I'll just leave it at this: if you can listen to "Lee" without fighting back tears, you're a robot.

seekingferret October 19 2010, 03:05:32 UTC

Surely Birdhouse is sung by a canary-shaped nightlite, after all, the lyric goes "Blue canary in the outlet by the lightswitch who watches over you."

And I might tap "Why Does the Sun Shine" as the ultimate nerd rock anthem, for the way it acknowledges its predecessors and then goes so much further.

selinker October 19 2010, 05:27:20 UTC

Wow, that is a radically different interpretation than I've had over the years. I've always parsed it as "Blue canary by the outlet with the light switch, who watches over you?" But your interpretation makes much more sense, given the lyric "My name is blue canary, one note spelled L-I-T-E." I should listen more closely.

Speaking of science, I wonder if the polar opposite of nerd rock can be summarized by Insane Clown Posse's brilliantly ignorant "Miracles". Hey, chuckleheads, this is how magnets work.

seekingferret April 14 2011, 03:26:44 UTC

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/lights/e791/?cpg=157H#tabs

selinker April 19 2011, 10:40:25 UTC

WANT.

ezekiel_stryker October 19 2010, 15:28:59 UTC

My love for JoCo is never ending. "The Future Soon" is one of his that I favor. I'm surprised "Code monkey" didn't make it.. But I'm glad to see "Better" got a mention.

JoCo's "A laptop like you" is an epic song for Mac lovers.

But I find myself a little surprised on the gamer-nerd side to not have seen Five Iron Frenzy's "Wizard Needs Food Badly" on the contender's list.

selinker October 19 2010, 15:39:24 UTC

As usual, these are not the most iconic members of the category, they are the most beautiful ones. That isn't one of those, in my opinion.

There are at least a dozen other Coulton songs I could have mentioned: "Chiron Beta Prime," "Seahorse," his cover of "Baby Got Back," etc, etc. He's run quite the gamut, basically by defining his own gamut.

zotmeister October 23 2010, 17:37:37 UTC

My favorite JoCo song - and choice for most beautiful - is "I'm Your Moon". I can see it not qualifying as nerd-rock on the grounds that the subject matter isn't nerdy enough, being something most people know and can relate to - but to me that adds to its beauty. I would go so far as to say that it's one the most beautiful love songs ever written. - ZM

selinker October 23 2010, 17:39:03 UTC

Yup. That showed up in The Most Beautiful Song About the Moon.

selinker October 19 2010, 17:17:37 UTC

Update: I added the Boston Typewriter Orchestra's "Wite-Out" to the list. This means that I've set a record for "number of people I know in one column," with six: Coulton, Jason Finn of the Presidents, Paul & Storm, Wil, and Brendan Emmett Quigley of BTO. (No, even though lots of people I know know BNL, I haven't met them.)

If you think this is bad, wait to see what happens if I ever do Most Beautiful Webcomic.