Jonathan Coulton

If that name doesn't ring any bells, then you either don't know what he's responsible for or you're not a nerd. Kidding... Described as "If Bob Dylan and the internet had a baby", he's a great folky rock artist that isn't afraid to get silly but remain partially serious through it all. Some of his best known songs include "Still Alive" (the credit song to the game "Portal"), "Re: Your Brains" (zombie invasion in the office), "Code Monkey" (an overworked but simple man love ballad), and a slow acoustic cover of "Baby Got Back." If that alone doesn't get you interested, then wait for the offer.

Jonathan Coulton's site has free mp3s of 2-6 songs from every album that he has released. These aren't B-sides either, most of them are some of the best songs each respective album. Awesome right! Let's make it better!! iTunes has a podcast (made by him) containing 4 full albums of great songs. They are the "Thing a Week" albums where he literally recorded a new song every week for a whole year. Hopefully the link above will open the iTunes page for you; if not then just search for "Jonathan Coulton" or "Thing A Week" in iTunes and look for the podcast. As I've mentioned before it is an easy conversion from an iTunes podcast to an mp3 but either way you will have plenty of free music from a great artist.

I could get into full detail about all the songs that are worth your particular attention but I'll list a few that you shouldn't pass: Big Bad World One, Chiron Beta Prime, Creepy Doll, Dance Soterios Johnson Dance, Flickr, Furry Old Lobster, Ikea, Mandelbrot Set, Podsafe Christmas Song, The Presidents, Shop Vac, Skullcrusher Mountain, Stroller Town, When You Go, and the four mentioned in the opening paragraph. But ALL of his music is worth it!! Below is Flickr (song made entirely based on randomly selected photos from the site flickr.) Enjoy!!

UPDATE: Don't worry none of the music has gone missing but I would like to mention that I have gained a new appreciation for many Coulton tracks that had once been overlooked. A lot of the music is very intelligent and relationship story-based with songs like So Far So Good, Make You Cry, I'm Your Moon,  You Could Be Her, Summer's Over, Pizza Day, Pull the String, and others above like Shop Vac, When You Go, and Big Bad World One. These songs have made a great creative chill playlist for me that I would highly recommend to anyone!! 

Barenaked Ladies

I didn't think that I would be able to really talk about my FAVORITE BAND on this site without just ranting and not offering any music. Thank goodness for Amazon proving me wrong!! Almost everyone knows BNL for their singles "One Week", "Pinch Me", or "If I Had A Million Dollars" but not many people seem to know them beyond that. BNL just released their newest album "All In Good Time" as a four man band (now that the lead singer is gone due to disagreements and drug charges 2 years ago.) Fans of BNL can find this album to be completely polarizing - meaning that they either love the new direction or scream for the old stuff. I personally really like it even though it is very different and has a strong indie vibe running through the album. Amazon is offering one of the better tracks for free here and I highly recommend you check it out. At one point I could have offered a BNL podcast off iTunes and a full recording of their first concert as a 4 man group but both have been removed... Oh well, enjoy the music vid to the newest single "You Run Away" that is easily the best song of the album.

UPDATE: The song has been removed by Amazon. I will always be on the lookout for more free music from BNL (even though I now have every studio album!!!!) and will update you as soon as there is something worth posting. Sorry...

Getting the Most out of Itunes

Almost everyone uses iTunes as their go-to source for music and almost everyone knows about the free weekly singles (If you didn't know, then why? Home page of iTunes at the bottom... Two singles and a music video available every week.) But what a lot of people don't know is that there are other legal ways to get free music from iTunes.

Start with facebook. "Wait, Facebook?" you might be asking, "What madness be this?" iTunes has a facebook page with special promotional packages of free music. They always seem to have from 1-3 packs of 15-25 song downloads available through the iTunes store. They offer all kinds of genres and themes from holidays to seasonal to genre specific. As of the time of this posting, they have a "Soul" Pack and an Indie Sampler. I would skip the soul pack unless you're really into that kind of music and strongly consider listening to the Indie Pack. Even if you don't have a facebook, I would consider making one to get in on these deals. They seem to switch each pack out after about a month...

The other (somewhat sneakier) option is podcasts. Podcasts are always free and some offer music clips or full songs or albums. Searching for specific bands (the bigger, the better) will often pull up something useful whether it be an interview, a band specific podcast, or as a featured artist or guest appearance. I've found a couple gems in doing these searches that I will share later. There is an extra trick that you can pull when using these podcasts but it falls into the realm of "questionable." Most podcasts can be converted into regular mp3s through some simple editing. A program like Garageband (standard on macs) makes it really easy to drop, trim, remove video (if there), and export to iTunes in the quality level and file type that you desire. Note that some podcasts apparently have protection against conversion. Have fun and enjoy!