Last year, Jay Garmon (aka The Trivia Geek) listed his picks for the top 20 glorious geek rock anthems, which are:
- In The Garage – Weezer
- Code Monkey – Jonathan Coulton
- White & Nerdy – Weird Al Yankovic
- It Is Pitch Dark (You Are Likely to be Eaten by a Grue) – MC Frontalot
- One Week – Barenaked Ladies
- Wizard Needs Food Badly – Five Iron Frenzy
- Boss of Me – They Might Be Giants
- Hail to the Geeks – Deaf Pedestrians
- If I Could Be A Geek – Ric Seaberg
- Stack the Memory – Sniper Twins
- Stop Talking About Comic Books or I’ll Kill You – Ookla the Mok
- She Make It So – Warp 11
- Geek Like Me – The Wonderstrucks
- The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny – Lemon Demon
- Rockin’ the Suburbs – Ben Folds
- Teenage Dirtbag – Wheatus
- High School Never Ends – Bowling For Soup
- Mr. Spock – Nerf Herder
- Maybe In An Alternate Dimension – Ozma
- We Are the Opening Band – Paul & Storm
Jay had some good picks; Jonathan Coulton’s Code Monkey is a particular favorite of mine, though I couldn’t program my way out of a MUD room (that’s multi- user dungeon; old school World of Warcraft for the younger folks).
Here are my top picks for glorious geek anthems. Keep in mind that I’m focusing on the music and lyrics here; glorious geek video is another post entirely. I chose songs based on how they speak to geek culture, and, in the case of a couple of selections, how much a part of geek culture they have become.
- The Imperial March and the Star Wars theme by John Williams
These are quite possibly the ultimate glorious geek anthems. I think the recent TomTom GPS commercial kind of proves my point, in that they are just that popular. - The Galaxy Song – Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life
This is quite possibly my favorite geek anthem. Of course, Always Look On The Bright Side of Life is certainly right up there. - re: Your Brains – Jonathan Coulton
This song combines zombies with classic geek sarcasm (insert SarcMark here) and tends to play on continuous loop inside the brains of most geeks I know. - Super Mario Bros. theme
I’m told that this should be on the list. I’ll allow it, but mostly because I really love the video on the link.
I would also like to draw your attention to Hot Waffles, two brothers who play music that I think speaks to the souls of most geeks. Like Jonathan Coulton, Hot Waffles sings from a geek heart in a way that is simply classic geek sarcasm comedy, and I have quickly become a fan.
While I might have a slightly different idea as to what makes the most glorious geek anthem, I do agree with Jay when he said: “The debate is over: Geeks have won the culture wars, because we have subjugated popular music and bent it to our will.” Fortunately, a lot of geek music is pretty funny, so we can usually get away with playing it around our non-geek friends. But to my geek friends, I ask you to bring to my attention any glorious geek anthems that haven’t made it onto our recommendation lists.
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