Musician Jonathan Coulton, best known for his geek-friendly tunes like "Code Monkey" and the two (amazing) theme songs for the Portal videogames, got a bit of a surprise this morning when a Twitter follower sent him a – video that appeared to be a Glee version of the Sir Mix-A-Lot song "Baby Got Back." The problem? It was almost identical to Coulton's very distinctive cover arrangement of the same song on his 2005 album Thing a Week One.
"I assume [Glee] heard [my cover] and wanted to put it in their show. Which is flattering, but also an email would have been nice – just a hi, howya doin' kind of thing," Coulton told Wired by e-mail.
Coulton notes that the YouTube video was not an official Fox release of the song, but the track is currently for sale on the Swedish version of iTunes, as reported by Kotaku, where it appears to be offered from the official "Glee Cast" account. The song is reportedly slated for the Jan. 24 episode "Sadie Hawkins." Wired reached out to a Fox representative, who said that they had no comment on the matter.
Coulton immediately posted the video on Twitter side-by-side with a link to his version of the 1992 hit single, and the resemblance was beyond uncanny, even simulating quirks like Coulton's name drop of "Johnny C." It was so close, in fact, that Coulton speculated that the same audio might have been used, and recruited his followers to help him analyze the track.
Updated 1/21/12 11:30 am EST: Wired reader Will Ross has created a side-by-side audio juxtaposition of the two tracks for easy comparison.
"I'm still waiting on the science," said Coulton. "It's possible they chose to reproduce the arrangement exactly, but I'm not sure why they would have kept all my bad choices in there and not found one thing to improve. Though I will say their mix is better than my 2005 version, so that's good."
Coulton adds that he's trying to sort out the legal ramifications, and that he'd be fine with fans using his arrangement of the song "for fandom's sake, but if it is a large corporation using other people's ideas to make money, whether it's legal or not, it's kind of gross."
Asked about his new or upcoming projects, Coulton joked, "I'm creating a new TV show. It's called Glee."
