A Geekcentric Guide to Nerdcore

There is a pretty sizable amount of music that geeks enjoy; from chiptunes to video game OSTs, today’s musically inclined geek has a pretty diverse range of songs to keep him or her satisfied. However, until recently, there hasn’t really been any music made specifically for us. This changed at the turn of the millennium with the advent of nerdcore hiphop, or nerdcore for short. Pioneering artists like MC Frontalot, Optimus Rhyme, and YTCracker successfully blended nerdy lyrics and beats with the traditional hip-hop style to create a genre for geeks, by geeks.

I must digress now, because after all, music is meant to be listened to. Here are a few of my favorite nerdcore artists to help whet your aural appetites:

MC Frontalot

MC Frontalot deserves recognition because he’s the man that coined the term “nerdcore” in the first place. Though he didn’t really “invent” the genre, it is widely held that he gave it the name it desperately needed. Born Damian Hess, Frontalot’s songs cover a broad variety of subjects and have garnered a significant following. The aptly named “Diseases of Yore” features geek superstar Jonathan Coulton, while gamers may recognize the catchy beat and sharp lyrics of “Final Boss” from the end of Penny Arcade’s episodic title On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. If you’re looking to get into nerdcore (and you should be), you’d be making a mistake if you didn’t start with Frontalot’s work.

Supercommuter

Supercommuter is not a singular artist, but rather a trio of talented artists that write rap lyrics only during their daily commutes. Wheelie Cyberman, formerly of nerdcore pioneer Optimus Rhyme, is on the mic, Stenobot makes the beats, and Tron Juan mixes the tracks. What’s truly unique about Supercommuter is that they exclusively use Little Sound DJ, a program for the original Game Boy, to produce their beats. The group’s lyrics paint exquisite pictures of outrageously geeky scenes; “Robot Party” tells of an earth overrun by robots that kill and breed humans for sport, while “Itty Bitty Pigeons” details a brutal war between the two factions as they struggle to understand each other. You owe it to yourself to check these guys out.

Futuristic Sex Robotz

Delving into the lighter, certainly not work safe side of nerdcore, Futuristic Sex Robotz is a group of employees at Bungie (most famous for the Halo and Marathon series) that finally made their drunken fantasies come true around 2008 when they released their first and only album for free over the internet, Hotel Coral Essex. Nerdy rappers Coaxke, PC Speaker, Recycle Bin, and Subrandom, transplants from the age of beige toasters and BBSes, aren’t afraid to take on geeky subjects new and old alike. “WoW” recants an epic showdown in the World of Warcraft, while “Back in the Day” waxes nostalgic about a time before browsers, broadband, and Bittorrent. Old school or new school, Futuristic Sex Robotz has something you’ll enjoy either way.
Of course, I’ve only scratched the surface of the vast amount of quality music the nerdcore genre has to offer. Those of you thirsting for more should check out MC Router, MC Hawking, Mega Ran, and The Adventures of Duane and BrandO, just to list a scant few of the quality artists in the nerdcore scene.

MC Frontalot’s website is here and contains a wealth of free tracks for your downloading pleasure.
All Supercommuter music can be purchased from their website here.
The official Futuristic Sex Robotz website seems to have disappeared, but there’s an unofficial one here that has their album up for download.