About seven years ago, singer/songwriter Jonathan Coulton recorded a brilliant acoustic version of Sir Mix A Lot’s “Baby Got Back,” turning the rap into a sweet ballad. Take a listen:
Lots of fun, and a very distinctive cover. No way you would hear this and not know that this it the Jonathan Coulton cover. (Kinda like the Gary Jules cover of the Tears for Fears song “Mad Love.”)
So now the folks on the Fox show Glee have performed the Coulton version of “Baby Got Back,” but they have made no reference to it being based on Coulton’s cover, nor did they contact Coulton about it.
Now it’s great that Glee is picking up on something so cool. But it would be much cooler if they would have made mention of the independent musician who created this version of the song. Of course, companies like News Corp. (that owns Fox Broadcasting that airs Glee) always wants proper credit and compensation for their creative content….
Come on, Fox, let’s do the right thing here!
(Oh, right, this is News Corp., that hacked into the cell phone of a murdered British girl so they could come up with more tabloid stories on her…)
By the way, this is another example of Glee and Truth 3 – Everything from the margin moves to the center. An indy artist’s version of a rap song gets made part of a hit TV show. Would have been a great chance for much more of the world to know who Jonathan Coulton is.
UPDATE: Folks, there is no question that the alleged Glee clip is a performance of Jonathan Coulton’s version of “Baby Got Back.” It has his lyric change (Johnny C’s in trouble) and the original melody that he gave it.
Here’s an acoustic version of “Baby Got Back” done by Joel Martin on Canadian Idol that’s not based on the Coulton cover. You can tell it isn’t based on Coulton’s version because it has an entirely different melody. (Thanks @yakfur for pointing this one out to me!)