When Sci-fi and Music Clash
by Drew Kolar
With my fairly recent foray in party planning has come a need for finding danceable music. Since most of these parties have costume themes, themed music seems to come with the territory. A recent science fiction-themed party, not surprisingly, opened up an entire world of very fitting music.
Over the years, many artists have touched upon-if not fully embraced-a sci-fi theme in their tunes. The obvious modern example is Daft Punk, the French electronic duo who dresses as robots in appearances. But looking across the board, there are many other artists and genres that go much further in the pursuit of science fiction themes.
One of the biggest artists to haven taken this and run with it throughout his career is none other than David Bowie. It seems to have started with the song "Space Oddity," from the album of the same name, about an astronaut named Major Tom who chooses to stay in space thanks to the "high" he feels from being there. (Yes, it could be a drug reference. The song "Ashes to Ashes" later in Bowie's career mentions how Major Tom is a "junkie"). But with Bowie the sci-fi just keeps going, from the song "Moonage Daydream" off of Ziggy Stardust to "I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spaceship" on the album Earthling. He even played an alien in the movie The Man who Fell to Earth. And although the song "Loving the Alien" is not quite about Martians, it does add to the feel of the theme, eh?
Well, Bowie is just the beginning of the journey. Let's try Queen on for example. It seems Freddie Mercury has his own fantastical obsessions. Not only did Queen write the theme song for the 80s version of Flash Gordon, but they also dedicated the "B" side (or as they called it, "Side Black") of Queen II to a fictional kingdom from Mercury's childhood imagination. The songs "Seven Seas of Rhye" and "Ogre Battle" are prime examples of telling stories from this fictional land, called Rhye. These, as well as many other of Queen's hits, were also used in the musical We Will Rock You, a sci-fi romp about a futuristic world without real instruments run by the tyrannical "Killer Queen"-who is indeed "dynamite with a laser beam."
Classic rock isn't the only genre to hit up sci-fi, however. Modern rock has its own take on the subject. Shirley Manson of Garbage may not sing much about outer space, but she plays a very futuristic character (a queen in the year 3030 who has "taken to the skies" to defend her homeland from evil lords) in the video for "Special" and in the video for "The World is Not Enough" (where she plays a robot singer with a built-in time bomb). She even plays a terminator in the television series The Sarah Connor Chronicles, based on the movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It seems Manson fits the coldhearted robotic killer persona nicely.
Janelle Monae, however, is perhaps the prime example of modern sci-fi music. Based in Atlanta, Monae seems to mesh multiple genres together, from funk to pop to soul to even a bit of opera, all the while singing about her character, Cindi Mayweather, a robot superstar living in the futuristic city of Metropolis who is being chased by Droid Control for falling in love with a human. Her first suite, The Chase, is one of four suites that will come together in January to make up the full Metropolis album. It begins with the line "I'm an alien from outer space." Monae may or may not believe that she actually is Mayweather-but if she doesn't, she puts on a very convincing stage performance, not breaking character once.
Of course, these major examples do not even begin to account for everything. There are many one-off examples: Bush has a song on the album The Science of Things called "Spacetravel," featuring backup by Gwen Stefani, in which Gavin Rossdale sings of being "scared of the government." Then there's the 80s hit "She Blinded Me with Science" by Thomas Dolby-not extremely sci-fi, but which has the mad scientist feel. And let's not forget the cult classic rock and roll musical-turned-movie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We also can't forget the recent Repo! The Genetic Opera, which is about a future world full of organ failures and a company, GeneCo, that sends "Repo Men" to repossess organs if a person can't pay. Gruesome? Yes, but also vey sci-fi and very musical.
And of course there are so many more examples, spanning every genre imaginable, in both music and videos. Who needs Daft Punk for a sci-fi fix when every other genre seems to have its own sub-section of science fiction sounds?
