Space Music

We don't just READ science fiction on this forum, we've also listened to a fair amount of SF-inspired music over the years.

Titles that come to mind:

"Space Oddity" and "Ashes to Ashes" by David Bowie
Alan Parsons "I Robot"
Styx "Kilroy Was Here"
Neil Young "Trans"
The rock 'n roll concept album for "War of the Worlds"
Electronic theremin music from Bebe Barron (featured in "Forbidden Planet")
"Yoshimi Vs. The Giant Robots" by The Flaming Lips
Gustav Holst's "The Planets"
& John Williams' thoroughly bombastic and derivative scores

Any other favorites?

Elton John- Rocket Man
The Rolling Stones- 2000 Light Years From Home
?- In the Year 2525 (not one of my favorites, but it fits the topic)

...Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (Bowie again)
Van Gelis ("Blade Runner" soundtrack)
"1983, A Merman I Will Be"
& "Third Stone From the Sun" Jimi Hendrix

Monohex: Did you ever hear Kate Bush's version of "Rocket Man"--lovely.

Rush, man. Rush.

Also the Dickies. :)

Mike Oldfield - The Songs of Distant Earth, acknowledged to have been inspired by Arthur C. Clarke and one of my favorite cds.

Ziltoid the Omniscient by Devin Townsend :-)

Rush! Of course! Fine Canadian boys. "2112" was a concept album wasn't it? "Bytor & The Snow Dogs", why does that title stick in my mind? "Signals" had a futuristic theme, "Subdivisions" and "New World Man" from that album are two of my favorites by the trio.

Weener, thanks for the trip down memory lane. By any chance are you a fan of Gene and Dean (Ween), is that where your monicker originates?

"Ziltoid the Omniscient"? If that title doesn't produce a host of "Google" searches, I dunno what will. Catchy...

"Intergalactic" - Beastie Boys
"Chiron Beta Prime" - Jonathan Coulton
"Highly Illogical" - Leonard Nimoy (as Spock)

A favourite: Brian Eno's Apollo soundtrack--not SF-inspired but certainly "space music"

Others:
Dragonfly-Blondie (about a spaceship)
Major Tom-Peter Schilling ("borrowed" from you-know-who)
The disco song "I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper" (!)
The Robots-Kraftwerk

Hawkwind - loads of stuff.
Alan Davey - Chaos Delight (featuring songs called Eagle Alfa, Holosuite Program, Interceptor 1 and others)
Dr Hasbeen - The Alien Within (and others)
Man Or Astroman - loads of stuff
Michael Moorcock - New Worlds Fair and The Entropy Tango
Pseudo Sun - Future Memoirs
Bob Calvert - Lucky Leif And The Longships (alt-history)
Spacehead - tracks include Monolith Part 1, Brain Machine and Visitations
Wonky Alice - Atomic Raindance (tracks include Lunar Adam, and Astronauts)

Julian Cope - I Come From Another Planet, Baby
Julian Cope - The Loveboat
Julian Cope - Spacerock With Me

@7: I am a huge fan of Deaner and Gener, and that is in fact how I chose my screen name! Ween rules.

Krel - Ad Astra (lots of tracks on this album)
Kyuss - Space Cadet
Gaye Bykers On Acid - lots of their early stuff used samples from Star Trek, SF Films and cult TV

Oingo Boingo- Weird Science
Deep Purple- Space Truckin'
Primus- Space Farm
Yes- Starship Trooper

# 3 Cliff

No, I wasn't aware of any artist covering the song except William Shatner.

Oh yeah, word to Oingo Boingo.

#8 - As Ziltoid himself says, "If there were two omnisciences, I'd be both of them." :-)

also...
Mithras - Worlds Beyond the Veil
Blue Oyster Cult - too many songs to name them all
The Lord Weird Slough Feg - Traveller (inspired by the sf RPG)
anything by Powerman 5000
Alan Parson Project - I. Robot
Sacriversum - Sigma Draconis
Hypocrisy - The Arrival

Weener, that song "Spinal Meningitis" just about killed me but "Dr. Rock"...now THAT'S music.

Andy: A pleasure to find another Julian Cope fan. "Upwards at 45 degrees" is definitely a spacey song and "Safesurfer" from "Peggie Suicide" features the best psychedelic guitar I think I've ever heard.

Hawkwind. Say no more...

William Shatner's spoken word album "Has Been" deserves a mention. It's surprisingly good and Ben Folds produces. Even my wife loves this one and she's hardly a Trekkie, believe me...

"Has Been" is worth hearing just for the cover of Pulp's "Common People" (one of the best singles of the 90s).

Julian Cope is still producing good music, in between lectures on Britain's mystical places - he now only releases through his own website though. "Safesurfer" is a great song. "I come from another planet, baby" was also released as a single, and slightly extended - to 20 mins.

Tubeway Army/Gary Numan - all the early albums.
The Buggles - The Age of Plastic (album)

There's:

The Orb - The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, U.F.Orb, Cydonia... actually most of their stuff is SF-inspired

The All Seeing I - First Man in Space

The B-52's - Planet Claire

Billy Idol - Cyberpunk

The Timelords (AKA The J.A.M.M.s, AKA The KLF) - Doctorin' the Tardis. Just about everything else they've done was inspired by The Illuminatus! Trilogy

Kraftwerk - The Man-Machine, Computer World, Electric Cafe

Kraftwelt - Electric Dimension

Komputer - The World of Tomorrow

Moby - We Are All Made of Stars

They Might Be Giants - The Guitar

Senor Coconut - El Baile Aleman (Kraftwerk songs done in a latin style - it sounds daft but it works really well).

"The Stars Are Projectors" by Modest Mouse
"Extremis" Hal (with sexy vocals by "X Files" star Gillian Anderson)
"The Fall of Us All" Steve Tibbetts (brilliant CD by guitar genius)
"Horse Rotorvator" Coil
"()" By Sigur Ros ("Takk" is great too)
"Moon Safari" Air

Hay, Jargoneer, another Cope fan! Yes, I'd heard he releases through his own label and I've wanted to get a hold of an ambient album he did about ten years ago called "Rites" but it's harder to find than a good guy in Gomorrah.

And 9000, I've got five or six Orb albums too--great choice.

I hope somebody's starting a list...

First song that popped into my head
CCR: It came out of the sky

Others:
Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon, Interstellar Overdrive, Astronomy Domine (and many others)

More David Bowie: From Earthling - Looking for Satellites

Imperial Drag: Stare into the Sun, Man in the Moon

Marilyn Manson: Great Big White World, Dissassociative (references to space), The Last Day on Earth

Oasis: Champagne Supernova

Placebo: Mars Landing Party

Marilyn Manson's third major release, "Mechanical Animals," has a heavy "alien" and "outer space" undercurrent. He was very much inspired by Bowie on that album, especially Bowie's "Ziggy" period.

Doh! How could I forget:

David Bowie - Diamond Dogs (A concept album based on 1984.)

Future Sound of London - Dead Cities

I was also tempted to list the Eurythmics - 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother) soundtrack, but since there was so much controversy around it...

ELO. Too many songs to mention.

"Remember the good old 1980s?
When thinks were so uncomplicated?"

-- Ticket to the Moon

>26 - isn't the whole "Time" album loosely based on some kind of cryogenic scenario?

If anyone likes ELO you may be interested in LEO; their album, "Alpacas Orgling", is an very enjoyable recreation of the late 70s ELO sound - an undiscovered pop classic in the making.

"Meat on the Moon" by the Bobs

Queen: the entire "Flash Gordon" soundtrack. Or "I'm the Invisible Man." Or "Don't Stop Me Now."

Brain Salad Surgery -Emerson Lake & Palmer
Sound on Sound -Bill Nelson and Red Noise
Still Life -Van Der Graaf Generator
Are We Not Men? We Are Devo! -Devo
The Soft Bulletin - The Flaming Lips
Diamond Dogs -David Bowie
Outside -David Bowie
The Golden Age of Wireless -Thomas Dolby

#25 9000:

I LOVE the Eurythmics "1984" soundtrack. The first cut on Side II, "Julia"--gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. I don't think it really fit the movie (starring John Hurt and Richard Burton, one of the most depressing films in cinematic history) but it is terrific music in its own right.

The ELO "Time" album: is that the one with the song "Hold on Tight To Your Dreams"? Man, I used to bop to that one when I was around seventeen...

Eloy - Through A Somber Galaxy
Darxtar - This Alien Nation
Alien Planetscapes - lots
f/i - lots

Hmm... Well, to each their own.
But.
My definition of Space Music is a bit different. I listen to a lot of film scores and usually have appropriate music for whatever I'm reading. I've been reading a lot of older SF concerning first flights, the exploration of the planets and... The Conquest of Space... You know - from the '30s through the '60s.

These items are currently on my iPod for listening while I read older "Space SF"
"The Day the Earth Stood Still" by Bernard Herrmann (2 versions)
"Destination Moon" by Leith Stevens
"Flight to Mars" by Marlin Skiles
"Forbidden Planet" by Louis and Bebe Barron
"Gamma One Quadrillogy" by A. F. Lavagnino
"Ikarie XB1" by... partly library and partly Zdenek Liska
"Kronos' by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter
"Lost in Space" - TV - John Williams and others 4 CDs
"Man in Space With Sounds" by Attilio Mineo (The non-narrated version)
"The Outer Space Suite" by Bernard Herrmann
"Planet of the Vampires" by Gino Marinuzzi jr.
"Queen of Outer Space" by Marlin Skiles
"Rocketship XM" by Ferde Grofe (LP-tape hybrid)
"Space:1999" by Barry Gray etc (2 CD)
"This Island Earth" by Stein, Salter, Mancini

Thingmaker:

I think I would KILL for about 2/3 of the CD's on your list. I can imagine playing them on my office Yamaha stereo, tapping away merrily to cosmic bloops and bleeps.

If I ever made a film, the first thing I would do is put out a call to every theremin artist I could find to contribute to the soundtrack. Great list...

I'm thinking of all those songs from the '50s & '60s that were like, man, outta this world!

Purple People Eater by Shep Wooley
Telstar by The Tornados
Out of Limits by The Marketts
Beware of the Blob by The Five Blobs (Burt Bacharach)
Santa and the Satellite and The Flying Saucer by Buchanan and Goodman
The Epic Ride of John H. Glenn by Walter Brennan and the Johnny Mann Singers
Mr. Spaceman by The Byrds

Edited to add Mr. Spacemen. How in the world (or out of it) could I have forgotten that one?

Far out!

I just checked and most of the links to music I have shared in the past are expired. But a few survive.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=K8134JF5 ("Twilight Zone" music by Bernard Herrmann which includes "The Outer Space Suite" - intended as library music for CBS TV.)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZL028959 (The scores "Flight to Mars" and "Queen of Outer Space" by Marlin Skiles.)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FDOOJD55 ("Kronos" - A favorite SF score by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter)

Of course I can re-post others. There's a thriving community of soundtrack fans out there, sharing stuff freely in mp3 format.

I wish I was part of that community of listener/fans--but I don't have an MP3 player and I'm, er...technologically challenged would be putting it kindly. I can't even burn a damn CD.

"Thing", you have my envy (and best wishes). I'll check out those links and see if I can at least tune in through my speakers, even if I can't record.

My thanks...

I'm more with thingmaker on music and sf. I couldn't agree more over Herrman's scores (generally - his Hitchcock stuff was astonishing), especially 'Day the Earth Stood Still'.

I've enjoyed John Williams' scores, even if they do turn into a 'spot the reference' session.

Holst's 'Planets Suite' is nothing to do with astronomy, more to do with mythic and astrological significance. But still excellent listening.

And then there's Philip Glass - two of the most interesting sfnal operas I've heard have been his setting of the Doris Lessing novel The making of the representative for Planet 8 which has a haunting and memorable ending; and his Columbus opera 'The Voyage' which has a whole section devoted to a starship captain, contrasting her with Columbus.

Okay, I have just seen the finest space music video ever. Please check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWOzUzJd6wM

It's Zlad!'s famous 'Electronik Supersonik'

Grab a copy of the soundtrack for Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" and you'll find even more Ligeti. Creeeepy music.

Do you know the story of Alex North and "2001"? North was commissioned to write the score for the movie and worked himself into a state of near collapse to complete it in time.

On the day of the film's premiere, he was basically wheeled into the theatre...and was dumbstruck when he realized that instead of using HIS score, Kubrick had opted to employ the classical soundtrack we've come to know so well. In retrospect it was the right decision but Kubrick's failure to notify North of what he'd done is a black mark against a great director's name.

Years later, North's version of his "2001" score was released and I've always wondered what it sounded like...

I don't know if the tune has been mentioned yet, but I really like the Doctor Who theme. I'd say it's one of my favorite theme songs in both TV and film.

About the Alex North "2001: A Space Odyssey" score...
Apparently Mr. North did not write a complete score and Kubrick informed him that the balance of the film would not require music... The portion of the film scored covers the "dawn of man" sequences through the "moon bus" trip. The pieces used in the film are mostly what Kubrick presented to North as a "temp-track" and this wouldn't be the first example of a director becoming attached to their "temp-track". The Alex North score is available on CD - conducted by Jerry Goldsmith - since 1993 and there is, I believe, a second version, released more recently.
I was a bit disappointed by North's score when I first heard it. I think the classical selections used in the film are too deeply imprinted on me to truly appreciate it... Also. I have listened to a lot of Alex North scores and his "2001" seemed very familiar to me. He reused the material in other scores. If you have heard: "The Shoes of the Fisherman", "Africa" and "Dragonslayer", you will probably have a similar reaction.

Now, see, this is what I love about LibraryThing: the wealth of info that can be drawn from members that reside from Toronto to Timbuktu.

I love Kubrick as a director (er, except for "Eyes Wide Shut" and "Barry Lyndon") but I've read a number of biographies of the man and he was a pretty cold-blooded s.o.b. Malcolm McDowell's thoughts on the man are especially poignant.

Anyway, gotta get back to editing. Took a break and if I hang around here I'm bound to be swept up in more interesting discussions and debate.

Thingmaker, thanks...

I think that Echoes by Pink Floyd on the album Meddle is my favourite and most emotional piece of music that I consider is in the Sci-Fi vein. I can see the machines in War of the Worlds dying!

Yes! "Echoes" goes on when I need fifteen or twenty minutes of atmospheric, non-lyric music and it is a terrific cut (the other side of the album, er, not so much). I always like Floyd's "The Final Cut", though a lot of the fans dismissed it and many think it should be considered the first solo Waters album. It's a highly personal album, certainly, but Gilmour's guitar work is still exquisite (if more subdued than usual) and "The Gunner's Dream" is extraordinary...

Ten Scifi Songs You Should Take to a Barren Asteroid from io9.com

Brian Eno's "The Shutov Assembly" (Opal/Warner records 1992) is great for atmosphere. Eno can be annoying, especially when he tries to sing (brrr), but "Shutov Assembly" and his "Film Music" are perfect soundtracks for writers at work...

Queen - '39

A fellow fan of film music, known on the internet as filmpac, has recently posted a rip of the score to "Rocketship XM" by Ferde Grofe.
The score is long unavailable as it was only released on LP -- which has since become... well... more of a collectible artifact than anything else. It is, however, a wonderful example of SF film scoring from the '50s - And, yes, there is theremin!
The file is a Zip archive with all cues at 320k mp3.

http://rapidshare.com/files/85851917/FG-RocketshipXM.zip

OK, here's one I bet nobody else has - I have an LP (that's vinyl if your young) of Leonard Nimoy singing "space" songs, one of which is an altered version of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"

I've got that one, and Highly Illogical also.

Thingmaker:

"Rocketship X-M" is a fun old flick and if I can download some of that music, I'd be thrilled. Theremin music, what can I say? Lovely, lovely stuff.

I just ordered "Tarantula" and "Conquest of Space" on VHS cheap-cheap through internet connections. I'm no computer geek but where else could I find these beauties? Old sci fi flicks have so much more charm than soul-less contemporary crap. Our whole family pops a big bowl of popcorn and settle in for a double feature.

Thanks for this--it's a fun thread.

There's a LOT of film music available on CD these days - or even by direct download (I just bought Marc Wilkinson's score to the 1971 horror film "Blood on Satan's Claw" online from Amazon).

A label called Monstrous Movie Music has put out several CDs full of wonderfully re-performed scores. My favorite contains almost 38 minutes of "This Island Earth" by Herman Stein and others - which is the whole score, including the material originally written for other movies.
"Forbidden Planet" is in print on CD... No theremin, but astonishing electronic material of a different sort.
"Destination Moon", CD by Leith Stevens, will turn up on ebay if you keep an eye out. I just saw copies of all three vinyl versions up.
I can't kkepp up with how much material is out there. I can't believe that the complete original score to "The Blob" has been released... It's great stuff but I never expected it to turn up on CD.

There's a site called Buysoundtrax that has just about anything in print - a good place to check before hitting ebay.

Great tips--I've downloaded the "X-M" soundtrack and have already played a couple of tracks. Wonderful! These were special films from a special time. Love those silvery, needle-nosed ships and stalwart crews...and alien females in tin foil dresses who don't know what "kiss" means. I'm chuckling as I type those words.

As always, thanks, Thingmaker...

#52 fleela - That's great! My husband will be amazed to find out I'm not the only one who has that album!

Pink Floyd, who I see is already listed up there, yeah! And the soundtrack from 2001: A Space Odyssey with the Vienna Philharmonic doing Also Sprach Zarathustra comes to mind. But something really off the wall, what about Carmen Miranda's Ghost by Leslie Fish? I have it on an old cassette of assorted space-related filk produced by Firebird Arts & Music -- unfortunately, I just checked the site, and they don't have it listed anymore, darn it! I was hoping to replace my cassette before the machine finally eats it.

If anyone had done a DNA test on Carmen Miranda, I'm almost certain the results would've made the boys at NASA pop up their heads in alarm...

Just another little piece of SF related music.

From Leith Stevens: "When Worlds Collide"

This is the original score without dialog or sound effects. It came from transcription discs and via a couple of generations of (high quality) analog tape... And, it's over a half century old. So the quality is not great. But it's in the form of 21 carefully seperated cues totaling 36 minutes and 25 seconds and I find it listenable.
Probably, there was no point in encoding the mp3s at 320k, but I got in the habit of using that bitrate cuz there are some very picky people out there.

http://rapidshare.com/files/96032346/WhenWorlds.ZIP.html

I'm sure it'll sound great...

You must check out Grandaddy, especially 'The Sophtware Slump" one of my favorite albums, also I love the website http://www.bluemars.org/, its Blue Mars music for the space traveller, interestingly enough it is the website that made me pick up the Red Mars trilogy which is some of my most favorite SF of all time.

Grandaddy are WONDERFUL. I have three of their albums--and if you like them, check out Aqualung--"Strange & Beautiful" is an amazing album.

Just a little recommendation of something that turned out to be better than I expected...
Monstrous Movie Music has released a CD called "The Blob (and other creepy sounds)"
The Ralph Carmichael score to "The Blob" is quite good and it includes that familiar title song as well as the unused main title... But better yet the album also contains nearly thirty-nine minutes of library cues which were used in such films as "The Green Slime" and "The Brain That Wouldn't Die".

This sounds fun...

Solaris!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(band)

Hmmm is it just me or are these not on the lists above:

White Zombie / Rob Zombie (the artists that proves music is more about composition than great voices):
More human than human
Superbeast
Living dead girl (one of my favorites)

Muse:
Starlight
Supermassive Blackhole
Apocalypse Please
Space Dementia
Citizen Erased
Shrinking Universe
Deadstar
(ok Muse is more polisci than scifi but I actually like them as much or more than Zombie! That must involve brainwashing or magic. ;)

Duran Duran:
Electric Barbarella

Rollins Band:
Ghostrider

Portishead: (Beth has to be an alien to sound like she does in these songs... Which I think were in the Tankgirl stk)
Roads
Wandering Star

Oh man,

Duran Duran - Electric Barbarella
Lenny Kravitz - Black Velveteen

Why are there not more songs about robotic love dolls? (I have the creeping feeling there are... I'm just not thinking of them right now.)

Or how about Stephen Moore's version of "Marvin, I love you". Marvin being "the paranoid android" ... Speaking of paranoid androids, I think Radiohead (yum) had a song with that title but don't recall the lyrics.

This is great music, folks...

So have any of you (aside from fssunnysd in msg 57) ever heard of 'filk music'? That's music by and for science fiction fans. It's not all space music (by a long shot) - lots of fantasy, lots of songs-about-books, lots of computer, cat, Cthulu songs...but there are a lot of really good space songs.

There are ones about the space program - Columbia and Challenger inspired a lot, there are ones about the moon landing, Apollo 13, etc.

There are ones that are 'Folk songs for folk who haven't even been yet' - that's a Leslie Fish tape, now a CD (sorry, fssunnysd, no Carmen Miranda I don't think). Songs written as if the writer were living in space - I particularly like "Mass Driver Engineer" by Jordin Kare and "Windward Passage" by Michael Longcor (even if he got it wrong - it's the leeward passage that's the easy one).

Unfortunately it's not all that easy to get - to buy CDs/tapes you either buy online or go to an SF con. If you go to a con you can also hear it - nearly every con these days has a filk room and/or concerts. But there are some online sites where there's MP3s available for download:

The Virtual Filksing which is hosted on a site that also sells filk - check out the Prometheus Music link if you decide you want some.

Darn Near All the Filk on the Web is by far the best link site for filk - it really is darn near everything.

This is a new thing (started last year, I believe) - the Filk Archive. Songwriters can upload their music to this site, and anyone (who signs up) can download from there - a great way to hear a lot of good filk.

Some people have heard of filk and think it's all parody and funny-songs-to-old-tunes. There's a lot of that, but there are also some magnificent, original works out there. Check out "Hope Eyrie" by Leslie Fish on the Virtual Filksing - written right after she watched the first moonlanding. Or for a lighter but still powerful image, try "Witnesses' Waltz", also by Leslie and available at the Virtual Filksing. She really is good. But there are others who have done gorgeous stuff too.

Anything by S.P.O.C.K. could be classed as space music, with titles like "Never trust a Klingon", "Astrogirl", "Mr. Spock's Brain" and "In space, noone can hear you scream".

70, take a look at msg 68. Marvin song by Moore is filk. ;)

Hmmmm...then we get into the argument of "what is filk"...Does Stephen Moore think of himself as a filker? Did/does he know about filk, was the song intended as filk? Or was it just a job-related joke song? Does he sing other stuff? Does he write other stuff?

But yeah, it's found filk at the very least (so is Space Oddity, and probably 90% of the stuff mentioned in this thread).

For me, 'space music' means Krautrock.

Julian Cope's first loved, now oft-slighted Krautrock Sampler cites the following artists as key. Regardless of the moaning, his band recommendations are a great place to start, and some of his anecdote-drenched reviews are highly entertaining. Many of the following have already been mentioned. I've asterisked / annotated favourites. My choices, where stated, aren't necessarily those which are generally considered 'best'. Compare with Rate Your Music if you're interested:

Amon Duul I - Psychedelic Underground
Amon Duul II - Yeti
Ash Ra Tempel - Inventions for Electric Guitar
Can - Ege Bamyesi
Cluster - Zuckerzeit
Cosmic Jokers - Cosmic Jokers
Faust* - All
Sergius Golowin
Guru Guru - UFO
Harmonia* - All
Kraftwerk - Kraftwerk, Kraftwerk 2
La Dusseldorf* - All (but don't start here)
Neu!* - Neu!, Neu! 2, Neu! '75
Popol Vuh* - All
Tangerine Dream** - First four albums in particular
Klaus Schulze** - First 10 albums. The master.

The site linked to a couple of posts up was the gateway into Kraut for me, and I went on a buying binge. I now have about 225 albums. All I need is a huge empty country house to listen to it in, and a pot of tea.

Tangerine Dream's "Atem" has been on my "want" list for about eight to ten years. One of these days...

Krautrock. Of course. Krauts in space...

For those who read and also listen, here's an index of filk books (with ISBN's where available) in conveniently exportable XML MODS form:

http://www.massfilc.org/filkindex/

I've just posted a rip from LP of the score to the very minor film "The Day Time Ended" - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080596/ - The film is a mostly incoherent excuse for special effects that were not extraordinarily special even back in 1980... But I've always had a liking for it. Maybe it's the stop motion critters and the neat matte paintings.
OR
It may have a lot to do with the music - an early score from Richard Band and still one of his best. 28 years and it still isn't out on CD.

http://rapidshare.com/files/104584768/DayTime.ZIP.html

More good stuff from the thingmaker...

the soundtracks to the Cowboy BeBop series. Japanese Composer/bandleader Yoko Kano is amazing!.
http://www.videosift.com/video/Tank-The-Seatbelts-Cowboy-Bebop-Opening-Theme
that is a hell of a tight band.
In the series themselves, a lot of the themes are riffs on classic rock songs.

I was surprised not to see Floyd get mentioned earlier (like 1st)...i mean..2nd LP called Saucer full of Secrets (iirc).
Umm..sort of apropos..Lou Reed - Satellite of Love
a LOT of the early 70s "kraut rock" (eg neu) is very spacey.

I want to concur on a number of these- Grandaddy are great, as is Bowie and Man or Astroman,

An interesting omission so far is Our Lady Peace- Spiritual Machines

For 'sound' Ive also have to go with Mars Volta, esp. their first EP

concur on Paranoid Android- radiohead, hawkwind, (much prog rock included here)

Lots more, no time though

duh..the two lps (now re-released on cd) by Lothar and the Hand People featuring Lothar - the theremin.
"Lothar and the Hand People's most popular recording was the title song "Space Hymn"
i will say when i got around to replacing my long lost LPs w/the cds a couple of yrs back....i was a mite disappointed.

More suggestions with album covers you will find on this music site:
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/erlend/sci_fi_albums

and more albums in this discussion thread:
http://rateyourmusic.com/board_message/message_id_is_961622_and_board_id_is_1&am...

Late to the thread as usual. It took me a while to get it through my head that we’re talking about space music (a term that seems to mean music with a science fiction theme) rather than Space Music (a recognized genre that uses synthesizers to create a floating, ethereal sound environment).

Hermit:

Why not both? What the hell...the more the merrier, as far as I'm concerned.

It was a one-eyed one-horn flying purple people eater,
a one-eyed one-horn flying purple people eater,
a one-eyed one-horn flying purple people eater,
And it sure looked good to me.

or,

Beware of The Blob, it creeps
And leaps and glides and slides
Across the floor
Right through the door
And all around the wall
A splotch, a blotch
Be careful of The Blob

And to think neither one of those beauties ever earned a Grammy or Oscar nod. I still say awards are FIXED...

A fair number of songs off of Dr Octagon - Dr. Octagonecologyst and Kool Keith - Black Elvis/Lost In Space (same guy, both albums) seem to qualify, including "Earth People" and "Supergalactic Lover".

It's a strtch to call this "Space Music" but...
A fellow called "Filmpac" posted the score to "Earth vs. The Spider", a bad but loveable 1958 monster movie. The score is by Albert Glasser and it has some of the most extreme wailing theremin material of any score.

http://rapidshare.com/files/123223317/AG-EarthVsTheSpider.zip

The material is good sound quality, nicely edited, without track titles - Sounds like someone was preparing an album but none has ever appeared.

Theremin! We need more theremin!

Here's something I've been listening to more of late... It's the score to "Ikarie XB1" a Czech SF film from 1963 which is probably rather interesting and rather dull... The American version, "Voyage to the End of the Universe" features a pathetic modified ending, is considerably shortened - and is still dull.

The music in this... compilation... is two distinct sets of cues the first twelve and the last eleven (or so) are from the DVD, with dilogue and sfx - I presume they are by Zdenek Liska. The remaining cues, about twenty minutes, are of mediocre to poor sound quality but they are music only. These cues are library music that I believe must be from the American version of the film, which I haven't seen in decades. The library music is great stuff, some I recall hearing in the old radio drama anthology, "X Minus One". Some of it is brooding and mysterious, some is apocalyptically bleak, and some is like what you might expect in a religious epic... Very interesting.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OI0QQZ6C

well..the rock heirs of Clara Rockwell on the theremin were Lothar (the theremin) and the Hand People, mentioned above...

How about anything by Daikaiju! Hooray for Japanese Monster Surf Rock!

Also, everything by Sista mannen på Jorden - "Last man on Earth", a Swedish space synthpop group. Streaming audio on last.fm:
http://www.last.fm/music/Sista+mannen+p%C3%A5+Jorden/+albums
My current favorite is "Leonov" (the lyrics are also pretty good).

And a bunch of songs by Welle: Erdball, a retro synthpop/bitpop group from Germany... though they sing more often about computers than about space, but they do have a few space-themed tracks.

I enjoy Komputer's 'World of Tomorrow' CD. Not for everybody. It's Kraftwerk-esque washing machine music for sure. Also not sure of you guys would consider it 'Space Music', but it is Sci-fi music anyway.

Well, if we're going to go down that route, surely most Kraftwerk is SF music anyway? An album called 'Autobahn' is surely about as Ballard-esque as you can get... (Discuss.)

Rob,

Kraftwerk has been quoted already. We may have corrupted the OP's intention of 'Space Music', but no discussion of sci-fi and music is complete without a mention of those guys.

Kraftwerk--"Autobahn" is listenable when I'm working and need some background sound but I find too much of the band's stuff is repetitious and overlong. Emotionally uninvolving. There's a terrific ambient CD that's included as a bonus offering in Moby's "Hotel" album and lemme give a plug for "Carnage Visors", an all instrumental offering the Cure released with their best studio offering "Faith" many, many moons ago...

My favourite scifi inspired/oriented albums at the moment are definitely:

Jean-Michel Jarre - Oxygene 1-6
Jean-Michel Jarre - Oxygene 7-13
Jean-Michel Jarre - Magnetic Fields 1-5
Carbon Based Lifeforms - Hydroponic Garden
Carbon Based Lifeforms - World of Sleepers

And last but definitely not least a superb album that tells an entire scifi epoch in its lyrics:

CMX - Talvikuningas (in English that would be "The Winter King")

It's in Finnish, but if anyone has the "access" to the language I highly recommend. The genre I would classify as heavy rock with a symphonic twist at times.

Jarre's "Zoolook" is fun to work to...

I see a couple of messages about Radiohead, but no on has actually stated the album, "OK Computer". Not only is it sci-fi inspired, but it is one of my favorite albums of all time overall.

Terrific album.

Love their stuff. "In Rainbows" was a delightful return to form.

I'm not Jim / "You are all my People"
is a new cd w/ words by Jonathen Lethem, music by Silos leader, Salas-Humara. This isn't space music, but didn't deserve a new thread...

i just wondered if anyone might have heard this yet? Described as garage/stonesy/Steve Earle...I'm a big fan of the older Silos material, and like much of Lethem's work....so any knowledge?

But in the realm of space-music...Rick Wright, floyd keyboardist just died.

Just putting in my vote for Subtonick's Silver Apples of the Moon as music to read SF by.

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=39453

Pink Floyd - Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
Pink Floyd - Welcome To The Machine

Always liked
Tonto's Expanding Headband: Zero Time

The netlabel comfortstand has a compilation called "Interplanetary Materials". I heartly recommend it.

http://comfortstand.com/catalog/020/index.html

Fantastic posts - well done! Signed up just so I could add to it. Here are a few extra tracks to add to the list:

Pixies - 'Motorway to Roswell', 'Planet of Sound', 'The Happening', 'The Thing', 'Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons', 'Into the White'... and probably others

Frank Black - 'The Invaders', 'Men In Black', ... probably a lot more

Pop Will Eat Itself - 'Def Con One' and others (many references to Alan Moore comic fiction but various other SF references too)

Fatboy Slim - 'Weapon of Choice' (obscure references to Dune e.g. 'walk without rhythm, and you won't attract the worm')

How about that 80's song - Weird Science - I don't remember who sings it, but it still gets air time :)

I apologize for the poor quality of the video, but here's a fun Sci-Fi themed Christmas Song!

Going in the opposite direction, there's a collection of sci-fi stories each based on the title of a song by Janis Ian, Stars: Original Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian. Janis herself, incidentally, is a sci-fi author.

Don't forget Prism's "Spaceship Superstar" and "Take Me To The Captain". There is also Deep Purple's "Space Truckin". And I don't know if this one qualifies or not but back in the late 70's in England there was a tune called "Bionic Santa" - am still trying to track down a copy of it.

Information Society - their self-titled album is loaded with Star Trek samples. Hack and Peace and Love, Incorporated were inspired (at least in part) by cyberpunk in particular and science fiction in general (for example, the songs 'Mirrorshades', 'Where Would I Be Without IBM?', 'Seek 200', and 'To the City').

Cassandra Complex - the album Cyberpunx shows heavy influence by Gibson and Sterling.

Psykosonik - both the self-titled album and Unlearn show heavy sci-fi influence, though the former more by cyberpunk and the latter by less specific sorts of science fiction (and possibly transhumanism).

Optimus Rhyme - their first album makes frequent references to the first season of the original Transformers cartoon series.

Deltron - a side project of Del the Funky Homosapien. The album 3030 is full of cyberpunk, transhumanist, and dystopian themes. It's also full of hope because the characters never stop fighting the good fight (as they see it, anyway).

Ayria - their music sometimes references dystopian science fiction or cyberpunk ('Counterblow', 'Infiltrating My Way Through the System', 'Post-Apocalyptic Girl').

For a listing of "space" (okay science fiction) music you could look at Rhino Records Brain in a Box.
If you go to the shopping.yahoo.com listing you'll find a list of the contents. too many to post here

It contains many of the pieces mentioned here and then some you might not think of.
the Jetsons theme, Space is the Place by Sun Ra, Waiting for the UFO's by Graham Parker and The Rumour, even a couple of theremin pieces

Full disclosure I do own this set (bought it as reference work) and for a lot less than the listed $149.99 price on amazon

Let's not overlook some of the cinematic possibilities:

The Peter Schickele tunes "Silent Running" and "Rejoice in the Sun" on "Silent Running"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Running

"Poor Louie, God bless him... he's not with us anymore."

--or--

"Benson, Arizona" from Dark Star

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069945/

"Don't give me any of that intelligent life crap, just give me something I can blow up "

--or, looking forward--

Coming soon, from the producers of "Star Wreck"--

"Iron Sky" -- "Under the Iron Sky"

Watch the teaser/hear the song at http://www.ironsky.net

"In 1945 the Nazis fled to the moon. In 2018 they are coming back.