Comments on: Dreaming of Orgonon

By: Jennifer Brown

Jennifer Brown — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 16:52:12 +0000

Klaatu, Gong, Bowie, (of course), Jimi Hendrix, Bjork. Bjork is the obvious invitee!

By: Kevin Peters

Kevin Peters — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 19:25:14 +0000

How excellent to see an extended post about Kate Bush! Regarding “Cloudbusting”, it is in fact actual science as opposed to science fiction, as the song was inspired by Peter Reich’s A BOOK OF DREAMS: A MEMOIR OF WILHELM REICH (which may now be out of print – I have an old Dutton Obelisk paperback, which sports a jacket taken from Kate Bush’s video for “Cloudbusting”). Everything in the song is pulled straight from this book, including the Cloudbuster (which Reich famously ended a drought using). Unfortunately, the government conspiracy against Wilhelm Reich was all too real (this was during the 1950s) and he died shortly after being incarcerated. A BOOK OF DREAMS is a lovely read if you can find it (and deserves a reprint).

As for Kate Bush’s “The Whole Story”, she released a companion video collection when the album first came out. “Experiment IV” is especially interesting to see.

Hard Rock and Heavy Metal do have many science fiction songs, in addition to fantasy and horror. Some examples include the proto-metal MC5′s “Starship”, Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”, “Electric Funeral”, and “Into the Void”, Iron Maiden’s “Total Eclipse” and “To Tame a Land” (the latter not being very good, but having been based on Frank Herbert’s DUNE), and Judas Priest’s “Metal Gods”, among others (Blue Oyster Cult also has many songs in this genre).

Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer of Iron Maiden, released a fairly recent solo science fiction concept album entitled “A Tyranny of Souls”, with songs that explore the idea of interstellar travel and alien contact.

On the prog-rock side, Rush dominates with science fiction songs, the best-known being “2112″, but also includes song cycles such as “Cygnus X-1″, and later songs such as “Earthshine”.

On a more contemporary note, the Atlanta progressive sludge metal outfit Mastadon followed up their MOBY DICK concept album “Leviathan” with two science fiction themed albums: “Blood Mountain” and “Crack the Skye”. The latter album featured an outer space-themed video for the song “Oblivion”.

On a completely different note, one might consider the various songs done by Parliament, such as “Mothership Connection (Star Child)”.

Thanks for starting the interesting thread!

Kevin

By: G.

G. — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 17:35:46 +0000

Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys by My Chemical Romance is a post-corporate-apocalypse album (with two great Mad Max-style videos) that envisions several tracks played by a lone DJ in a desert landscape (including the radio banter) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_Days:_The_True_Lives_of_the_Fabulous_Killjoys

By: Glenn Grant

Glenn Grant — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 04:04:02 +0000

They Might Be Giants (of course), “The Bells Are Ringing”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tNlBS9JzLk

Brendan Benson, “Insects Rule”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pwDYnBCLHA

The Flaming Lips, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (part 1)”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq-W-4Izjwc

The Rheostatics (a defunct band, sadly), “The Tarleks”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpgjd7Dh8mI

The Mountain Goats, “Lovecraft in Brooklyn”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrHgZRGLgo0

TMBG (again), “2082″:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1sLBkuYm3c

Okay I’ll stop now. See you at Readercon!

By: Alida

Alida — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 18:52:38 +0000

Del tha funky homosapien!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6j_3KetcQs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Great topic.

By: Michael Walsh

Michael Walsh — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 16:56:42 +0000

Janis Ian, who is something of fan and even had a book published by Tor: “Stars: Stories Based on Janis Ian Songs”. For the Nebs three years ago she performed this: http://www.janisian.com/freedownloads/welcomehomeunplugged.mp3

Deconstructed lyrics:
http://www.janisian.com/lyrics/welcomehomedeconstructed.php

By: indubitable

indubitable — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 15:39:08 +0000

This isn’t quite what you’re asking, but Beth Kinderman and the Player Characters come out of a filk tradition, but are far beyond filk in terms of content and lyrical complexity. http://bethkinderman.com/

By: Jaime Leigh

Jaime Leigh — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 15:29:38 +0000

The band Sunspot has LOTS of SF music. Like Slingshot Effect is about time travel, for example.

Their website: http://rock.sunspotmusic.com/

An audio interview with the band about all things science fiction:
http://plainketchup.libsyn.com/hotsauce/the-butterfly-effect-and-zombie-ants-guest-sunspot

Jaime

By: Paul Riddell

Paul Riddell — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:20:36 +0000

Hawkwind.

Abney Park.

Ego Likeness.

GWAR. (Heck, the whole stage routine is based on the conceit that the band members are alien barbarians.)

Hmmm. Consortium of Genius, perhaps?

By: Ken Houghton

Ken Houghton — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 01:41:00 +0000

Michael Moorcock used to write songs for–and possibly perform with–Hawkwind, of course.

Warren Zevon’s Transverse City was self-described as a cyberpunk album. Side one of Rush’s 2112 is a bad Baen novel.

Can we ignore John Shirley, Ax Nelson, Cats Laughing, and other SF/Horror Writer/Editor Bands? Probably not, excepting maybe the first. But none of those members joined the Rock Bottom Remainders, or even sang “We Are Jung.”

the less said about GWAR probably the better–and they were “new” twenty years ago as well.

You need Concept Albums to go beyond the occasional “**** Me, Ray B” or “Major Tom.” Which means you need to be able to sell albums, not just singles.

That said, Leslie What did a piece a few years ago about a band that either does sf songs or sings about sf authors in a way more, uh, decorous than Ms. Bloom did of The Pedestrian. So I’m certain they’re out there.

Does Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs count?