| Space rock | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | Progressive rock, psychedelic rock, experimental rock, electronic music |
| Cultural origins | Late 1960s, England |
| Typical instruments | Mellotron guitar, bass, synthesiser, strings, drums, vocals, sequencer |
| Mainstream popularity | Limited to a few groups as a specific genre, but often associated with more popular genres |
| Derivative forms | Noise pop |
| Subgenres | |
| Neo-psychedelia, post-rock, shoegazing (complete list) |
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| Fusion genres | |
| Dream pop, stoner rock, ambient music | |
| Other topics | |
| Jam band | |
Space rock is a subgenre of rock music; the term originally referred to a group of early, mostly British, 1970s progressive and psychedelic rock bands such as Hawkwind and Pink Floyd,[1] characterised by slow, lengthy instrumental passages dominated by electric organs, synthesizers, experimental guitar work and science fiction or astronomical lyrical themes, though it was later repurposed to refer to a series of late 1980s British alternative rock bands that drew from earlier influences to create a more ambient but still melodic form of pop music.[2] The term was revived in the 21st century to refer to a new crop of bands including The Flowers of Hell,[3] Comets on Fire,[4] and Flotation Toy Warning[5] who diversely draw upon the ideas and sounds of both waves of the genre’s founders.
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Man's entry into outer space provided ample subject matter for rock and roll and R&B songs from the mid-1950s through the early 1960s. It also inspired new sounds and sound effects to be used in the music itself. A prominent early example of space rock is the 1959 concept album I Hear a New World by British producer and song writer Joe Meek. The album was inspired by the space race and concerned man's first close encounter with alien life forms.[6] Meek then went on to have a UK and US #1 success in 1961 with "Telstar," named after the newly launched communications satellite and thus intended to commemorate the new space age. Its main instrument was a clavioline, an electronic forerunner of synthesizers.
Space rock emerged from the late 1960s psychedelic music scene in Britain, and was closely associated with the progressive rock movement of the same era.
Pink Floyd's early albums contain pioneering examples of space rock: "Lucifer Sam",[7] "Astronomy Domine",[8] "Pow R. Toc H."[9] and "Interstellar Overdrive" [10] from their 1967 debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn are examples. Their second album A Saucerful of Secrets contained further examples: "Let There Be More Light" and "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" with explicit science fiction themes, and their third, Soundtrack from the Film More (1969) had "Cirrus Minor". In July 1969, perhaps because of their space-related music and lyrics, Pink Floyd were part of live BBC television coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing, performing live an instrumental piece, which they called "Moonhead". An audio copy exists of the track and occasionally appears on Pink Floyd bootleg albums.[11] In early 1971, Pink Floyd began writing the song that would become known as "Echoes", from the 1971 album Meddle. The song was performed from April until September 1971, with an alternate set of lyrics, written about two planets meeting in space. Before the Meddle album released, the lyrics were changed to an aquatic theme, because of the band's concern that they were being labelled as a space rock band.
The Beatles' song "Flying" (1967), originally titled "Aerial Tour Instrumental", was a psychedelic instrumental about the sensation of flying, whether in a craft or in your own head space.[12] The Rolling Stones' song "2000 Light Years from Home" (1967), which drew heavily on some of the aforementioned Pink Floyd songs, is another early form of space rock. Jimi Hendrix is also an early innovator of the genre, with such tracks as "Third Stone from the Sun", "1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)" and "The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam's Dice".
During the middle of the second set of a Grateful Dead concert throughout the late 1970s to 1990s, the band would go into a drum solo to a space rock section.
David Bowie's "Space Oddity" (1969) is, apart from Telstar, probably the best example of a space rock song achieving mainstream recognition. A major album in the history of space rock was Hawkwind's Space Ritual (1973),[13] a two-disc live album advertised as "88 minutes of brain-damage" documenting Hawkwind's successful 1972 tour of their blow-out show complete with liquid lights and lasers, nude dancers (notably the earth-mother figure Stacia), wild costumes and psychedelic imagery. This hard-edged concert experience attracted a motley but dedicated collection of psychedelic drug users, science-fiction fans and motorcycle riders. The science fiction author Michael Moorcock collaborated with Hawkwind on many occasions: for example, he wrote the lyrics for many of the spoken-word sections on Space Ritual.
By the early 1990s, the term "space rock" was used to describe numerous American and British alternative rock bands. Shoegazing, stoner rock/metal and noise pop genres reached the mainstream with the explosion of bands such as Kyuss, Slowdive, The Verve, My Bloody Valentine, Flying Saucer Attack, Loop, Ride, The Flaming Lips, Failure, Tool, Monster Magnet, Sun Dial, Grandaddy, Hum, Orange Goblin, Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, Mercury Rev and Muse. Their sonic experimentation and textural emphasis earned these bands the "space rock" moniker, although most are more readily categorized by other genres such as Shoegazing or Stoner Metal.
Building on the space rock stylings of Hawkwind, bands like Ozric Tentacles and The Oroonies appeared in the 1990s. Some of these bands (such as Pressurehed and Melting Euphoria) were signed to Cleopatra records, which then released a series of space rock compilations. Other bands like Secret Saucer and Spaceseed released their work on independent labels; Spaceseed is notable for recording with former members of Hawkwind. The Strange Daze festivals from 1997-2000 showcased the American space rock scene in 3-day outdoor festivals. Hawkwind and Nik Turner headlined the festival in 1997, which featured major players of American space rock like F/i, Alien Planetscapes, Architectural Metaphor, Quarkspace, Melting Euphoria, Pressurehed, Nucleon, Bionaut, Born to Go and others.
A Michigan-based space rock scene included the labels Burnt Hair Records, Darla Records, and bands such as Windy & Carl, Mahogany, Sweet Trip, Tomorrowland, Delta Waves, Starphase 23, Füxa, Auburn Lull, Monaural, Asha Vida, and Alison's Halo. Critics pegged this particular modern movement of the traditional "space rock" sound as Detroit Space Rock.
Influences from space rock can be heard in UK bands Coldplay, Radiohead, Amplifier, Oceansize, Mugstar and Muse, American bands 30 Seconds to Mars, Angels and Airwaves, Lumerians, The Secret Machines, The Mars Volta and The Boxing Lesson, Australian bands Lunar Module and Space Project, and Turkish band Nemrud.
The first reported involvement of NASA and space rock came in 2009 when an off duty worker from the shuttle program synchronised footage of a Discovery launch with the Flowers Of Hell's 'Sympathy For Vengeance' in an online video which became popular amongst staff at the Kennedy Space Center.[3][14] Star One's 2002 Space Metal album mixes space rock and progressive metal, and many of the songs are linked conceptually by having cult science fiction movies or TV series as their subjects.
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