my monster is chic: spaceman, oh, spaceman, come rescue me

I got somethin' to say. I've got a theory I've been working on that has been pinging around unsaid in my skull for awhile.

You can pitch in if you've got some more fact or fiction to contribute.

I'm religiously untethered. (That's a nice way of calling myself a heathen, y'all.) I tend to see a lot of physical prospect out there, in this whole great big universe, that when I confront it, I back down a little. The world is so big, and we are just the gum on a planet's shoe.

I think not being religious can lead to a certain sense of impending doom. Atheists must live life as a means to an end, right? This is it. This is all we've got. It's hard to keep yer face up and smile into the sun with that kind of attitude, I'll bet. Not having a God up there can make you feel so small and insubstantial.

I used to sit in church when I was a little girl and feel like such an impostor. It all seemed so silly to me. I got baptized and cried, not because I felt the touch of Jesus or I felt connected to God, but because I looked up into the pastor's sweet face and thought "This is a ridiculous show," and I cried for lying.

I believe in art. I seek refuge in music, film, literature, and I think museums are my temples where I go to worship. That's where I experience enlightenment.

There's something else, too. I think science-fiction is the rational mind's answer to religion. I mean, think about it. Futurism and the obsession with the superiority of man-made technology seems like a hopeful prayer for longevity. For something more. For a goddamn eternity.

When I look at sci-fi nerds (like myself) and what we're drawn to, this is what we're praying for. Not a dystopian downfall, necessarily, but the idea that We. Are. Not. Alone. And I don't mean that we believe in little green men and probes and whatnot, that's reserved for the Roswell conspirators. We aren't consciously hoping for E.T. to come be our best franz plz, but just by being drawn to science fiction we are displaying an acceptance of the subject matter which implicates at least some sort of belief in it.

So I've been hoarding science fiction music to aid and abet my obsession. And I'm choosing to write about it now because I think science fiction film and literature is a more obvious choice. I'm more interested in the deviations and where the edges fray, and where sci-fi meets normal. Science Fiction music in my mind is divided into two categories:

1)"Subject" Science Fiction : Music that clearly states science fiction subject matter within the lyrics or title. Includes space, time, stars, aliens, etc.

"Rocket Man" by Elton John
"Spaceman" by Bif Naked
"Robocop" by Kanye West
"Remains of the Sun" by Leitvox
"Sad Robot" or "Space Invaders" by Pornophonique
"Starshine" by Gorillaz
"Conquer" by ABK, Esham, & Violent J
"The Stars Are Projectors" by Modest Mouse
"When They Came For Us" and "We Are Pilots" by Shiny Toy Guns
"Extraterrestrial" by Outkast
"Starstruck" by Santogold
"We Are All Made of Stars" by Moby
"Space Mountain" by Fuck Buttons
"One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21" by The Flaming Lips
"I Want to be a Machine" by Pornophonique
"Slipstream" by the Crystal Method
"Space Oddity" and "Life On Mars?" by David Bowie (DUH)
"Phone Home" by 'Lil Wayne
"From Stardust to Sentience" by High Places
"I'm So Tall" by Chester French
"Paranoid Android" by Radiohead
"Technologic" and "Robot Rock" by Daft Punk

OR

2) "Prospect" Science Fiction: Music that utilizes typically science fiction "noises" like electronic beeps or sonar noises, without necessarily singing about science fiction. Not just electronica music. More like electronic, technological echoes that you would typically hear in a science fiction film score.

"Flashing Lights", "Stronger" and "Coldest Winter" by Kanye West
"Look Back In" by Moby
"Purr" by Tides From Nebula
"Rome" by Yeasayer
"Lullatwerp" by Disastertron
"Chromakey Dreamcoat" or "Satellite Anthem Icarus" by Boards of Canada
"What I Have Left" by Alexis Taylor
"Nights of the Week" by Apes and Androids
"We're Looking for a lot of Love" by Hot Chip
"Coconut" and "When I Grow Up" by Fever Ray
"Flying" by Secret Machines
"DEA" by The American Dollar
"Alice" by Pogo
"Sexy Saturn" by Bix
"Sleepyhead" by Passion Pit
And pretty much everything by this guy.
Or this girl.

It seems that the sci-fi is either implicit or explicit within each category. Some bands, like Daft Punk or Pornophonique pretty much exclusively write songs heralding technology or space. There's even a subdivision of my subject sci-fi just for sci-fi rap. Think Kid Cudi, some Kanye songs, 'Lil Wayne's "Phone Home" or ABK's "Conquer. It seems to me that a lot of sci-fi rap involves a conquering theme, which is congruent to the mainstream aim of most hip hop and also seems to be the mission statement of science fiction. A lot of those songs, no matter what the genre or target demographic, will employ those fuzzy radio voices calling out to you through some staticky nowhere. Hope from beyond.

And all these different songs- this is just what I cound find in my 7500+ Itunes. So that's got to just be a sampling.

Furthermore, I noticed that when I was searching for links to the implicit prospect sci-fi music, a lot of the "fan made" videos depicted space scenes, orbits, galaxies...just images of space they lifted and set to the music, even though the songs never discussed space explicitly. Like Fever Ray's "Coconut" and Alexis Taylor's "What I Have Left." Both show space pictures. Both not about space. People know. They feel the same way.

Isn't this amazing, how this subject seeps into music from so many different genres?

And then I realized.

It's our gospel music.

When we sing out to the stars, we are throwing out our hope for a forever out there, not at the hands of some unnamed, unknown deity, but placing our faith in mankind to rekindle our futures and that there is more out there. Cloning? It's reincarnation.

I guess I am religious. I just think my religion is art. It's what I believe in.

We may not have a God, but we have hope. Hope in ourselves and the intelligence of humanity to perpetuate the species so we can seek out an eventual eternity. We don't sublimate ourselves with a hankering for heaven and dreams of the pearly gates. We evolve.