Sci-Fi and Music

This was a little bit difficult for me but I think I found something that might work.

I had to search my 300+ metal songs to find this beauty that my dad introduced to me years ago. Not only does the video have a sci-fi aesthetic (outfits, being on a space ship, neon yellow hair, other races, etc.) but the lyrics can of course be taken is a sci-fi context as well as convey a story or meaning.

“Now this is what it’s like when worlds collide”

While the concept of world’s colliding isn’t necessarily concerned with technology is a theme found in sci-fi. This is used to express a situation in which maybe things are going horribly wrong.

“You’ve got your system for total control”

This is clearly related to technology as they are on a space ship in the video and of course there is technology to drive it and help it function. This could mean that someone has a way to manipulate people to get what they want.

“You are a robot”

This one seems a little self-explanatory.

I won’t nit-pick all of them, maybe you guys can find some more. Let me know if you have any different interpretations from any I said.

So this might not fit the prompt exactly but I feel there is a story to it. If it doesn’t work let me know and I’ll put in my backup song.

So the link above will take you to the Rammstein piece, Amerika. The song is mostly in German with some parts in English, but the parts that are in English as well as the music video tell the tale without needing to understand the German.

Amerika ist Wunderbar :America is Wonderful

Every lyric in this song as well as the music video is a statement on how America is turning into this mythical wonderful society that all of these other places want to emulate or live in but America is just corrupting these other cultures and societies. The reason why I chose this song for sci-fi (even though it isn’t really the most sci-fi song I could have chosen) is because it sounds and looks like it is portraying America as becoming more dystopic than utopic like it is portrayed. It reminds me of 1984, the country Oceania portrays itself as wonderful and better than all the others. They inflate their successes and cover up their defeats so that no one can tell they are lying. I imagine if Oceania hadn’t taken over almost a third of the world then other countries would be seeing Oceania as some kind of Utopia from the outside.

Coca-cola sometimes war

I feel this line magnifies what they are saying. America has been in an almost constant state of war or skirmishes with other countries since its creation. Yet aside from the major wars it almost seems like we forget about our wars in favor of our creature comforts like Coca-cola.

We’re all living in Amerika

This is my final point, and I feel it is one of the more striking lines even though it appears frequently throughout the song. In a sense America and America’s influence has invaded and pervaded many different countries and regions throughout the world. In this way we are all living in America if we cannot escape the influence of America.

I know this may not fit the prompt exactly, but it spoke to me in a sense. Kind of like how the Jetsons Tv show was a statement about what to expect the world to look like in the future, this music video does the same but set in the past.  During the height of what could be called the “golden age of America” when we went to the moon and imposed ourselves onto other countries and became a superpower to be modeled after.

The song I chose to reflect is called “Harder Better Faster” by Daft Punk. The reason I chose this song is because the music daft punk creates is already electronic which I relate to being futuristic because they don’t use traditional physical instruments you can touch and instead focus on making music with only a computer and electronic instruments like drum pads or keyboards. The music video for the song takes place in a spaceship, where blue aliens are being turned into humans with advanced technology. These blue aliens are being used to create ‘harder better and faster’ humans like the lyrics suggest (which is also basically the only words repeated over and over in the song). These aliens have their memories changed to make it seem like they have lived on Earth their entire life and have always been humans. The machines strip them naked and paint their skin color to be human and put glasses on each alien while inserting a camera in their eyes. Then, they are sent off the ship.
This song and music video relate to science fiction because it connects to the theme of aliens existing, which is something we do not know yet. It also makes me think about the theory about how aliens helped build the wonders of the world, which maybe this song could be referencing. Aliens disguised as humans came to Earth and were able to help build these wonders of the world. Science fiction is what this song and music video is all about.

I chose to do “All of the Stars” by Kendrick Lamar and SZA. I chose to do this role because it reflects themes in Black Panther. The first verse that I decided to look at is “This may be the night that my dreams might let me know.” This is relatable in Black Panther when T’Challa reaches out to former Panthers on ruling Wakanda and how it can be a great Utopia for the world to follow.

The second verse I looked at is “All the stars are closer”. This can be interpreted in sci-fi when the protagonist relies on past memories of family or friends to help them to get past an issue. In addition,  it can give the protagonist motivation to beat the antagonist because they may have killed the protagonist’s family/friend.

Lastly, is the verse “I recognize your false confidence and calculated promises in all of your conversation.” I could relate this in sci-fi to the game the Last of Us 2. There is a character named Abby who heard rumors about a vaccine that could prevent someone from turning into a zombie when bitten. She spends all of her time searching for it until she finds the place where the vaccine is at. When she cannot find it, it hurts her feelings because she believed that the vaccine was true and she had the dream of using it to help out others.

Ok, so it took me a while, but I finally found a song that gives a very unique perspective on Sci-fi: Build That Wall (Zia’s Theme) from the game Bastion.
Bastion takes place after a world ending event known only as the Calamity basically destroyed your entire civilization. You focus on finding power sources to upgrade a safe haven your people built in case of this happening called the Bastion. The world is built on floating tiles that can take you anywhere, various animals and creatures are hostile now, and any people that you do see are just statues that quickly turn to dust … except for a handful. The main character is the Kid, who is from Caeldonia, known for building a moving wall that can support any part of the city it needs too. The character who sings this song is Zia, a member of the Ura race who was raised in Caeldonia. The Ura are old enemies of the Caeldonians, and are known for the Tazal Terminals, a massive network of holes and tunnels.

Now, this song. To begin with, it’s highly unique among the songs in this game, because it’s the one of the few songs with lyrics. While this game has an outstanding soundtrack, most of the songs are atmospheric and instrumental. It’s also one of the few songs that’s distinctly connected to a character, Zia, and even sung by her in game (her character is known as “The Singer” before you know her name). Another thing to note is that the song, in game, is a war song sung by the Ura about the Caeldonians. Somewhat ironic that Zia likes The Kid, was raised by Caeldonians, and eventually leaves the Ura after they kidnap her, but this is her song.

“I dig my hole, you build a wall
I dig my hole, you build a wall
One day that wall is gonna fall”
the first verse, and it’s simple statements about the Ura and Caeldonian relationships.

“Gonna build that city on a hill
Gonna build that city on a hill
Someday those tears are gonna spill”

Another verse about Ura-Caeldonian relationships, but this one is a bit more interesting. Caeldonia was an extremely advanced city, I’d compare it to a high-tech version of Victorian-era London. It had tiles that could use wind to move you wherever you want to go, the aforementioned Rippling Walls, a disaster shelter that can instantly construct new buildings (and, as you figure out at the end of the game, can either function as a floating base or an actual time machine, although those are mutually exclusive) and that’s not even mentioning whatever the Mancers, Caeldonia’s top-secret science division, are making in secret (in fact, to spoil another surprise the game has, the Calamity was made by the Mancers as a weapon to wipe out the Ura … it didn’t go as planned). Meanwhile the Ura have a Middle-Eastern feel with a tech level that seems similar to Native Americans shortly after Europeans arrived at the Americas. To the Ura, Caeldonia was a highly advanced, prideful city that was just begging to fall. And now it had. The Calamity had destroyed almost everything related to Caeldonia, but the Ura were fine because they lived underground, far away from where it happened.

“So build that wall and build it strong
‘Cause we’ll be there before too long”

This is the chorus, and here is where I want to mention my real argument for this song: It’s meaning changes when Zia sings it. Originally it was a war song, a threat against the Caeldonians. When Zia sings it though, it becomes a war song for the survivors against the Calamity. It’s them telling it that they will overcome the obstacles in their way, it’s them saying that they will rebuild the life they had, it’s them saying that the Calamity better prepare, because we’ll be back “before too long.” It’s a classic of optimistic tales about Sci-fi dystopias; you better get ready, because we’ll make the world better whether you like it or not.
The remaining two verses are more Ura-Caeldonian relationship exploration, and the chorus repeats one more time with no change, so I’ll leave my discussion off here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpO5vO33pTM

If The Government Could Read My Mind – The Vandals

The song I chose to reflect on brings up many themes from sci-fi as well as from one of my favorite and most important books of all time, “1984”. The main theme of the song is that the character in the song doesn’t care if the government could read their mind because all he is thinking about is a girl.

This song brings up many sci-fi themes such as secretly funded internment camps, biological warfare labs, Martian traded technologies, and mind control psychologies just to name a few. These are all very important in sci-fi. Sometimes in sci-fi, the storyline represents conspiracy against the government, and each of these is clearly related to a futuristic government.

Also in the lyrics of this song, the singer repeats:

“I’ll let them do what they wanna do”

This also represents a theme that we have brought up in class of people not recognizing what the government is doing and just living out their days in blissful ignorance. Just like in The Matrix.

The main theme that got me so interested, is the theme from “1984” of the government reading his mind. This is the overall theme of the entire song and clearly represents that theme from the Novel and many other sci-fi works that involve dystopian government control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc6f_2nPSX8

I hope that by inserting the link into the forum function, my video will also be displayed as everyone else’s has.

I have learned that the creation of the song above is mostly to do with censorship. Dennis Deyoung, the Styx keyboard player/singer, wrote this song in 1983. Three things largely influenced him to make this song. For the central theme of censorship, Dennis was influenced by a church in Iowa that opened in the early ’80s. This church burned albums that they considered having a satanic view. Styx was one of the bands who had their album burned because, in Greek Mythology, the river Styx runs through Hades or hell. This made Deyoung think about censorship, which formed the central concept of the song. His other inspirations were from a robot documentary that he watched, which showed how robots took over jobs from unskilled laborers. Deyoung’s final inspiration came after he visited Japan. Deyoung became fascinated with the culture and wanted to express his fascination with the song.

The story behind the song is as follows. Kilroy, who was a famous rockstar, was sent to prison. The prison he was sent to had robot workers replace the human workers. These robot workers were called “robotos.” Kilroy then escapes the jail inside a robot costume.

Deyoung displays censorship in the song in the story. Kilroy is imprisoned as a way of stopping him from making more music. Deyoung got this idea from his own albums being burned by the church. As you know, this theme is synonymous with one of Orwell’s prominent themes in his book, “1984.” This story also incorporated the idea of dehumanizing the working class. Robots replace the working class in this song’s story. This, for me, is Deyoung’s way of expressing a possible dystopian future.

I believe that this song is an excellent example of how SCI-FI has inspired music. This song also connects to the SCI-FI topics we have seen in our course work. It has popular themes that relate to “The Matrix” and “1984.” These themes being that robots will push humans out of society or take over the world when relating “The Matrix,” and censorship when relating “1984.”

I agree with Levi, there are so many good sci-fi influenced songs out there!

I’ll add Janelle Monae’s “Cold War” to the mix. Her album the ArchAndroid is constantly referred to when talking about “Afrofuturism,” or depictions of the future that center Africa, or people and cultures of the African diaspora. I also love the music video of Many Moons, which features the “messianic android” on display with different models you can customize and buy.

“It’s a Cold War…”

The Cold War was a war fought with science and avatars. Nobody wanted to repeat the nuclear disaster of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but Russia and U.S. still had serious philosophical beef with each other. This tense period inspired so much of the conflict-but-not-war scifi, like the class favorite, Star War. Like the Jedi and the Sith in Star Wars, US & Russia never really fight each other directly. The Space Race was more than a contest, it was the race to gain the high ground–orbit and then the moon. On the ground, other nations were used as avatars to fight proxy wars on the side of capitalism or communism, democracy or autocracy– those soldiers and rebel fighters could be disposable nameless faceless drones, unlike the heroic American/Russian Soldier.

<Do you know what you’re fighting for?> Cindi Mayweather, archandroid asks <This is a Cold War, you better know what you’re fighting for>

<When you step outside, you spend your life fighting for your sanity>

The music video is a close-up tight shot of Janelle/Cindi — reminiscent of a clandestine broadcast from a secret base. You’re fighting for your sanity, she reminds the listener, hunkered in their bunker, radios clutched close to their heads.

<If you want to be free /Below the ground is the only place to be
‘Cause in this life / You spend time running from depravity>

In the Cold War theme, below the ground has two possibilities: 1) in a bomb shelter: this is hardly freedom, but if  safety is your freedom, then cut off from the world is the way to go. 2) dead. Well that’s kindof a bummer, but it’s reality. Everyday is a fight and in life, everyone is a soldier. Your personal end-credits don’t run until your journey is done.

Right around 1:30 is where this song gives me the chills. The peppy beat is like a call to action (let’s go!) but in the video Janelle looses it and breaks into tears. That’s like seeing your lieutenant choke up when she’s giving you orders. What can’t she sing?

<May all evil stumble as it flies / All the tribes come and the mighty will crumble/ We must brave this night and have faith in love>

Does she not believe this prayer? This is the grand d-day speech that all the great leaders give before the final battle!– in Pacific Rim before they take the fight to the kaijiu, in Star Wars before they attack the DeathStar, in Independence Day before they try to stop up an alien warship with a tiny fighter plane…when victory is not assured, but humanity’ll give it all we got anyway. But JM can’t quite keep up the brave face…

*J breaks off* <I’m trying to find my peace / I was always told there was something wrong with me / And it hurts my heart / Lord have mercy>

Cut to reality. This song is about the “psychosis” of dehumanization that Black women experience through the intertwined forces of racism, sexism, colorism. There’s no actual declaration of war–but it’s a battle nonetheless. Janelle Monae isn’t pretending to cry in the video, she actually is. In interviews, she recalls that the emotions she’s visualizing in the video caused a “chain reaction” of tears she couldn’t control. This music video was actually supposed to be sound check but the entire crew decided that this was the version that needed to go along with this song. This was the face of the resistance. Just like Cinna used Katniss’ real tears to convince the districts to rebel. This video is also was the first time you see the face of the ArchAndroid.

I actually was listening to this song around mid-summer in 2020, as the protests against police brutality went on and on, juxtaposed against physical and verbal violence against protestors, then armed militias threatening elected officials, calls for voter intimidation, news about greater impacts of COVID on people of color, so so many codewords used to refer to people whose safety, health and lifelihoods were not as important… it just went on and on. This song really made the moment and all the imagery and scenery and emotion make sense. This is a Cold War…

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by jaztech73. Reason: update video

So initially I couldn’t think of one sci-fi music video that would be perfect for this thread. The only thing that kept playing in my head was “Put on your Sunday clothes” from Wall-E but I didn’t want to include something that I am sure we have all heard. I chose this song more for the visual aspect of the video than anything else.

In the video, we see a scientist and an alien communicating through signs. They discovered one another using their telescopes and eventually fall in love. The human scientist devises a plan/ rocket to get himself to Jupiter. They both can be seen surrounded by technology and in their ‘lab’. As he is on his way to Jupiter he encounters asteroids as a problem.

The most prominent lyric heard:

“Jupiter you’re on my mind.” Originally, I assumed the alien was named Jupiter but realized it was the planet! Unless they are both just named Jupiter because why not?

Alternatively, I suggest also watching “Nerd rage” from the same band. Far more links to popular films, books, and comics! lol, A fair warning a bit weird. 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYUMpgpLLuU

I think think this is such a cool topic! I never thought about how sound impacts emotion in movies until I took a film class last semester. One of my favorite things about watching movies is letting the music and sound really capture my attention. Music in films really feels like an extension of our emotions. I wanted to talk about a scene from a movie that I really like. I chose this scene from Interstellar because of how much the sound is used to immerse the audience. This scene’s soundscape is subtle and easy could be looked over, but there is a lot there. There are repetitive clock ticks to represent every time a year passes on earth. It’s something that is so subtle and could be forgotten about, but every time you heard the ticks again, the harshness of them not getting that time back is apparent. Talking about the small tunes in this, they are there to help drive the anxiety of the wave that could at any moment. The music starts super slow, but as they push their time constraints, it picks up. The music gives you a sinking feeling in your gut. I will always appreciate soundscape in movies.