1970s music

Last iTunes song played in 2008:

“Bhangra Fever” by MIDIval PunditZ, from Asian Massive (2002)

First iTunes song played in 2009:

“Overture” from Jesus Christ Superstar (1971)

This is just all kinds of silly fun: Rush playing “Tom Sawyer” in Rock Band, backstage at the Colbert Report.

Thanks to SF Signal for mentioning an awesome collection of Astounding Science Fiction and Analog Magazine covers, going back to the 1930s. (Start here.) That alone would be cool, but SF Signal happened to use this particular ASF cover in their post:

From October 1953. Which, if you’re a Queen fan, you’ll immediately recognize as being the inspiration for this:

News of the World, of course, released in October 1977. There’s more to the story, actually, since the original artist agreed to redo the illustration for the album! From Wikipedia:

The album’s cover was a painting by award winning American sci-fi artist Frank Kelly Freas. [Drummer Roger] Taylor had an issue of “Astounding Science Fiction” (October 1953) whose cover-art depicted a giant intelligent robot holding the dead body of a man. The caption read: “Please… fix it, Daddy?” to illustrate the story The Gulf Between by Tom Godwin. The robot killing the man was likened to a child injuring a bug and looking up at his parents saying “what have I done?”. The painting inspired the band to contact Freas, who agreed to alter the painting for their album cover, by replacing the single dead man with the four “dead” band members (Taylor and Deacon falling to the ground). The original painting (also called The Gulf Between) features on the cover of Freas’s collection of art As He Sees It (Paper Tiger, 2000).

Bliss!

Via Bruce Sterling, who had this to say:

If I were a contemporary musician, tinkering with my MySpace profile and wondering how on earth I could ever scrape up enough money to maintain a productive career in music, I’d be really scared by a clip like this. It must be like — I dunno — like being a member of the contemporary US Congress and going to visit Mount Rushmore.

The fascinating philosophy behind some of my favorite electronica, Music for Airports — for public spaces originally, but also lovely for coding or just chilling out.

Via Bruce Sterling, who says, “The clarity of his thought is frightening. Every airport in the world should play nothing but this music.”