This is the first time I’ve been exposed to Nasa’s Golden Record and I was struck with the thoughts that simultaneously it was so wholesome and so arrogant. The Voyager Golden Record seems wholesome in its quest to share the music of Earth and to find common ground among intelligent life, for example consider its inscription “to the makers of music – all worlds,  all times” (Taylor, 2019). However, it is also arrogant in its quest to represent humanity in a single LP, as well as arrogant to think any life in space would even care. It is true that in the podcast interview with Dallas Taylor (2019) that Timothy Ferris is at least a little bit self aware when he mentions that most great music is going to be excluded. I was curious who made up the committee chaired by Carl Sagan in determining the playlist of the Golden Record and by all accounts they are a team of white people (Ferris, 2017). It seems fairly arrogant, narrow minded, and colonialist that a team only made up of white people would be able to accurately and justly curate a playlist that represents humanity. I wonder about the cultural permissions of some of the songs that were included. Just because the Golden Record Committee secured song rights doesn’t necessarily mean they went through the process of ethically getting the correct permissions from the knowledge keepers of the songs. Ironically, in this task, I am just another white person curating the list down even smaller, I am no more qualified to say what should go on an intergalactic best of album. With that in mind, I did try and stay true the original goals of the record which is to be inclusive as possible and to make a good record (Taylor, 2019). 

With respect to inclusivity, I tried to pick songs that 

• represented a variety of sounds and instruments
• represented disparate geographic areas
• balanced out a range of male and female vocals 

With respect to making a good record, well that’s subjective. When I was choosing between songs in similar geographic regions, I picked the song I liked best. Additionally, I tended to favour songs with vocals rather than instrumental alone. I justify this choice since the album is human centric, why not reflect the actual sounds humans make. 

Here is my list of ten songs from the Golden Record with brief rationale:

1. Alima Song – This song from the Democratic Republic of Congo is beautiful to listen to and is the song that I chose from Africa. I favoured it because it also met the other criteria that I set for this task which was having a track list with more vocals and a track list that adds parity when it came to representation of gender. Although, this is a song that makes me question whether the culture who owns this song was consulted about its use. 
2. Jonny B. Goode by Chuck Berry was the first song I knew I was going to pick because it has the most personal relevance to me. My partner and I have been having an ongoing debate about collective cultural decay and whether or not we think the Beatles will be relevant in 50-100 years from now. From our research, including an email to beloved Canadian music writer and broadcaster Alan Cross, it seems that if any rock and roller is to be remembered it will be Chuck Berry, and specifically the song Johnny B. Goode. According to another music writer, Chuck Klosterman, the only memory of rock and roll at all will be of Chuck Berry. Seems like if we want to send any message to the cosmos about rock and roll, Chuck Berry is a good messenger.
3. Sokaku-Reibu (Depicting the cranes in their nest) – I like the symbolism of this song with respect to the Voyager.  According to this piece the music uses a technique called Koro-koro which is meant to imitate the flapping of wings of cranes and the song itself represents the raising of young cranes who eventually leave the nest. It seems as though this is meant as a metaphor for the two Voyager spacecrafts, from the birthing of the idea, to building them, to actually launching them into space (hence leaving the nest). From what I understand, cranes are also a symbol of a long and happy life, which seems fitting for the Voyager spacecrafts. I also chose this song for inclusion because of the unique instrumentation and because this song is from East Asia. 
4. Tchrakulo – Unlike some of the other regions of Earth (e.g. Europe), the Middle East was not entirely represented. The songs on the original track listing from Georgia and Azerbaijan come the closest to being from the Middle East. I ended up choosing Tchrakulo because it features humans singing. 
5. Melancholy Blues by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven was chosen because it met the criteria for including songs that had unique instruments on it, and this was the only track of the original set of tracks that featured brass instruments (with maybe the exception of the Stravinsky track). 
6. Symphony number five in C minor –  At least in the western hemisphere, Beethoven’s fifth symphony, first movement is still enduring and recognizable to this day, in other words it still has cultural weight. In fact, this song inspired a disco song in the 70s and was also used in Disney’s fantasia.  In addition, I chose Beethoven because I like the fact that Chuck Berry happens to have a song called Roll Over Beethoven which is a song about Rock and Roll replacing classical music. I like the juxtaposition of Chuck Berry and Beethoven on this track list. Also in choosing Beethoven I’ve chosen to eliminate Mozart as they were contemporaries and I think one classical artist is enough. Lastly this serves as my song choice from Europe. 
7. Navajo Night Chant –  Like the Alima song, this song makes me wonder if anyone from the Navajo Nation was consulted in its inclusion on the record. From a cursory search on the internet, it seems that this is quite a sacred song. I wonder if perhaps this song is only meant for those who are of Navajo heritage. Nevertheless, I chose this song as my North American pick. 
8. Solomon islands pan pipes – Of the three songs from the South Pacific I liked this one best. It also has the unique sounds of the panpipes, thus meeting the criteria for diverse instruments. Additionally, I did not choose the Australian Morning Star/Mokoi song because according to this article from the Atlantic  it might not mean what the original creators of the Golden Record thought it meant. In fact it might have a darker message than what was intended when it was sent to space.
9. Wedding song – It’s such a tragedy that the young women singing the song has never been identified or credited for the recording. It’s at least a beautiful sounding song and I am curious about the translation, I suspect it’s devastating. Additionally, I chose this as my song from South America and because it features female vocals. 
10. Bhairavi: Jaat Kahan Ho – This article translates the lyrics “Jaat Kahan Ho akeli, gori” as “where are you going alone, girl” and this seems metaphorically fitting for a spaceship alone in space. This song fits a lot of the criteria I set for myself when narrowing down the original track list and yet I hesitated to include this song because of something about the recording artist that I read here by Vikram Sampath: “Being an orthodox musician, Kesarbai was suspicious of the recording medium. She considered it a compromise on the art itself given the limited time available on a record. Her stand was in contrast to the other women musicians who preceded her and easily took to recording. She would often say that her music was not meant for someone sitting in a tea stall and listening to it casually while having a chat.”  Given her stance on recorded music, I wonder if Kesarbai Kerkar would have approved it being launched into space. 

Like I briefly mentioned, my partner and I have been having an ongoing debate about music’s relevancy and the collective memory. We wonder who will be culturally relevant in the future. If I made a Golden Record of music of the aughts, would anyone care in 50 years? What about 100 years? This task of curating the present for the future really elucidates Abby Smith Rumsey’s commentary on the difficulty of determining what data is valuable and needs to be preserved for the future (Brown University, 2017). In her talk at Brown University (2017), at the 38:20 minute mark Smith Rumsey states “what has long term value? We actually don’t know the value of anything until way in the future because its actual meaning is determined by events and contexts we don’t know about.” Ultimately, I do think the concept of the Golden Record is very cool, even if it ends up being kind of meaningless.

References

Brown University (2017, July 11). Abbey Smith Rumsey: Digital memory: What can we afford to lose [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBrahqg9ZMc.

Ferris, T. (2017, August 20). How the voyager golden record was made. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/voyager-golden-record-40th-anniversary-timothy-ferris

Taylor, D. (Host). (2019, April 22). Voyager Golden Record (No. 65) [Audio podcast episode]. In Twenty Thousdand Hertz. Defacto Sounds. https://www.20k.org/episodes/voyagergoldenrecord