Golden Record Curation
How am I such a space nerd and music lover and have never heard of the Voyager Golden Record sent into space in 1977 until now? Did I miss that episode of Cosmos?
If the idea of a musical time capsule were conceptualized today it might be that we would send a fully loaded iPhone instead. By the time anyone discovered it, the battery would be long dead, and wouldn’t the radiation of outer space zap all the digitized music off of it? This is one of the problems with the digitization of information: it can easily become lost. In the context of analog vs. digital, perhaps an analog record has a better chance of surviving the long journey into deep space and posterity, though both the record and the digital files without their machines would be rendered useless (Smith, 1999).
This assignment was super rad, and I went all geeky and made a spreadsheet with my criteria. Disclaimer: I’ve never taken any music theory courses, so my meter/chord observations below are most likely not at all accurate.
Selection Criteria
My selections show a clear preference for complexity in regards to multiple layers of instrumentation over more simplistic works, and a preference for works with consonance over dissonance, even or free metering over odd metering, and for music I interpreted as feeling more happy, upbeat, peaceful, or evocative. Contrary to Timothy Ferris, the lead producer of the Golden Record, and his lack of consideration for “the idea that we’d somehow be threatening someone” with the record’s selections, I intentionally excluded works I felt were threatening or ones that made me feel anxious as I listened, with the exception of Beethoven’s Fifth because of its lasting cultural relevance (Taylor, 2019). I wonder if he second-guessed himself when he saw Independence Day (see GIF below). I’m thinking we really don’t want to upset unknown extraterrestrial species.
One of the last concerts I went to before the pandemic shut everything down was Dan Mangan, a Vancouver artist who I fell in love with after hearing Troubled Mind, arguably his most upbeat song, because the majority of his music is overwhelmingly melancholy. I’ll never forget how a few songs into the show at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines, in between songs when Mangan was tuning his guitar, a guy sitting right in front of me yelled “PLAY A HAPPY SONG!” and Mangan chuckled and said, “You’re at the wronggggg show” as the crowd erupted in laughter. Even if the Golden Record’s producers weren’t sure extraterrestrials “would lounge back and listen to the music and experience it the way we do,” I think we have to imagine they might be just like us and find beauty and enjoyment in music that represents the full range of human experience and emotion but at some point lean more toward the upbeat and happy (Taylor, 2019). For this reason, I also mostly rejected works that were melancholy, with the exception of the Wedding Song, which after listening to the podcast to learn it was a lament about a woman marrying too young, had to be included if for no reason other than sending a message to the people of planet Earth.
Reflection
My personal selections were difficult for me to reconcile because while I understand the need for diversity and representation, my preferences are mostly of Western origin, which isn’t that surprising considering I grew up in a Western culture. The one exception to this was the Kinds of Flowers from Java, Indonesia. Though Ferris claims to have aimed for diversity and global representation during the selection of songs on the record, I thought it was interesting that a disproportionate number of the selections (over 25%) just happened to be from U.S. and former Soviet Union nations, the two countries engaged in the Space Race.
References
Smith, A. (1999). Why digitize? Council on Library and Information Resources. https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub80-smith/pub80-2/
Taylor, D. (Host). (2019, April 22). #65 Voyager Golden Record. [Audio podcast]. Twenty Thousand Hertz. https://www.20k.org/episodes/voyagergoldenrecord
2 replies on “Task 8”
It’s so funny that we had so many matches yet such completely different ways of analyzing and choosing the music! It must be our names. I like how you made a spreadsheet. I also felt like I clearly had a preference for the music that was of European or US origin, which isn’t surprising, but it did make me feel guilty. I did have the random thought of wondering if someone who had never listened to classical music before were to listen to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony for the first time, would they even be impressed? Or do we consider it a masterpiece because we have been told it’s a masterpiece and it’s such a familiar song?
High five! (Where are my emojis?!)
I personally enjoy a wide range of music including classical/symphonic/orchestral, but I don’t think it’s as impressive recorded as it is live when you can see the visual spectacle and level of coordination involved. There is something magical and emotionally moving about a group of musicians coming together with individual instruments to create such incredible sounds.