Surrounded by soldiers glued to the screens
Hold back the invaders, their infernal machines
The years 1977 to 1981 were a watershed of sorts for public interest in space. It was less than a decade since the height of the Apollo landings, and the hardware was still in orbit; human space flight wasn’t old enough to be retro yet, but the glamour had already worn off . Apollo 17 had left the Moon for the last time in December 1972, an Apollo had docked with a Soviet Soyuz in July 1975, and the imminent death of Skylab was filling the news (it had flown and been abandoned in 1973-1974), as the American space program waited for the launch of Apollo’s successor: the dangerous, over-budget and endlessly delayed Space Shuttle, which would still never be capable of reaching even the Moon, let alone beyond.
Meanwhile a small cancelled TV show called Star Trek (1966-1969; you’ve probably never heard of it) had ascended to immortality in syndication and merchandising, and was slowly and painfully struggling towards a sequel series (which would eventually diverge into the movie series and the Next Generation).
But the trigger point came in 1977 with the release of two blockbuster space movies: George Lucas’ Star Wars in May, and Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind in November. Both were huge successes for their studios, and the result was a shower of space and science fiction themed media products over the next few years. 1978 brought Superman, Battlestar Galactica, Blake’s 7 and Mork & Mindy. 1979 saw Alien, The Black Hole, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, James Bond jumping on the spacewagon with Moonraker, and the disappointing but spectacular first Star Trek movie. The scene was set for the 1980s model of science fiction drawing large audiences.
In our real skies, the nuclear-powered Russian satellite Kosmos 954 fell to Earth and scattered radioactive debris over Canada in January 1978; Skylab crashed over Australia in July 1979; and Columbia, the first Space Shuttle, finally launched – only 20 years after Yuri Gagarin – in April 1981.
There was something spacey in the air in music too. A strange little 1976 song by the Canadian band Klaatu – (who had a bit of a Beatles sound) – was remade in September 1977 by Karen and Richard Carpenter and became an instant hit. A musician named Dominico Monardo went disco on the Star Wars soundtrack as “Meco“, and that became a megahit too. (It was sort of the ‘Crazy Frog’ of its era).
In fact let’s just have some disco Star Wars right now because why the heck not, right?
In September 1978 Jeff Wayne, a working composer and producer, dropped a musical version of the War of the Worlds on everyone and that became a megahit too. (The odd thing though, like Klaatu, is that he started in 1976: before the Star Wars phenomenon. What was it in the air?)
“The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one, he said…”
And in yet another strange case of synchronicity, a Japanese videogame developer named Tomohiro Nishikado was working on a space themed shooter game, and also drew on War of the Worlds for the imagery of the alien lifeforms. It seems to be pure coincidence that his game crashed into a pop zeitgeist freshly primed to watch the skies. But the world would never quite recover from the advent of these strange… invaders… from space…. I’m not quite sure what we should call them.
WHICH BRINGS US TO THE MAIN EVENT. The Australian musicians Russell Dunlop and Bruce Brown – like Jeff Wayne and Dominico Monardo, career producers and engineers, rather than stars – briefly jumped to immortality in 1979 as ‘Player One’ with a quickie single which is probably the best videogame parody ever (don’t look at me like that, there’s so many that it’s actually a genre. Don’t make me break out Pac-Man Fever. ) The B-side, ‘A Menacing Glow in the Sky’ is, to my mind, much better: a subtle, realistic take on the UFO invasion. But it’s so rare that it’ll probably evaporate. Take a look while it’s still up:
Player One followed the single with an album which I would love to get hold of: ‘Game Over’ which, if Menacing Glow is an indication of the quality, would be right in the tradition of experimental 1980s art-synthpop that so intrigues me now. But in its absence…
Ladies and gentlemen, the one, the ultimate, the legend in the Pacific: SPACE INVADERS.
You may dance when ready.
Through dark sunken eyes
I see another pale sunrise
Surrounded by soldiers glued to the screens
Hold back the invaders, their infernal machines
We fight to survive
Running to stay alive
Our bodies aching and tired
There’s nowhere to hide
Our cover’s been blown away
Space invaders, space invaders, space invaders, space invaders
They’re closing in on me
Dark forces cold and unseen
Oh my hip pocket nerve is aching again
I must go back in and fight it out to the end
Space invaders…
We fight to survive
Running, running to stay alive