Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded by Jason H

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Strange Stars

by Jason Heller

A Hugo Award-winning author and music journalist explores the weird and wild story of when rock 'n' roll met the sci-fi world of the 1970s.As the 1960s drew to a close, and mankind trained its telescopes on other worlds, old conventions gave way to a new kind of hedonistic freedom that celebrated sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. Derided as nerdy or dismissed as fluff, science fiction rarely gets credit for its catalyzing effect on this revolution. In Strange Stars, Jason Heller recasts sci-fi and pop music as parallel cultural forces that depended on one another to expand the horizons of books, music, and out-of-this-world imagery. In doing so, he presents a whole generation of revered musicians as the sci-fi-obsessed conjurers they really were- from Sun Ra lecturing on the black man in the cosmos, to Pink Floyd jamming live over the broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing; from a wave of Star Wars disco chart toppers and synthesiser-wielding post-punks, to Jimi Hendrix distilling the "purplish haze" he discovered in a pulp novel into psychedelic song. Of course, the whole scene was led by David Bowie, who hid in the balcony of a movie theater to watch 2001- A Space Odyssey, and came out a changed man... If today's culture of Comic Con fanatics, superhero blockbusters, and classic sci-fi reboots has us thinking that the nerds have won at last, Strange Stars brings to life an era of unparalleled and unearthly creativity-in magazines, novels, films, records, and concerts-to point out that the nerds have been winning all along.

FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New

Author Biography

Jason Heller has written for publications including the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, NPR, and The AV Club. His latest book was Taft 2012.

Review

"Fans of popular music and sf alike will thoroughly enjoy this journey through the center of the 1970s." —Library Journal

"...an impressive guide for anyone who wants to explore the ear-tingling sci-fi pop of the turbulent 1970s." —Starburst

"Strange Stars is an ultra-engaging dive into science fiction's impact on the rock and pop music we know and love. Heller's exploration of where these fandoms intersect and become one is gloriously nerdy delight that expands far beyond Bowie. It connects the essential dots between the transportive work of J.G. Ballard, Jimi Hendrix, P-Funk, British New Wave, and Phillip K. Dick." —Jessica Hopper, author of The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic

"Strange Stars is full of cosmic wisdom that will open your mind to alien melodies, and also make you hear your favorite classic rock and funk in a whole new way. This book taught me so much about the science fiction influences of some of my favorite albums, but also a ton of surprising stuff about how music shaped the worlds of science fiction. A totally indispensible guide." —Charlie Jane Anders, author of All the Birds in the Sky 

"There's never been anything like Strange Stars before—a fantastic voyage through rock & roll history, decoding the sci-fi inspiration that's always lurked at the heart of it. Jason Heller finds the interstellar connections between visionaries from Sun Ra to Kraftwerk to P-Funk to Bowie, from The Left Hand of Darkness to The Dark Side of the Moon. This brilliant book makes you hear whole new strains of weirdness in music you thought you already knew." —Rob Sheffield, author of On Bowie

"Jason Heller's fun and authoritative new book makes a compelling case for how science fiction defined a decade in music." —Shelf Awareness

"Enlightening... excellent." —Tor.com

"Heller does an admirable job...incredible... Strange Stars is a marvelous guide to a little-explored corner of the musical universe...[a] mindblowing work." —Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

"An authoritative look at the intersection of science fiction and music in the 1970s." —Vulture

"Interesting... Heller's digging reveals some great factoids." —University Bookman

"Indeed, Heller can champion any nerd who needs redemption. Strange Stars finds common ground and a parallel trajectory between rock and the cosmos." —Salt Lake City Weekly

Promotional

A Hugo Award-winning author and music journalist explores the weird and wild story of when rock 'n' roll met the sci-fi world of the 1970s.

Review Quote

"Fans of popular music and sf alike will thoroughly enjoy this journey through the center of the 1970s." -- Library Journal "...an impressive guide for anyone who wants to explore the ear-tingling sci-fi pop of the turbulent 1970s" - Starburst " Strange Stars is an ultra-engaging dive into science fiction's impact on the rock and pop music we know and love. Heller's exploration of where these fandoms intersect and become one is gloriously nerdy delight that expands far beyond Bowie. It connects the essential dots between the transportive work of J.G. Ballard, Jimi Hendrix, P-Funk, British New Wave, and Phillip K. Dick." --Jessica Hopper, author of The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic " Strange Stars is full of cosmic wisdom that will open your mind to alien melodies, and also make you hear your favorite classic rock and funk in a whole new way. This book taught me so much about the science fiction influences of some of my favorite albums, but also a ton of surprising stuff about how music shaped the worlds of science fiction. A totally indispensible guide." --Charlie Jane Anders, author of All the Birds in the Sky "There's never been anything like Strange Stars before--a fantastic voyage through rock & roll history, decoding the sci-fi inspiration that's always lurked at the heart of it. Jason Heller finds the interstellar connections between visionaries from Sun Ra to Kraftwerk to P-Funk to Bowie, from The Left Hand of Darkness to The Dark Side of the Moon . This brilliant book makes you hear whole new strains of weirdness in music you thought you already knew."-- Rob Sheffield, author of On Bowie "Jason Heller's fun and authoritative new book makes a compelling case for how science fiction defined a decade in music."-- Shelf Awareness "Enlightening... excellent." --Tor.com "Heller does an admirable job...incredible... Strange Stars is a marvelous guide to a little-explored corner of the musical universe...[a] mindblowing work." -- Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction "An authoritative look at the intersection of science fiction and music in the 1970s." --Vulture "Interesting... Heller's digging reveals some great factoids." -- University Bookman

Promotional "Headline"

A Hugo Award-winning author and music journalist explores the weird and wild story of when rock 'n' roll met the sci-fi world of the 1970s.

Excerpt from Book

Strange Stars INTRODUCTION THE AIR WAS HOT AND CHARGED WITH ELECTRICITY AS I THREADED my way through the crowd at Mile High Stadium. It was August 12, 1987. I was fifteen. And I was there to see David Bowie. I''d camped out for tickets a few weeks before that. Those were the pre-Internet days, when taking such drastic action was not just the best way to secure good seats at a concert, but the ideal method by which to flaunt your fandom. After standing in line for half a day, I snagged a coveted seventh-row ticket. All I had to do then was wait for August 12 to arrive--easier said than done, especially for a fidgety, high-strung teen. I can''t remember a world without David Bowie in it. My mom had given birth to me when she was still in high school; in fact, August 12, 1987, was her thirty-first birthday. She was a child of the rock ''n'' roll age, and being a free-spirited ex-hippie, she flooded our household with music. It was mostly the radio--and rock radio in the ''70s and ''80s could not play Bowie enough. As popular as he''d become, though, he retained an overwhelming mystique. My mom also loved Lynyrd Skynyrd and Tom Petty, dressed-down rock stars you could easily imagine bumping into at the supermarket. The thought of seeing Bowie at Safeway seemed absurd. He wasn''t from here. He wasn''t of Earth. Being like any other reasonable kid who had reached his teens, I rejected the music my mom listened to. Bowie, however, was the exception. Sure, his music belonged to the generation before me. But he''d also reinvented himself in the early ''80s as a creature of that decade, one who was both an honored forefather and a vital contemporary of all the new wave artists I loved. One of those bands, Duran Duran, was opening for Bowie that night at Mile High Stadium. They were at the height of their popularity, and I was excited beyond belief to see them. But the gravity belonged to Bowie. There was another reason why Bowie appealed to me, apart from his ability to remain cutting-edge over twenty years into his career as a recording artist. More than any other singer or band I knew of, he embodied something else I loved, something that, by the age of fifteen, had become stamped onto my psyche as an inextricable part of my identity: science fiction. I saw Star Wars during its first run in the summer of 1977. My grandmother managed a tiny single-screen movie theater in a strip mall in Englewood, Florida, and it was there that one of the defining moments of my life occurred. It''s almost embarrassing today to speak so glowingly about seeing Star Wars. The experience has been shared so many times, by so many people, it''s become rote. That doesn''t soften the impact that movie had on me: it filled my entire body, it seemed, with its images and movements and ideas and sounds. I reveled, even at that young age, in its contradictions. It was futuristic, yet it happened in the past. The technology was advanced, yet it was grimy. I had grown up watching reruns of Star Trek with my grandfather, but this was nothing like that shiny, gleaming, immaculate tableau. Star Wars felt lived-in. As such, it was a place kids could imagine living in. And becoming so much more than they already were. One of the first records I remember owning was Meco''s Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band. Being 1977, disco was huge, and I heard those hypnotic beats on the radio just as much as Southern rock. The fact that the orchestral music from Star Wars had been turned into disco struck me as profound. I wasn''t aware of who made that music or how they did it. But I was shown the eye-opening idea that movies and music were able to have a conversation, and that songs could be a vehicle for science fiction. By the end of the ''70s, my ear glued to the radio, I''d begun cataloging such songs in my head: "Rocket Man" by Elton John, "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath, "Space Cowboy" by Steve Miller Band, and a particularly enthralling tune about a wayward astronaut named Major Tom. IN 1969, DAVID BOWIE RELEASED his sci-fi anthem, "Space Oddity." In 1980, he released its sequel, "Ashes to Ashes." Both starred Major Tom, a spaceman who''d become trapped in his ship, adrift in nothingness, never to touch Earth again. These two songs also neatly bookended the ''70s, the decade when sci-fi music came of age. Bowie had not been the first to sing about space travel. Throughout the ''50s and ''60s, scores of novelty songs depicted comedic visits from aliens--and although his music was instrumental, the jazz bandleader Sun Ra imbued his albums with cosmic titles, ideas, and sounds. But it wasn''t until the late ''60s that popular music began taking sci-fi seriously. Granted, it was a time when sci-fi began taking itself more seriously; the age of pulp had faded, and a raft of revolutionary new films and novels were reimagining what sci-fi could do and be. Stanley Kubrick''s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Samuel R. Delany''s Nova, both from 1968, were among the works that brought fresh depth, nuance, and sophistication to sci-fi. Emboldened, musicians with latent sci-fi tendencies began to follow suit: the Byrds, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd. It was "Space Oddity," though, that launched sci-fi music in earnest. Released to coincide with and capitalize on the Apollo 11 moon landing--while also hinting at the title of Kubrick''s movie from the year before--the song didn''t just contain sci-fi lyrics. Sonically, it was a reflection of sci-fi, full of futuristic tones and the innovative manipulation of studio gadgetry. "Space Oddity" set off a chain reaction. The ''70s began with a wave of progressive rock bands--from hit-makers like Yes to obscure acts like Magma--working sci-fi into their music. Other genres of music followed, each incorporating the motifs of aliens, robots, space exploration, artificial intelligence, and dystopianism in different ways: Krautrock, glam, heavy metal, funk, disco, post-punk. A wholly original school of electronic music emerged. Artists developed and assimilated new technology in the effort to make music sound more like tomorrow: synthesizers, voice modulators, drum machines, samplers. Running parallel to this music were dramatic developments--and setbacks--in the space program, as well as a proliferation of books, films, and eventually video games that changed the face of sci-fi forever. Star Wars is the first movie that springs to mind when thinking about ''70s sci-fi, and Bowie is the first musician. Both are touchstones of the decade''s pop culture. As I grew older and became more immersed in sci-fi of all media, though, I began to realize how isolated sci-fi music was. Literature and cinema were taken as serious sci-fi and discussed openly as such; sci-fi music, on the other hand, was still seen as sort of a novelty. After I grew to adulthood and got into music journalism, that out-of-hand dismissal began to frustrate me. The Hugo Awards, sci-fi''s highest accolade, honored books, films, and television every year; only on the rarest of occasions did they acknowledge the contribution to the sci-fi canon made by music. When the openly sci-fi songs of artists like Bowie did pop up in the sci-fi discourse, the conversation swiftly pivoted to something else--as if a thorough analysis of sci-fi''s influence on music was either tangential or trivial. I should have been used to it. I grew up before the geek revolution of the twenty-first century, during the ''70s and ''80s when sci-fi was largely snubbed and dismissed by critics. Good sci-fi, rare as it was, succeeded in spite of being sci-fi: that was the unspoken premise underlying mainstream criticism of the genre. That prejudice carried over to sci-fi music. There were welcome exceptions: Paul Williams, Lester Bangs, Simon Reynolds, and Kodwo Eshun are among the small circle of critics and thinkers over the years who embraced the overlap between sci-fi and popular music. Still, I was at a loss for something that fit all the pieces together--that told the tale of how sci-fi music came to be. I dreamed up the idea for Strange Stars in 2015. Two years earlier, I''d contributed an essay about the influence of sci-fi writer J. G. Ballard on the postpunk scene of the late ''70s and early ''80s to Adventure Rocketship!, a literary journal published by British editor Jonathan Wright. The entire journal was filled with interviews and essays about sci-fi musicians as varied as Mick Farren, Boney M., Parliament, and Be-Bop Deluxe. It was a patchwork, as all good journals are. But rather than slaking my desire for the story of sci-fi music, it whetted it. Strange Stars was already underway when Bowie died in January of 2016 of liver cancer. There had been no forewarning; Bowie, up until the end, maintained his mystique. I''d never felt the passing of a celebrity with such a sense of loss. It was intensified by the release of Blackstar, his final album, which came out two days before his death. Not only was it an incredibly powerful album, it was a return to sci-fi--something Bowie had dipped into only occasionally since the heyday of sci-fi music in the ''70s. Strange Stars was written in the shadow of his absence, in the void he left. The story is about more than Bowie, though. His relationship with sci-fi throughout the ''70s was a complicated one, and its convoluted path threads throughout the larger tale of that decade''s sci-fi music. His story crosses over with those of Hawkwind and T. Rex and Kraftwerk and Devo and the Human League and any number of other artists of the ''70s who speculated about the reality of the present or probed the possibilities of the future. Some of them were cult heroes who persisted in singing about outer space when it was obvious care

Description for Sales People

An engaging account of how Sci-fi tropes infiltrated popular music, providing an apt prelude to 'nerd' culture today. Jason Heller is a rising star in journalism, with major bylines in Pitchfork and The New Yorker. He won a coveted Hugo Award for his contributions to the sci-fi and spec-fiction magazine Clarkesworld. Sci-Fi devotes and music fans will be delighted by Heller's trove of surprising facts and anecdotes.

Details ISBN1612197760 Author Jason Heller Pages 272 Publisher Melville House Publishing Year 2019 ISBN-10 1612197760 ISBN-13 9781612197760 Format Paperback Imprint Melville House Publishing Subtitle David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded Place of Publication Brooklyn Country of Publication United States DEWEY 781.6609047 Short Title Strange Stars Language English UK Release Date 2019-06-04 Publication Date 2019-06-04 AU Release Date 2019-06-04 NZ Release Date 2019-06-04 US Release Date 2019-06-04 Audience General

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TheNile_Item_ID:124480617;
  • Condition: Brand new
  • ISBN-13: 9781612197760
  • Type: NA
  • Publication Name: NA
  • Publication Year: 2019
  • Format: Paperback
  • Language: English
  • Book Title: Strange Stars
  • Item Height: 210mm
  • Author: Jason Heller
  • Publisher: Melville House Publishing
  • Genre: Fantasy
  • Topic: Literature, Music, Books
  • Item Width: 140mm
  • Number of Pages: 272 Pages

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