History and Music, two things that seemed ostensibly completely incompatible. I mean, isn't music more towards the artistic and creativity part of stuff and history a little towards the other end of the scale (i.e. Facts and Figures)?
Well, like many historical events which were often oversimplified (e.g. The Crusades), the truth always roots for complication. I've long expressed my lack of interest in fictional works like novels and mangas and other stuff that were made up, unless they have historical contexts in them and/or are extremely well-written.
When it comes to music, for me, the rule also applies, though with a somewhat looser standard, mainly because I see music as a way to relax and not quite as a way to learn stuff, whereas reading, for me, is more towards the other side of the scale (There's still entertainment and relaxation involved, but it's not the primary purpose). As a consequence, the songs that I put in my iPod are mostly lyricless and quite boring, for lack of a better term (Some of them are BGMs from Games, for instance), except for one album: "The Race for Space" by Public Service Broadcasting.
As the album's name had indicated, this series of songs is about the Space Race between 1957 and 1972. And while I can't call myself a space buff, the Space Race is truly a captivating and important historical event in human history, so in terms of historical context, the album already gets a check. And it's not those that use the name "The Race for Space" to lure you in and then features songs not at all related to the Space Race either, this one REALLY is about the actual Space Race that happened in actual history. That's why I got quite excited upon listening to the tracks featured in the album.
So what makes me so into this album?
Mostly it's because this album featured something that I seldom see in other songs. Not only is this thing about the Space Race, the band (Public Service Broadcasting) also cleverly used archived footage (more accurately, soundtracks) that were recorded at that time and pieced them together brilliantly with music. So, technically, all the songs have no lyrics, but they are still emotionally captivating with major thanks to those lyric-like sound effects.
Apart from the brilliant use of actual archived footage, the album also enable those who are less interested in History learn something about history. This 43-minute album gives a brief walkthrough to the important events of the Race (Sputnik, Gagarin, Apollo, etc.). It's easy to understand and digest. You can get the outline of those events way easier than a 57-minute documentary and, god forbid, a seemingly endless Wikipedia page. It's condense and yet, it's still able to deliver the essence of the Race. That's not something that can be found in many albums, eh?
Well, that's why I liked it. It brilliantly combined history with music, for those who liked the Space Race, it is something worth listening to. And if you're not into history, the album is still worth listening as quite a number of tracks are pretty soothing.
Link to the Album:
WARNING!
SPOILERS AHEAD
You're advised NOT to read this BEFORE listening to the album.
And if you're not afraid of spoilers, here are the tracks I liked the most:
1) Sputnik
2) The Other Side
3) Go!
4) Tomorrow
These four tracks are the ones I find the most captivating to me. Let's start with the song that describes what kicked off the Space Race in the first place: Sputnik.
Among the four tracks, Sputnik is definitely my all-time favourite. I particularly liked the way Public Service Broadcasting squeezed Sputnik 1's beep into the track. The way they do it turned what was originally quite a meaningless series of mechanical signals into a fundamental part of the song (it sort of matched the song's beat). And the fact that the beep wasn't there when the songs starts and it suddenly came into play in the middle of it and kept playing until the end of the song, to me, also symbolised the importance of the long-forgotten Sputnik 1. Remember, before 4 October, 1957, the space was devoid of man-made devices. Sputnik 1 pioneered the use of artificial satellites to transmit information from place to place and it was because of Sputnik that we now have GPS these days. Sputnik, the track, successfully reenacted this and the first time I listened to the track, I remembered focusing all my attention in spotting the beep and when it appeared, I got quite emotional. Maybe I'm just too sentimental about that but seriously, I think those who have listened to the actual beep on amateur radios in 1957 would have had the same emotions as well, because Sputnik had opened up a new era for technological development. One other trivia to add, I found it strangely soothing when listening to the modified beep in this song, it calms me down for unknown reasons, perhaps that's why this song had been so attractive to me.
The Other Side is also a similar story. The song itself evoke a kind of nervousness and hopefulness of Apollo 8 Mission Control at the start, the song died down as Apollo 8 began flying over the other side of the Moon and lost contact (temporarily) with Mission Control, giving a kind of "Brace yourself, here it comes" feeling, then as Apollo 8 successfully flew across the back of the Moon and transmitted its first message back to Houston, the track reached its climax (I actually smiled when I heard that message). This is just plainly nothing but very well done. Again, through the music, I can empathize with those who actually participated, something that can't be done with a documentary or a Wikipedia article.
The remaining two are just simply good in general, I can't pinpoint their best part (For "Go!", I think it might be the checklist-like sound effects but I'm not positive) but I'd say they and the two I explained above are better than the other ones, not that the remainder are particularly bad but these four happened to be the most captivating to me.
Who said music with historical contexts are boring?
創作內容
【English Channel】Historical Context at Work: Public Service Broadcasting's "The Race for Space"
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