In Space No One Can Hear You Disco
May 6, 2011 12:19 PM   Subscribe

 
I don't understand why this was made. Alien is all about creeping dread, paranoia and the loss of bodily integrity.
posted by Scoo at 12:26 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


JUST LIKE COUNTRY AND WESTERN!!!
posted by longbaugh at 12:30 PM on May 6, 2011


Shit. I meant Goth.

I'll come in again.
posted by longbaugh at 12:30 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


Disco version of Sweeney Todd.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:32 PM on May 6, 2011


Disco sucks, but Alien rocks. I'm so confused.
posted by Crane Shot at 12:37 PM on May 6, 2011


Hudson, run a by pass.
posted by clavdivs at 12:39 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


Released as a 12 inch in 1979, this song seems to have quickly faded into obscurity, but the folks at DiscoMusic.com have this memory:
This was so much fun on the dancefloor at the time because you would get everybody doing John Hurt alien tummy eruptions!!

How did people do that dance? Are there any such instructions online, or better yet, are there videos? Because I'm not really imagining any dance moves at the moment.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:40 PM on May 6, 2011


How did people do that dance? Are there any such instructions online, or better yet, are there videos? Because I'm not really imagining any dance moves at the moment.

Well, you let a face hugger buy you a few drinks, then you make out in the restroom, then when you wake up later, you take a swig of gruel and do the gator. It's fun the first few times, but after awhile the floor gets pretty slick.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:48 PM on May 6, 2011 [3 favorites]


Since we're talking Alien mashups, here's something I made for a thread about two years ago:

Alien vs Family Circus.

Funny, I remembered it being less...incomprehensible.
posted by Ian A.T. at 12:50 PM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]


This was so much fun on the dancefloor at the time because you would get everybody doing John Hurt alien tummy eruptions!!

Makes me think of Catherine Martell dancing with Leland Palmer at the Great Northern. Leading the visiting group of (Dutch?) investors in imitating Leland's head-clutching guilt and horror dance to draw attention away from the fact that their development project lawyer was completely off the deep end.
posted by Babblesort at 12:55 PM on May 6, 2011


Magnificent. At last a hint of the Jarre-soundtracked Jodorowsky "Alien" that was not to be.
posted by WPW at 12:58 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


Alien vs Family Circus

Fucking awesome! I wrote a poem once about Little Billy getting murdered by persons unknown. Maybe it was an alien!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:02 PM on May 6, 2011


70's sci-fi disco cinema synchronicity! Just a couple of days ago my brother digitized my old Close Encounters of the Third Kind disco 45 and sent me an MP3. (I have no memory of why or how I came to own such a thing when I was 5 or 6.)

I do remember the bitter disappointment of receiving this album as a Christmas or birthday gift and getting all excited to hear the epic John Williams score, dropping the needle, and hearing disco instead. (Meco Star Wars disco linked, as I could not find any Boris Midney Star Wars disco. I was perfectly happy not knowing there was multiple Star Wars disco out there.)
posted by usonian at 1:31 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


That's a damn fine vinyl rip, that is...
posted by mikelieman at 1:44 PM on May 6, 2011


mikelieman: clarification- the video I linked to is not from the mp3 I received the other day, although the mp3 is of similar quality! My brother is a bit of an audiophile.
posted by usonian at 2:21 PM on May 6, 2011


awesome blog with all this sort of music
posted by robbyrobs at 2:35 PM on May 6, 2011


Loved the Paxton -- for a character that had relatively few lines (all that "bad ass" stuff got cut from the theatrical release & I don't remember it from the DVD, either), Hudson made a pretty big impression. nicely played by Bill P.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 3:00 PM on May 6, 2011


Listen here and here if you'd like to hear some fluteiness from the Alien soundtrack sampled in with breakbeats. Coutesy of Link, Art of Noise and DJ Food/Dara.
posted by No Shmoobles at 3:10 PM on May 6, 2011


all that "bad ass" stuff got cut from the theatrical release & I don't remember it from the DVD, either

It's from the special edition.
posted by to sir with millipedes at 3:18 PM on May 6, 2011


Actually, it's from Alien: A Very Special Edition. It was an Afternoon Special, back in the day. Hudson gets hooked on acid, burns out, and starts hanging out with the wrong crowd. It was pretty lame until they eat him.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:25 PM on May 6, 2011


To purge your mind of this monstrosity here is the original Alien trailer, aka the best trailer ever made.
posted by nathancaswell at 3:33 PM on May 6, 2011


It's from the special edition.

Ah. No wonder -- I didn't see that. But now I will! I loves me some Aliens.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 3:41 PM on May 6, 2011


No one has posted the star wars disco yet?
posted by empath at 3:56 PM on May 6, 2011


I don't understand why this was made. Alien is all about creeping dread, paranoia and the loss of bodily integrity.

There's a long history of 'dark side' dance music. Dance music is about the Dionysian, and the wine god was not just about euphoria and joy, but also paranoia and panic. The best dance records have a foot on each side.
posted by empath at 3:58 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


Italo disco did that better than anyone... listen to Moroder's The Chase, for example -- euphoric, but also dark and alien sounding -- squiggling, frantic basslines, no vocal, and hooks that come and go without any real structure, random off-key sound effects on off beats -- it can be really unnerving to listen to.
posted by empath at 4:09 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


The irony is that Ridley Scott mutilated Goldsmith's score even worse than this does.

Scott was enthusiastic to work with veteran composer Jerry Goldsmith, arguably at the height of his career at the time, for this production. Equally pleased was Scott's former sound and music editor and, for Alien, his lead editor, Terry Rawlings. Upon securing Goldsmith for the assignment, Rawlings, with Scott's blessing, had assembled a wealth of Goldsmith's previous music for employment as a temp track in the film. Goldsmith, who was never a fan of temp tracking in the first place, was disdainful of these placements and completely disregarded them when fashioning his music for Alien. From there, matters only got worse. The composer completed the recording of almost an hour of music for Alien and moved on to other projects, returning to the production for a handful of re-scoring duties not long after. To his horror, the finished version of Alien would only place one (yes, one) of his cues in its entirety and in its proper place in the film. His music had been completely mangled by Scott and Rawlings, chopped into pieces and moved indiscriminately throughout the film. To make matters worse, significant portions of Goldsmith's 1962 score for Freud and a 1967 recording of Howard Hanson's "Symphony No. 2" were interspersed between Goldsmith's original Alien material as well. It was, in short, a nightmare.

posted by Trurl at 4:56 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


Disco was so full of scifi cheeze. Fuck yes.
posted by rmd1023 at 5:39 PM on May 6, 2011


As I mentioned in a recent short-lived thread, I make my own album art.
posted by Trurl at 6:15 PM on May 6, 2011


Sorry, but when it comes to discofied SF music, Giorgio Moroder's album-length take on Battlestar Galactica trumps all challengers.

One of the first albums I ever bought.
posted by Lazlo at 1:39 AM on May 7, 2011


The epitome of sf disco... accept no substitutes
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:48 AM on May 7, 2011


Top tune. I found a battered 12" copy for 50p in a bargain basement, and was pleased to hear it exceed my admittedly low expectations. My copy is actually a tried and tested DJ weapon as it goes - couple it with the crowd favourite Space - Magic Fly as the space disco warm up section of a new disco / cosmic / (new) italo type set and it goes down an absolute treat. Now of course my secret is out and everyone will be looking for a copy.
posted by iivix at 12:57 PM on May 8, 2011


Here's another great techno take on a sci fi theme:

DJ Vanguard - Flash. I used to play the shit out of various remixes of this when I was DJing regularly.
posted by empath at 2:46 PM on May 8, 2011 [1 favorite]


Weirdly, I feel that it's not a billion miles away from Goldsmith's own electro for Outland. Great post, btw.
posted by specialbrew at 3:50 PM on May 8, 2011


70's sci-fi disco cinema synchronicity! Just a couple of days ago my brother digitized my old Close Encounters of the Third Kind disco 45 and sent me an MP3. (I have no memory of why or how I came to own such a thing when I was 5 or 6.)

As I remember, the Arista disco version Of Close Encounters was included with the OST as a 7" - I used to have a note somewhere of the arranger, but I'll be damned if I can find it. As these things go, it's surprisingly faithful to the general flavour of the score.
posted by specialbrew at 4:13 PM on May 8, 2011


empath: I loved that track back when my brother was DJing! I think he left me the vinyl.
posted by azarbayejani at 9:19 AM on May 9, 2011


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