Styx - Mr. Roboto w/ Kilroy Was Here

Sci-fi Music Videos Week, Day 5, Styx - Mr. Roboto

Intro film


Mr Roboto


Mr. Roboto is part of a concept album released by Styx called Kilroy was Here.  The concept is explained in the short film that goes with Mr. Roboto.  Its truly amazing and you should watch it first.  Styx used to start every show with the 10 minute film.

The story line is that the world has been taken over by a group called the Majority for Music Morality, who aren't concerned with money or power, just making sure no one can listen to rock and roll.  The authoritarian powers imprison not political agitators but rock stars. This has to be the best scifi music project ever.  Also robots walk around cursing in Japanese (I guess Japan became a superpower because they build the best robots?).

The music video for Mr. Roboto picks up where the film leaves off.  Dennis Deyoung plays Kilroy, the imprisoned rock star who kills a robot and takes his suit to escape.  He escapes to find the rock and roll dissident Jonathan Chance so that they can bring down the anti-rock government together.  Mr. Roboto is about Kilroy's search for Chance and then the unveiling as he reveals he is not a robot.

Oh and I am not sure what "the modren man" is, but I know he likes to wear purple.

2Pac - California Love (part 1 and part 2)

Sci-fi Music Videos Week, Day 5, 2pac - California Love

Part 1 - Beyond Beyond Thunderdome


Part 2 - Tiki Torch Dance Party


Both of these videos are California Love.  The first is the original release and the second is a remix, but the first video has a to be continued ending that leads into the second, but videos have little else in common.

The first is an homage to the 80s post-apocalyptic classic Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome starring Tina Turner and everyone's favorite anti-semite Mel Gibson.  This video also has some star appearances.  In the beginning you will see pre-Rush Hour Chris Tucker and the godfather of funk, George Clinton.  Then, dance party in the Thunderdome! Its pretty unique for a rap video. The second is your standard dance party rap video.

California Love is one of the best rap dance songs of the 90s and easily the most famous 2pac song.  The song came out and went to the top of charts, but it was while 2pac was still in prison for a sexual assault charge.  When he got out, 2pac was at the height of his career.

However, the mid 90s was not a good time for musicians at the height of their career.  Only a couple months after Kurt Cobain of Nirvana died, 2pac was almost killed in an robbery in New York that has long been suspected to be part of an feud between East and West Coast rappers.  2pac survived, but two years later, months after Brad Newell of Sublime died, 2pac was shot again and this time he was killed.  Many implicate Notorious B.I.G. along with other East Coast rappers like Sean "Puffy" "P. Diddy" "Puff Daddy" "Diddy" Combs in the shootings, nothing has ever been proven.  A year later, when Notorious B.I.G. was on West Coast turf, he was gunned down and killed.

Now, its widely suspected that Death Row Records founder Shug Knight orchestrated the murders of both 2pac and Notorious B.I.G.  Several cases have been brought against NYPD officers that worked for Shug Knight, but nothing has stuck.

David Bowie - Space Oddity

Sci-fi Music Videos Week, Day 4, David Bowie - Space Oddity


Bowie is the grandfather of scifi inspired rock. Ever since Bowie's second album, Space Oddity, and the song with the same name, Bowie has had a scifi bent. The album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a concept album about an alien who is bringing the news of Earth's impending demise. Even though all of the songs have a scifi theme, none of the video follow the theme.

This video is great for several reasons. You get to see young Bowie, clean cut and crooked teeth. Space Oddity introduces the character Major Tom. Major Tom pops up in later songs, like Ashes to Ashes and in other artists songs, most notably the song Major Tom (Coming Home) by Peter Shilling.

In the video, Major Tom is floating around in space craft. You know it is Major Tom thanks to the giant name tag on his chest. Major Tom all of a sudden falls through space, but of course he is saved by two beautiful girls. They take him back to their space bed to spoon with Bowie.

You've probably never heard this version of Space Oddity before. This was the original version on the album. You are probably more familiar with this recording that came out with the release of the Aladdin Sane album.

You can compare the original with this version:

The Darkness - I Believe in a Thing Called Love

Sci-fi Music Videos Week, Day 3, The Darkness - I Believe in a Thing Called Love


This video is campy 70s scifi goodness. A David Bowie-like singer circa-Ziggy Stardust sings in falsetto while battling a tentacle monster with his laser guitar. What more could you want?

This song is The Darkness's one hit. Its fun, sounds like Queen, and gets stuck in your head.

Sigur Rós - Untitled #1 (Vaka)

Sci-fi Music Videos Week, Day 2, Sigur Rós - Untitled #1 (Vaka)


Vaka truly illustrates the potential of the music video as an art form itself.

Sigur Ros is a prolific Icelandic band that you have probably heard in a movie, if you have heard an album. They have a very distinct sound, ethereal and atmospheric with very high-pitched vocals. Jónsi Birgisson sings both in Icelandic and Hopelandic, a nonsense language made up of syllable from the Icelandic language.

They started on Iceland's most well-known label, Smekkleysa (Bad Taste). It's a label started by the Sugarcubes, Iceland's indie gods from the 80s who helped shoot the lead singer, Bjork, to international fame. Iceland is a tiny island nation with a population smaller than Minneapolis, but they produce a lot of good music.

The video shares the sullen beauty that is exemplified in the song. School children bundle up to go outside and play in the flurries of ash of nuclear winter. Wearing WW2 style gas masks, they throw ashballs and make ashmen. The video ends a young boys mask falls off and he slip away.

The ending is very peculiar for a music video. The song ends nearly a minute before the end of the video, and the rest is done in silence, as if giving priority to the video and not the song. However, I don't believe this is the case. They are giving priority to the experience. The music and the visuals are interwoven to create a new work that conveys a new message and elicits a different emotional response. The absence of sound in the last minute is no longer silence, but a part of the song and completes the final product, the music video.

Yeasayer - Ambling Alp

Sci-fi Music Videos Week, Day 1, Yeasayer - Ambling Alp


Yeasayer is an experimental Brooklyn band with obvious world music influences. They have just released their new record Odd Blood. It is about time. It has been nearly three years.

This video is an homage to Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1973 film, Holy Mountain. If you have never heard of it, check out the trailer here.

Holy Mountain is amazing and all sorts of messed up. Supposedly, the cast meditated together for 3 months before the shooting and were on psychedelic drugs for at least one scene. John Lennon and Yoko through in some money for production which doesn't surprise me because the movie is like a visual interpretation of one of her songs.

You could argue that this video isn't exactly sci-fi, but avant-garde or surrealist. To you I say, shut up and watch the video.