"Space Rock" -- has it lost all meaning as a genre?

How about this classic? Space Rock? Or at least space-rockish?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=vPQgfaB3S1c

 

This book made a decent fist of trying to shed some light on the term.

 

I've never heard of Spacehead, but Krel were basically a Hawkwind tribute band and by the time they came to notice, bands like Loop and Spiritualized were already being promoted as "space rock" in the newer sense.

 

How could I forget this great record? Their best, I’d say. Definitely stoner / space rock.

 

You must not get out much as I’ve heard Hawkwind described as space rock ever since I was a kid.

 

I get out plenty, thank you. Space Rock is not a common term. Tell you what, when it’s safe for my band to have another rehearsal I’ll ask them about Space Rock. We are all old 50-60 somethings with deep passion for RnR and talk about rock music all the time. Space Rock has never come up, but that doesn’t mean someone might not have an opinion.

 

I could never agree that David Bowie Oddity or Ziggy classifies as ‘space rock’. Space Rock is a sound first and foremost, lyrically second . The Bowie examples do not have the sound, they are simply pop/rock genre. As long as we (correctly I think) consider the sound of Hawkwind Space Ritual era as the cornerstone and yardstick of the space rock genre then everything else falls neatly into place.

Adding stuff to the genre simply because of some scifi lyrical content is what causes the genre label to ‘lose its meaning’.

 

Let me quote an aged and experienced starship captain with countless parsecs of space travel under his belt:

 

Krel's third official cassette release from 1993


Krel Earth Zero (1993)

 

Is Sun Ra space jazz?

 

It looks so...

 

Sun Ra is Sun Ra

 

Well it was a common enough term if you were listening to Pink Floyd or Hawkwind and the like in the late 60's and early 70's. But it would have been easy to miss if the radio stations you listened to didn't play that. Especially in the USA.

 

Of course but Sun Ra indeed created, due to his "cosmic" philosophy, his own subgenre of avant-garde jazz that could be called "space jazz".


Sun Ra Rocket #9 (from Space Is the Place, 1972)

 

Well, I guess there's no "official consensus" on what space rock is. Whatever "stoner" rock is seems to bleed into it.

Despite this, I am a big fan of what I think it is.... ranging from heavy stuff to more etherial stuff... Hawkwind, Acid Mother's Temple, Cosmic Jokers, Klaus Schultze, Danava, some Pink Floyd, some Eno, some Tangerine Dream, some Miles Davis... but... Hawkwind mostly...

 

Yes of course you could call it that, but I don’t think his intention was to create a genre. I also think his musical explorations were quite diverse. And my Gertude Steinian type comment was designed to question the need to stick Sun Ra’s music into bottle and label it. I always think that creating genre labels for unique musical careers somehow makes the music itself feel a little bit smaller. Hence ‘sun ra is sun ra’ is all the label I think he needs. That, or twenty such genre descriptors designed to convey the baffling enormity and discursive nature of his enigmatic project.

 

Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come qualify as space rock, imo.

 

Umberto Eco developed a deliberately crazy way of describing things through using lists. Perhaps the music is best described simply by using an expanding list like yours? Space is expansive.

 

Personally I dig kozmigroov moniker for all spacey jazz, although its definition is as nebulous as NGC 604.

freeform.org : Kozmigroov Konnection (cosmic jazz groove)

 

Space rock was always an essentially meaningless term: after all, in space no-one can hear you play...

 

I like Nebulous and NGC 604 - both are excellent descriptors.

But I really think terms using all those Ks can only truly be used in connection with genuinely German-emanated music.

 

Oh, and whoever applied the term to the rather good "Lost Souls" should give themselves a good talking too...

 

I could never work out whether it referred to outer-space or the kind of spaced-out head state associated with Afghani Black.

 

Yes, it has lost all meaning.

 

Didn't we already have psychedelia or even head music for the latter?