The Vinyl Frontier: The Story of NASA's Interstellar Mixtape

by Jonathan Scott

Overview

"Jonathan Scott is our cheerful tour guide . . . and The Vinyl Frontier is our comprehensive and comprehensible itinerary." - Los Angeles Times

In 1977, a team led by the great Carl Sagan was put together to create a record that would travel to the stars on the back of NASA's Voyager probe. They were responsible for creating a playlist of music, sounds and pictures that would represent not just humanity, but would also paint a picture of Earth for any future alien races that may come into contact with the probe. The Vinyl Frontier tells the whole story of how the record was created, from when NASA first proposed the idea to Carl to when they were finally able watch the Golden Record rocket off into space on Voyager.

The final playlist contains music written and performed by well-known names such as Bach, Beethoven, Glenn Gould, Chuck Berry and Blind Willie Johnson, as well as music from China, India and more remote cultures such as a community in Small Malaita in the Solomon Islands. It also contained a message of peace from US president Jimmy Carter, a variety of scientific figures and dimensions, and instructions on how to use it for a variety of alien lifeforms. Each song, sound and picture that made the final cut onto the record has a story to tell.

Through interviews with all of the key players involved with the record, this book pieces together the whole story of the Golden Record. It addresses the myth that the Beatles were left off of the record because of copyright reasons and will include new information about US president Jimmy Carter's role in the record, as well as many other fascinating insights that have never been reported before. It also tells the love story between Carl Sagan and the project's creative director Ann Druyan that flourishes as the record is being created.

The Golden Record is more than just a time capsule. It is a unique combination of science and art, and a testament to the genius of its driving force, the great polymath Carl Sagan.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472956101
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	11/17/2020
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	691,969
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Jonathan Scott is a writer, record collector and astronomy geek. He received his first telescope aged eight, using it to track Halley's Comet in 1986. Having followed Voyager's planetary fly-bys throughout his childhood, he first got to write about the missions in 2004.

Jonathan has written for Record Collector magazine, edited books about Prince, Cher and the San Francisco psych explosion, and penned articles on Nirvana, the Pogues, the Venga Boys, Sir Patrick Moore and Sir Isaac Newton in a variety of magazines. If he'd been in charge of the Voyager Golden Record, aliens would assume humanity had three chords.

@thejonoscott

Table of Contents

Prologue 9

Chapter 1 The Naked Pioneers 15

Chapter 2 Needle Hits Groove 25

Chapter 3 Musos v Scientists 45

Chapter 4 Uranium Clock 69

Chapter 5 Now That's What I Call Music 81

Chapter 6 The Hydrogen Key 109

Chapter 7 Berry v Beatles 141

Chapter 8 Flowing Streams and Firecrackers 159

Chapter 9 Mixing and Mastering 177

Chapter 10 The Final Cut 203

Chapter 11 A Last Supper 215

Chapter 12 Hello, We Must Be Going 229

Select Bibliography 263

Appendices 271

Acknowledgements 281

Index 283

Editorial Reviews

Bursts with gloriously geeky detail. (5*)” —The Telegraph

“He has the nerd's determination to track down details, to badger surviving protagonists with questions no one else has asked. Above all, he has a golden ear for irony. Far from second-guessing or lamenting the record's imperfections, he revels in its pops, clikc, glitches and quirks.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Both a detailed history of and a thoughtful exegesis on caution-by-committee and the sometimes remarkable synergy between art and science. Crucially, Scott's narrative blends extraterrestrial wonder with earthbound charm and brims with poignant revelations. (4*)” —Mojo

“Jonathan Scott is our cheerful tour guide ... and The Vinyl Frontier is our comprehensive and comprehensible itinerary.” —LA Times

“Scott masters the technical details, often with a touch of humor.” —The Washington Post

“The cast of characters alone is tremendous. Written in a lively, often jocular tone … The Vinyl Frontier tells the tale well” —Science

“Created from a strange marriage of politics, bureaucracy, budget, ambition, innovation, and beauty, Scott describes a portrait of humanity that is still travelling out among the stars.” —The Nerd Daily

“A vital addition to the library of anyone with an interest in the Voyager missions, extraterrestrial contact, or Carl Sagan.” —Astronomy Now

“You may have heard of the Voyager Golden Record, but Scott's illuminating backstory brings a new appreciation to this simple object. It's not just a record. It's science's most thoughtful and optimistic act.” —Amy Shira Teitel, author of Breaking the Chains of Gravity

“An entertaining, compelling, brilliantly-researched and inspiring account of the Voyager spaceship's curious passenger, the Golden Record, and the wonderful team of dreamers who made it happen.” —Emer Reynolds, writer and director of The Farthest

From the Publisher

★ 03/25/2019

Music journalist and Record Collector contributor Scott creates a high-energy, interplanetary pop song of a book devoted to the six-week project led by Carl Sagan and astrophysicist Frank Drake in 1977 to create a playlist of music and sounds to accompany NASA’s Voyager probe into space. Scott, who acknowledges he is more of an expert on mixtapes than astronomy, proves an enthusiastic and upbeat guide through the universe of bureaucratic red tape, tight deadlines, and romantic entanglements that revolved around the compilation effort. His thoroughly researched account draws on interviews with and unpublished writings by Voyager Record team members to explain the decision-making process behind various inclusions, including Chuck Berry’s rock ’n’ roll standard “Johnny B. Goode”—picked when the other pop song in contention, the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun,” proved unconscionably expensive —and legendary bluesman Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Is the Night,” “arguably the most haunting sound on the record,” for which team member and famed ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax lobbied. Scott summarizes the story best as being “about an awesome band of ordinary yet exceptional individuals who created a wonderful yet genuinely weird monument.” Delivered with effortless grace, this buoyant look at one of NASA’s most unusual but oft-overlooked efforts will appeal to music fans and astronomy buffs alike. (May)

Publishers Weekly