Line #84 UsefulNotes/VoyagerGoldenRecord


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/golden_record.png https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/golden_record_cover.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''To the makers of music -- all worlds, all times.''[[note]]Top: the record itself. Bottom: the cover for the record. Not pictured: the platter it is set on or the stylus used to play it.[[/note]]]]
3
4	->''As the Secretary General of the United Nations, an organization of the 147 member states who represent almost all of the human inhabitants of the planet Earth, I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of the immense universe that surrounds us, and it is with humility and hope that we take this step.''
5	-->--Kurt Waldheim, Secretary General of the United Nations
6
7	->''Hello from the children of planet Earth.''
8	-->--Nick Sagan, son of Creator/CarlSagan, aged six
9
10	In the 1970s, UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} was preparing their first missions to the outer planets--Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. ''Pioneer 10'' visited Jupiter before making its way out to the edge of the Solar System, and ''Pioneer 11'' used Jupiter's gravity to swing it over the top of the Sun all the way to Saturn. The mission planners knew that these spacecraft would never return to the Solar System, so they carried two identical plaque featuring the image of a human male and female, a map of pulsars to locate the probe, and a schematic of their trajectories through the Solar System[[note]]''Pioneer 11'''s diagram did not show it visiting Saturn--NASA only diverted it toward Saturn to test out flyby procedures for the upcoming ''Voyager'' probes[[/note]].
11
12	Shortly thereafter, the ''Voyager'' probes, ''1'' and ''2'', were created to take advantage of a specific once-in-two-centuries alignment of planets that would allow [[SpaceshipSlingshotStunt consecutive flybys of all five outer planets with a single launch]][[note]]''Voyager 1'' flew by Saturn's moon Titan and thus out of the plane of the Solar System, but it could have flown by Pluto if Titan wasn't so valuable[[/note]]. These were intended to carry replicas of the Pioneer Plaques originally, but given that these could return further science than the ''Pioneer'' probes, a simple plaque was not enough. After a few weeks of brainstorming with another person, Creator/CarlSagan came up with the idea of a 12-inch record containing sounds, music, and images of Earth.
13
14	With only a brief six-week time frame and a paltry $25,000 budget, Sagan and his team still managed to illustrate the diversity of humanity. The record, titled ''The Sounds of Earth'', contained greetings from people in 55 languages, whale songs, a sonic essay about the formation of Earth and the development of humanity, images from across the Solar System involving chemistry and humanity, a selection of 27 compositions from around the world, and the brainwaves of a woman newly in love[[note]]this woman was Carl Sagan's future wife Ann Druyan; the two had just confessed their love for each other mere days before the recording, despite both being married to other people at the time[[/note]]. The record was cast in gold-plated copper instead of vinyl to withstand the harsh conditions of space, and designed to be spun at half the rate of a regular record to fit as much information as possible on twelve inches of grooves. The cover, made of uranium-plated aluminum, showed how to play it with the included needle and cartridge, as well as how to decode the included images.
15
16	In 1977, the ''Voyagers'' were launched toward Jupiter, slingshotting them out of the Solar System toward Saturn and beyond. The probes would discover many things about the outer planets before taking the famous "[[https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/536/voyager-1s-pale-blue-dot/ Pale Blue Dot]]" image and entering interstellar space in the 2010s. Being powered by radioactive decay, the probes will no longer be able to power themselves by 2025, after which their main purpose will be carrying these Golden Records to whoever will find them. While neither is targeted toward a specific star, they both will pass within 2 light-years of separate stars about 400,000 years into the future[[note]]and even if they ceremonially used all the rest of their fuel to direct them there, they would only fly as close as 1 light-year from those stars[[/note]].
17
18	Only ten copies of the original pressing remain on Earth, making it then the rarest album ever made[[note]]until the release of Music/WuTangClan's ''Once Upon a Time in Shaolin''[[/note]]. However, in 2017, forty years after the ''Voyagers''[='=] launch, Ozma Records funded a Kickstarter campaign to (metaphorically) bring the musical portion of the Records back to Earth as a vinyl box set. While they only needed $198,000 to fund the project, they managed to raise $1.36 million[[note]]'''54 ½''' times more money than was allocated for the records themselves![[/note]], making it the most successful musical crowdfunding campaign to date. They are currently available for sale as either a 3-LP box set or as a 2-CD compilation. The audio portion of the record as a whole (minus a song and an image) can be viewed for free on [=YouTube=] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEzcFXRKHUw here]].
19
20	!!Friends of space, how are you all? Have you listened yet?
21
22	[[AC:Side A]]
23	# Images of Earth[[note]]includes excerpt from [[Music/LudwigVanBeethoven Beethoven]]'s "Cavatina"[[/note]] (8:32)
24	# Greetings from Kurt Waldheim, Secretary General of the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations (0:44)
25	# Greetings in 55 Languages (3:46)
26	# United Nations Greetings/Whale Songs[[note]]excerpts from ''Music/SongsOfTheHumpbackWhale''[[/note]] (4:04)
27	# "The Sounds of Earth" (12:26)
28	## ''Harmonices Mundi'' -- Johannes Kepler, realized by Laurie Spiegel (0:00-0:42)
29	## Volcanoes, earthquakes, thunder (0:42-1:14)
30	## Mud pots (1:14-1:29)
31	## Wind, rain, surf (1:29-2:43)
32	## Early animals[[note]]Crickets and frogs[[/note]] (2:43-4:43)
33	## Later animals[[note]]Birds, hyena, elephant, dolphins[[/note]] (3:20-5:13)
34	## Chimpanzee (4:30-5:27)
35	## Wild dog (4:51-5:05)
36	## Wind (5:27-6:08)
37	## Footsteps, heartbeat, Carl Sagan's laughter (6:00-6:50)
38	## Fire, speech[[note]]in !Kung[[/note]] (6:25-6:35)
39	## The first tools (6:33-6:50)
40	## Tamed dog (6:45-6:52)
41	## Agriculture and construction (6:52-7:49)
42	## "Per aspera ad astra" [Morse code] (7:49-8:18)
43	## Transportation[[note]]ship, horse and cart, train, airplane, rocket[[/note]] (7:54-11:09)
44	## Mother and child[[note]]kiss, baby crying, mother speaking[[/note]] (11:09-11:34)
45	## Vital signs[[note]]brainwaves of Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's wife[[/note]] (11:29-12:05)
46	## Pulsar (12:00-12:26)
47	# ''Brandenburg Concerto No. 2'' -- Music/JohannSebastianBach (4:44)
48	# "Ketawang: Puspawarna" -- Prince Mangkunegara IV (4:47)
49	# "Cengunmé" -- Mahi musicians from Benin (2:11)
50	# Alima Song -- Mbuti tribe of Congo (1:01)
51	# "Barnumbirr"/"Moikoi Song" -- Tom Djawa, Mudpo, and Waliparu (1:29)
52	# "El Cascabel" -- Lorenzo Barcelata (3:20)
53	# "Johnny B. Goode" -- Music/ChuckBerry (2:41)
54	# "Mariuamangɨ" -- Pranis Pandang (1:25)
55	# "Sokaku Reibo" -- Goro Yamaguchi (5:04)
56	# ''Partita for Violin No. 3'': "Gavotte en Rondeau" -- Johann Sebastian Bach (2:58)
57
58	[[AC:Side B]]
59	# ''Theatre/TheMagicFlute'': "Der Hölle rache kochtin meinem Herzen" -- Music/WolfgangAmadeusMozart (3:00)
60	# "Chakrulo" -- Georgian State Merited Ensemble of Folk Song and Dance (2:21)
61	# Roncadoras and drums -- Musicians from Ancash (0:55)
62	# "Melancholy Blues" -- Music/LouisArmstrong (3:06)
63	# Mugham -- Kamil Jalilov (2:35)
64	# ''Theatre/TheRiteOfSpring'': "Sacrificial Dance" -- Music/IgorStravinsky (4:38)
65	# ''The Well-Tempered Clavier'', Book II: "Prelude and Fugue in C Major" -- Johann Sebastian Bach (4:51)
66	# ''Symphony No. 5'' -- Music/LudwigVanBeethoven (8:49)
67	# "Izlel ye Delyo Haydutin" -- Valya Balanska (5:04)
68	# Yeibichai Dance -- Ambrose Roan Horse, Chester Roan, and Tom Roan (1:01)
69	# "The Faerie Round" -- Anthony Holborne (1:19)
70	# "Naranaratana Kookokoo (The Cry of the Megapode Bird)" -- Maniasinimae and Taumaetarau Chieftain Tribe of Oloha and Palasu'u Village Community in Small Malaita (1:15)
71	# Wedding Song -- Young girl from Huanavelica (0:42)
72	# "Liu Shui" -- Guan Pinghu (7:36)
73	# "Jaat Kahan Ho" -- Kesarbai Kerkar (3:34)
74	# "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" -- Blind Willie Johnson (3:32)
75	# ''String Quartet No. 13'': "Cavatina" -- Ludwig van Beethoven (6:41)
76	----
77	!!We cast these tropes into the cosmos:
78
79	* AfricanChant: Represented by the Alima song by the Mbuti tribe.
80	* AndeanMusic: "Roncadoras and Drums" and the Wedding Song from Huancavelica are both made my indigenous peoples of Peru.
81	* AvianFlute: "Sokaku Reibo" and "Naranaratana Kookokoo" both represent the cries of native birds to the region via wind instruments; "Sokaku Reibo" for cranes and "Naranaratana Kookokoo" for the megapode bird.
82	* BaroqueMusic: All three of Bach's compositions, which were chosen in part to display the more mathematical nature of music.
83	* BlindMusician and DeafComposer: Blind Willie Johnson and Ludwig van Beethoven close the audio portion of the record.
84	* BookEnds: The images end with an excerpt from Beethoven's "Cavatina." The full piece also closes the record.
85	* BringerOfWarMusic: While ''Theatre/TheRiteOfSpring'' [[UrExample predated and inspired]] Holst's "Mars," Stravinsky's "Sacrificial Dance" was selected because it sounded like humans picking a fight with each other.
86	* ClassicalMusic: Of the 27 songs on the record, 8 are classical pieces[[note]]while "Jaat Kahan Ho" is Indian classical music, only European classical is considered classical[[/note]], taking up half the runtime of the music portion of the record[[note]]the European folk music further adds to the runtime, with a total of ''47'' out of 70 minutes allotted to music being European in origin[[/note]]. Johann Sebastian Bach alone has three songs to his name, one of which opens the music portion of the record.
87	* CutSong: According to Carl Sagan, Music/TheBeatles' "Here Comes the Sun" was seriously considered for the record because of its witty title, but the record label EMI refused unless they paid $50,000--twice the budget of the record. Ann Druyan suggested Sagan substitute "Johnny B. Goode" despite his personal distaste for the song, which helped revitalize Music/ChuckBerry at a low point in his career.
88	** Reportedly, Music/MilesDavis' "Summertime" could have also been included, but it was scrapped from the tracklist very early on in the decision process.
89	* EpicRocking: "Liu Shui," Beethoven's contributions, and "The Sounds of Earth" all breach the six-minute mark, with an uncharacteristically slow first movement of Beethoven's 5th clocking in at 9 minutes.
90	* ElectronicMusic: Represented in "The Sounds of Earth" via Laurie Spiegel's rendition of Johannes Kepler's ''Harmonices Mundi''.
91	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Since the images are encoded first in the record, a 20-second excerpt from Beethoven's "Cavatina" is played after the image of the violin and sheet music is shown.
92	* GreatestHitsAlbum: Functions as this for humanity in case any interstellar travelers (including future humans) come across it.
93	* HeartbeatSoundtrack: "The Sounds of Earth" features a heartbeat among its giant collage of sounds. The recording of Ann Druyan's thoughts also includes a recording of her heartbeat.
94	* IconOfRebellion: "Izlel ye Deylo Haydutin" is sung about Deylo, a rebel against the Ottoman Islamicization of Bulgaria in the 17th century who, according to legend, could only be killed with a silver bullet. In the song, he is immortalized as a warning against the grief of families of those forcibly converted to Islam.
95	* LimitedLyricsSong: "Dark Was the Night" only features, amid all of Blind Willie Johnson's wailing, "Alive," "Aware," and "Alone," as its lyrics.
96	* MoodWhiplash: Some of the compositions tend to flow choppily together, such as following a Beethoven symphony with Bulgarian bagpipes, or following folk songs from Australia with a mariachi song. Scientists have even stated that if aliens were to find the Golden Record, they would likely interpret the conflicting styles of music as arguments between each other instead of a collective friendly greeting.
97	* NakedFirstImpression: Double Subverted. The ''Pioneer'' Plaques featured crude sketches of a naked man and woman, for which the designers of the record wanted to include an image of a nude man and a pregnant woman to show the differences between them. However, the controversy surrounding the ''Pioneer'' Plaques' designs forced them to replace it with a traced-over diagram showing a fetus within the female body. This also forced them to use diagrams for the sexual organs instead of drawings. However, the included picture of a newborn baby left their genitalia uncensored.
98	* OdeToFamily: The wedding song by the girl from Huanavelica is a song about the girl learning to appreciate her family.
99	* SignatureSong: The songs most associated with the record are "Johnny B. Goode," "Dark Was the Night," and "El Cascabel." Beethoven's 5th symphony would count, but is more of an inversion as, while many people know it, its inclusion is not as well-known.
100	** "Cavatina" was tied most to the identity of the record, appearing three times throughout the record--on an image (as sheet music), immediately after that as an audio excerpt, and then as the final piece of music.
101	* SpiritualSuccessor: Sadly subverted. The ''New Horizons'' probe, launched in January 2006, did not carry a message to the stars out of fear of controversy. However, after its successful flyby of Pluto, interest increased in giving ''New Horizons'' its own message to interstellar travelers uploaded to its hard drive. The project--the ''One Earth'' message--never reached its goal of funding, despite being proposed by one of the producers of the Golden Record.
102	* SurprisinglyGentleSong: The SensoryAbuse "Sacrificial Dance" is followed by a slow, gentle Bach prelude.
103	* TextlessAlbumCover: The Golden Record's protective sleeve only includes ideographs that show how to play the record and decode the included images. Justified, since whoever discovers it probably won't understand any contemporary human language.
104	* TimeCapsule: The golden records are intended to serve this purpose, an archive in the universe that is proof we existed and likely to be found by alien civilizations long after the destruction of earth.
105	* TitleTrack: "The Sounds of Earth."
106	* UncommonTime: Displayed through Stravinsky's "Sacrificial Dance," which changes between short bursts like 2/8, 3/8, and 5/16 seemingly at random.
107	* WorkInfoTitle: ''The Sounds of Earth'' is literally a collection of sounds from Earth.
108	* TheWorldIsJustAwesome: The Golden Record captures the best of what humanity has to offer; greetings and messages of peace in as many languages as possible, the sound of laughter and wildlife and some of the most beautiful music ever written, and photographs of our forests, oceans, monuments, and people. Hell, in the context of showcasing all that we are to any aliens that may find it one day, even the photos of things like rush hour and a supermarket are beautiful.
109
110	!!References in other media
111
112	[[foldercontrol]]
113
114	[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
115	* The focus of the 2017 documentary ''Film/TheFarthest''
116	* ''Film/TroopZero''[='=]s plot revolves around a ragtag group of children forming a Girl Scout group for the chance to have their voices recorded on the Golden Record.
117	[[/folder]]
118
119	[[folder:Literature]]
120	* In ''Literature/BattlefieldEarth'', a Psychlo mentions that they found the way to Earth when the Voyager probe reached them; they also note that the gold record on board "was worth a clanking fortune".
121	* In ''Literature/FateRequiem'', Erice hears muffled, poor quality music and voice recordings in a variety of languages she doesn't understand just before she meets "Prin", a golden-haired Servant who is deeply fascinated by space. The reveal that Prin is [[spoiler:none other than the AnthropomorphicPersonificiation of ''Voyager 1'']] makes those noises are an allusion to the sounds on the Golden Record.
122	* ''Literature/ToBeTaughtIfFortunate'', a sci-fi novella about four astronauts exploring the galaxy to observe alien life, takes its title from the opening speech.
123	[[/folder]]
124
125	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
126	* Carl Sagan's ''Series/CosmosAPersonalVoyage'' features music from the Record, and even briefly discusses it in one episode.
127	* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' featured a sketch in which intelligent life discovered the Voyager Golden Record in space and sent a simple four-word message to Earth: "Send more Chuck Berry!"
128	%% May be better as part of a separate trope revolving around old human artifacts in space (Cosmic Cultural Artifact?):
129	%% During the PilotMovie of ''Series/SpaceAboveAndBeyond'', Cooper Hawkes finds a CD included with an old Mars probe the group finds while on a training mission, which contains the Music/{{Ramones}}' "Blitzkrieg Bop" (a.k.a. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuOnePNlOgY "hey, ho, let's go"]]). Hawkes keeps the disc and plays it as the soundtrack for the dogfight with the Chigs at the end of the episode.
130	* Discussed on the ''WebVideo/{{Vsauce}}'' episode “Messages For The Future” and also mentioned in Michael’s series ''Mind Field'' episode "How to Talk to Aliens".
131	* ''Series/TheXFiles'': In the game-changing episode "[[Recap/TheXFilesS02E01LittleGreenMen Little Green Men]]," the ''Voyager''s and their Golden Record are commonly mentioned. Bach's ''Brandenburg Concerto'' is even played in the episode.
132	[[/folder]]
133
134	[[folder:Music]]
135	* Music/{{Joywave}}'s third studio album ''Possession'' features a copy of the Golden Record on the cover, with its label altered to read "THE SOUNDS OF POSSESSION". Fittingly, multiple audio {{sampl\|ing}}es from the actual record are interwoven throughout the album.
136	* The cover of the record appears on the cover of Music/MiniMansions' 2015 album ''The Great Pretenders''.
137	[[/folder]]
138
139	[[folder:Video Games]]
140	* In ''VideoGame/PsychonautsInTheRhombusOfRuin'', when Sasha Nein found himself in a Psilirium sickness-induced hallucination and under the analysis of his captors, he mistook said captors as aliens in a spaceship when Raz used Clairvoyance to see his point of view and sees a familiar record nearby. [[spoiler:The solution involves having to play the music from said record in order to snap Sasha out of that hallucination, and a more lucid Sasha reveals that the craft is [[MoonLandingHoax a fake spaceship designed to cause confusion and panic among foreign countries in the Space Race]]]].
141	-->'''Raz''': Hey, a gold record! I'm rich!\
142	'''Sasha''': That is a collection of our music and sounds, which we sent to space many years ago, to say hello to the cosmos!
143	* In ''VideoGame/Splatoon1'', an Inkling version of the Voyager Golden Record can be found in the story mode.
144	-->''"From the depths of the sea we emerged long ago, seeking the light of the surface. In search of still greater lights, we now send this message into outer space, sealed in a disk. Perhaps one day, we will meet others like ourselves..."''
145	[[/folder]]
146
147	[[folder:Web Original]]
148	* Website/SCPFoundation: The focus of "[[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1342 SCP-1342 - To the Makers of Music]]" is a replica of the ''Voyager 1'' probe (SCP-1342-1), including a golden record (SCP-1342-2) featuring the residents of an alien planet around Gliese 445. Around 40,000 years in the future, the Gliscians (SCP-1342-3) discovered radio waves from Earth and reverse engineered radio technology to contact humans. The ensuing relations brought about a cultural and technological renaissance for the Gliscians, until shortly after inventing TimeTravel, humans unleashed cataclysmic weapons on Gliese 445-C that doomed the remaining Gliscians to extinction. Initially planning revenge, the Gliscians recovered the original ''Voyager'' and was reminded by the Golden Record of what they loved of humanity, and opted instead to send their own back from the year 42,412 to 1982 to give a warning of their bleak future and offer peace for a new timeline.
149	--> From one maker of music to another, across all worlds, all times, no matter what you do or what you become: You are nothing less than beautiful.
150	[[/folder]]
151
152	[[folder:Western Animation]]
153	* One of the major {{MacGuffin}}s in ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' is the Voyager Golden Record, called the "[[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Golden_Disk_(Voyager) Golden Disk]]". Apparently, the G1 Megatron used a Voyager probe as a Trojan horse to sneak out critical information.
154	* ''WesternAnimation/InsideJob2021'': The cover of the record is shown in the background of the local bar, [=McUltra=]'s, alongside other American memorabilia.
155	* ''WesternAnimation/TimeJamValerianAndLaureline'' has an instance of AliensStealCable where a rich alien who collects unique specimens recovered a golden record from a space probe launched before the Earth disappeared. He builds a holographic recreation of the Old West from it for his entertainment[[note]]partly justified, considering Monument Valley was one of the images included on the record[[/note]]--which he strands Valerian and Laureline in after realizing they're the only Earthlings still around.
156	[[/folder]]
157
158	----
159

Context UsefulNotes / VoyagerGoldenRecord