Some examples are obvious and some are not but what are some of your favorite songs that illustrate the effects that science fiction has had on today's music.
A favorite of mine that is obvious. Uss makes shit up by Voltaire http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtube_gdata_player&v=r3KBmS1dCWs
When Tangerine Dream first started out in the early 1970s, they were the quintessential "space music" band. All of their records sounded like sound tracks for sci-fi movies. A couple of them actually were sound tracks, but not for sci-fi. Like Shadowfax and the other space music bands they dumbed it down, made it less ominous and more accessible, and became New Age music for the crystal-healie crowd. Now they're all just making New Age ditties--elevator music for yoga studios and aromatherapy clinics. Since synthesizers have become commonplace, their music doesn't sound so unusual any more. When the first Moog synthesizer came out, it had a sci-fi cachet, and people compulsively made synthesizer-based albums that sounded like the music on another planet. Walter (now "Wendy") Carlos's "Switched-On Bach" was the archetype of that genre. There wasn't a single sound on that record that could have been produced by a traditional instrument. Emerson, Lake & Palmer picked up the sound and brought it to rock and roll, as did a few other bands like King Crimson. But we've been hearing those "unique" sounds for forty years now, and they don't sound so unusual any more. It's like intensive syncopation and the blues modality. A hundred years ago when they were first introduced to popular music people reacted in shock. Today they're on the Muzak system in retirement homes.
