Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

the MUSIC OF MeMOrY aND FOrGettING:
GLOBaL eChOeS OF SpUtNIK II
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or blurring the human-dog boundary in the vein of George Clinton’s “atomic
Dog” or the hip hop artist Snoop Dogg. the most explicit example of this is
probably Ice MC’s eurodance hit from 1990 in which the rapper announces:
I’m a dog
my name is Laika
my ambition is to be like a f---in’ astronaut
and see Mars 31
In other cases, the boundary between human and animal and the ethical
perspective of the artist are unclear, as in Moxy Früvous’s “Laika,” which
appeared on the Canadian group’s 1994 smash hit album, Bargainville. the point
of view shifts numerous times throughout this witty meditation on coming of
age in the age of fying dogs. Like Ice MC and the death rock group Massacre
(which speculates that Laika had a fear of heights), 32 Moxy Früvous projects
human aspirations and feelings onto Laika with excellent ironic results (“hey
darling, throw this space pup a bone”).
an even more arresting ambiguity surfaces when humans incorporate
Laika into human pantheons. a physical example of this is the monument to
fallen cosmonauts erected outside Moscow in 1997 that includes a likeness of
Laika peering up at the faces of the humans who also died in the conquest
of space. In the musical realm, we have a brilliant send up of real and artistic
spectacular demises by British singer Neil hannon. In the title cut of the 2004
album Absent Friends, 33 hannon fanks a witty toast to Laika with tributes to
the suicidal actress Jean Seberg, the World War I chaplain “Woodbine Willy”
(who distributed cigarettes to doomed and dying soldiers), the persecuted Oscar
Wilde, and the king of cool Steve McQueen (as “hicks” in The Great Escape).
the firtation with self-destruction in “absent Friends” fnds more direct
expression in the song “Neighborhood #2 (Laika),” a ballad by the Montrealbased
indie rock sensation arcade Fire. While themes of death and loss run
throughout the album (appropriately entitled Funeral), “Neighborhood #2”
invokes Laika’s name as the defnitive marker of betrayal and rejection:
alexander, our older brother,
set out for a great adventure.
he tore our images out of his pictures,
31. “Laika,” Cinema (Xyx, 1991).
32. “Laika, se va,” Aerial (1998?).
33. the Divine Comedy, Absent Friends (parlophone, 2004).