Leonard Nimoy – Mr. Spock’s Music From Outer Space
The first solo album released by actor Leonard Nimoy after the original Star Trek began riding a wave of publicity in the 1960s, Mr. Spock’s Music From Outer Space is a curious creation, consisting in roughly equal parts of Nimoy singing, Nimoy performing spoken word pieces in character as Mr. Spock, and instrumental renditions of songs related to two television shows with which he would become closely identified: Star Trek and Mission: Impossible. (The inclusion of a cover version of Lalo Schifrin’s Mission: Impossible theme might seem to be a bizarre happenstance – Nimoy didn’t become a regular on that show until after Star Trek had run its course in the summer of 1969, two years after this album was released – but the entire album project was bankrolled and guided by Dot Records and Desilu Studios executives. As unlikely as it is that Nimoy even got a recording contract, it was all a carefully coordinated move to exploit Nimoy’s high visibility as the “real star” of Star Trek.)
Musically speaking, if all of this sounds like an utterly surreal combination, trust me – it is. The Star Trek theme appears in two forms, a lounge-music-style rendition of the entire theme, and a piece called “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, which seems to be a variation/improvisation on the Enterprise fanfare which always served as the opening notes of the Trek theme. The Mission: Impossible theme tune, also a different arrangement from what was originally recorded for the television show, lacks some of the “official” rendition’s punch. Also appearing is “Beyond Antares”, a piece attributed to Star Trek writer Gene Coon and Wilbur Hatch, the man behind the theme tune from I Love Lucy who also happened to be the music director at Desilu Studios, the originators of Star Trek.
And then…there’s the actual “Spock music.” Nimoy performs spoken-word pieces in character as Spock on three numbers, “Alien”, “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Earth” and “A Visit To A Sad Planet”. “Twinkle Twinkle” is the lesser of this trio, being just plain silly, while “Sad Planet” is an interesting peek into the year and decade from which the album sprang; it takes the form of a short monologue, complete with stardate and log entry, in which Spock beams down to find a once-civilized planet reduced to radioactive rubble. He finds only one survivor, who poetically bemoans the fate of his world and then tells Spock that this sad planet is called Earth. It’s rather predictable, sure, but a fascinating (if you’ll pardon the pun) glimpse into the Cold War mindset through the lens of utterly disposable pop culture.
How seriously can you possibly take Mr. Spock’s Music From Outer Space? All I’m going to say here is that you know you’re in trouble when you go from a Spock soliloquoy to Nimoy rumbling his way through “Where Is Love” from Oliver!. I have no doubt that these represent earnest, well-intentioned, heartfelt performances on Mr. Nimoy’s part, but the album also inadvertently serves as a reminder that pre-fabricated releases designed to cash in on the performer’s already-existing celebrity are nothing new. Once upon a time, it could even happen to Spock.
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- Theme From Star Trek (2:07)
- Alien (2:04)
- Where Is Love (2:03)
- Music to Watch Space Girls By (2:22)
- Beyond Antares (1:58)
- Twinkle, Twinkle Little Earth (2:21)
- Mission: Impossible (2:03)
- Lost In The Stars (2:32)
- Where No Man Has Gone Before (2:30)
- You Are Not Alone (2:07)
- A Visit To A Sad Planet (3:02)
Released by: Dot Records
Release date: 1967
Total running time: 25:09
Inspiration is a tricky thing. It can show up in all possible ways and when you very least expect it. Jeff Mangum, the lead singer of Neutral Milk Hotel, wrote and composed most of In The Aeroplane Over The Sea after being inspired by reading The Diary Of Anne Frank, coupled with dreams he had about the girl and a Jewish family. Although the album isn’t explicitly about Frank, her presence lingers, either through the lyrics (“Anna’s ghost all around/hear her voice as it’s rolling and ringing through me”) or song titles (“Holland, 1945”). Like his inspiration, Mangum’s musical world is dreamlike, but also by turns jarring, soft, boisterous and confusing.
cannot admit to such happenings, it doesn’t surprise me at all. I have never more raw emotion packed into a single album before In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, and I’ll doubt if I’ll hear it again. After the release of In The Aeroplane… Mangum broke up Neutral Milk Hotel and disappeared from the public eye. Released ten years ago, it still sounds as fresh and bold as the day it was written. This album will stay with you.
At the time of this review, Xanadu doesn’t seem to have been pressed on CD in the States, at least not recently, so I had to get a Japanese import, but at least the Japanese realized where the true value of this movie’s music was and put the ELO tracks first! (Oh, all right, just to be fair, I really, really like Olivia Newton-John’s “Magic”, and the big-band/rock combo “Dancin'” featuring The Tubes is really nifty. There, I admitted it.) Among the ELO tracks, the only weak entry is “Xanadu” itself, but even so
it’s not a bad song. It may not be the lost holy grail that ELO fans would really like to hear – Jeff Lynne’s abandoned instrumental score for the movie itself – but in general, the music was better than the movie.