20 musicians who should get to go to space before Katy Perry

“Quick name 20 artists who should get to go to space before Katy Perry,” she challenged.

Here are 20 musicians whose space-themed work has forged new paths and opened enough astonishing dimensions in sound to earn them seats in starships, according to the opinions of music critic Ann Powers, video producer Nikki Birch, network response associate Tucker Ives, engineer Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez and myself. With apologies to David Bowie, Gustav Holst, Gil Scott-Heron and Sun Ra, the following list is limited to living musicians, who could, theoretically, actually go to space.

1. Marshall Allen
The heir to Sun Ra, who turned 100 last year, knows better than anyone else that “space is the place.”

2. George Clinton
The cosmic commander of the P-Funk Mothership was inspired by Uhura in Star Trek, as he told Splice in 2020. Clinton said that while Parliament was recording its seminal album Mothership Connection, “We weren’t tied down to this planet for a minute.”

3. Elton John
“Rocketman,” the star’s first major hit, was inspired by science fiction legend Ray Bradbury. It’s been used as wake up music for multiple crews on the Discovery and Atlantis space shuttles.

4. John Williams
Williams composed and conducted the scores to Star Wars and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, which both won Academy Awards. Star Wars was named the greatest film score of all time by the American Film Institute in 2005.

6. Bilal
During the height of the pandemic, he live streamed his acclaimed 2020 experimental soul EP Voyage-19 (Badu appears on one of its tracks), lifting the spirits of thousands of housebound earthlings.

7. Peter Schilling.
While David Bowie is no longer with us, the main character of his classic song “Space Oddity” found new life in Schilling’s 1983 hit “Major Tom (Coming Home.)” 

8. Nick Rhodes
The founding keyboardist of Duran Duran is a space obsessive whose otherworldly musical project “Astronomia” with Wendy Bevan spans four separate albums. “Through our sonic tapestries we explore limitless dimensions and transitions in the universe,” he helpfully explained on the band’s website. 

9. Thundercat
A protege of Badu who draws from Afrofuturist traditions, the Grammy winning musician’s songs include “Lost in Space” and “Jameel’s Space Ride.”

10. Rush
After attending the 1981 launch of the space shuttle Columbia, the Canadian progressive rock trio was moved to write several songs. “Countdown” includes audio of real astronauts talking to ground control and has been used as a wakeup song for astronauts on missions.

11. Bjork
The artist’s affinity for universes other than ours are laid bare in “Earth Intruders,” “Pluto” and “Cosmogony,” as well as … well, pretty much everything about her. 

12. Afrika Bambaataa
The revolutionary DJ and record producer helped lay the groundwork for later Black science fiction, robot cosplay and Afrofuturism. Put him on a shuttle to “Planet Rock.” 

13. Phillip Glass
Space exploration figures prominently in several of the contemporary classical composer’s operas, such as Einstein on the Beach, The Voyage and an obscure work based on a science fiction novel by Doris Lessing, The Making of the Representative for Planet 8.  

14. Pink Floyd
Exceeding its own “space rock” label, the band’s connections to worlds beyond include playing live on the BBC’s broadcast of the first moon landing in 1969. Former guitarist and vocalist David Gilmour claimed that Soviet cosmonauts brought a Pink Floyd cassette to the Mir space station in the 1980s. And NASA used the band’s song “Eclipse” to wake up a Mars rover in 2004.

16. Kronos Quartet
Over more than five decades, musicians in this venerable contemporary classical group have paid homage to Sun Ra and incorporated space sounds recorded by NASA into their music. There’s even a tune from a show in the Star Trek universe that pays homage to the group.

17. Bootsy Collins
His signature “Space Bass” is shaped like a star. So are his spectacles. And his stellar creative output ranges from such songs as “Stars Have No Names (They-Just-Shine)” to his work on Parliament’s Mothership Connection and the experimental metal band Science Faxtion he helped found in 2007.

20. BTS
Why should the band’s unearthly popularity be constrained to our planet? BTS’s songs “Mikrokosmos” and “134340” (which refers to a lonely little asteroid) and the solo song “Moonchild” by RM, a member of the group, were added to NASA’s playlist for an eight day mission to the moon on the Artemis 2 in 2024. Members of the South Korean band have also collaborated with Coldplay to create such space-themed hits as “My Universe” and “The Astronaut.”