An Important Amendment to NASA’s Artemis II Playlist

Hailey C. Thompson

Assistant Program Director (OSD) | Other Side Drive Host

     Why XTC’s ‘Another Satellite’ is the perfect space age song with a deeper meaning” 

Since the launch and return of Artemis II, fascination with space travel is reentering the cultural zeitgeist. While some expressed this is a nice break from the normal onslaught of negative news, it seems that people down on Earth are especially intrigued with the astronauts themselves, more specifically what they’re listening to. NASA’s official Artemis II playlist has almost 100,000 saves, with 10 tracks spanning over multiple genres, ranging from Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” to “Green Light” from John Legend and Andre 3000. The main thing seemingly missing from this scrambled, albeit optimistic playlist, are the songs with space- themed euphemisms just begging to be used, and the one perfect contender for this is XTC’s “Another Satellite”, from their magnum opus album, Skylarking.

For a track described by its producer Todd Rundgren as “[sticking] out like a sore turd in an otherwise near-perfect listening experience”, on an album infamous for its difficulty to make – it’s arguably the band’s most underrated song. Because of this, it carries a cult following from the band’s most die-hard fans. Including kitschy space metaphors and a catchy, telemetry ping-like synth throughout its duration, this makes it perfectly fit on an expedition playlist. But that’s not the only reason fans have such an affinity for this underdog. A song truly about insecurity, emotional infidelity, and used as a means for catharsis. Those metaphors are embedded into the story of how the band’s lead singer, Andy Partridge, fell for his current wife while still married to the mother of his children.

Actress Erica Wexler is the “mooney face” Partridge describes in ‘Another Satellite’ as “[gumming] up the atmosphere”. In an interview for Chalkhills, a fan-made XTC archive, he recalls meeting Wexler at a New York City movie premiere in 1980.

“Well, if it wasn’t love at first sight, it was certainly ‘severe crush at first sight’! I didn’t want to think of it as love at first sight because I’d only been married for something like six months, so it was a bit painful, you know? It was like, ‘Shit! I’m married!’”

The immediate infatuation with Wexler caused him to retaliate with this song. Being the only track with particularly harsh lyrics, producer Rundgren immediately hated it when Partridge presented him with the demo. Rundgren explained their disagreement on the track and Skylarking in his memoir, ‘The Individualist: Digressions, Dreams & Dissertations’, explaining, “despite our agreement to abide by my concept, something perverse in Andy caused him to challenge it… We re-recorded a demo called Another Satellite, not because it fit into the song cycle but to simply mollify and humor Andy”.

Since Partridge had a deathly fear of performing live, recording in the studio was the only way he could make sense of his thoughts as the music would continue to play. Once the album was over, so was the music therapy. After his many disagreements with Rundgren on the concept and recording, he wrote the entire album off as a failure and flew back to England.

While initially receiving a lukewarm response – only peaking at No. 90 on the Billboard charts in the U.K. – the album now has over 50 million listens on Spotify, a 9.3 rating from Pitchfork, and a cult following among XTC fans. Partridge may have his regrets writing “Another Satellite”, but the way it taps into the human experience while keeping its quirks still resonates with listeners to this day.

With how busy an astronaut must be, playlist integrity may not be on the top of their to-do list in space. Not to say the glossy tracks chosen aren’t a nice distraction from onerous responsibilities, but music can be both a distraction and a launchpad for emotional release, as exemplified in the perfect space track, “Another Satellite”. So, keep “Pink Pony Club” and “Green Light”, but squish “Another Satellite” somewhere in between – even if it sticks out like a sore “turd”.