Space rock is a style of music; the term originally referred to a
group of early mostly British 1970s progressive rock and psychedelic bands
like Pink Floyd and Hawkwind, though it now tends to refer to a series of
late 1980s British alternative rock bands. This style is characterized by
shimmering, melodic sounds, often with copious drug and science fiction
references (such as pioneers Spacemen 3's legendary quotation: "taking
drugs to make music to take drugs to").
The science fiction author Michael Moorcock collaborated with Hawkwind on
many occasions: the Hawkwind track "The Black Corridor", for
example, included verbatim quotes from Moorcock's novel of the same name. An
album The New Worlds Fair by "Michael Moorcock and the Deep
Fix" was released in 1975, which included a number of Hawkwind regulars
in the credits. ("The Deep Fix" was the title story of an obscure
collection of short stories by "James Colvin" published in the
1960s). Moorcock wrote the lyrics to an album track entitled "Black
Blade", referring to the sword Stormbringer in the Elric books, by the
American band Blue Öyster Cult: Moorcock has even performed this song live
with BÖC.
By the early 1990s, mainly British alternative rock genres like space
rock, twee pop, shoegazing and noise pop emerged into the mainstream with
the explosion of Britpop bands like Blur, Suede and Oasis. By 1991 (see 1991
in music), though, the original space rock bands had mostly fallen apart,
and the musicians had moved on to new bands or new styles.
