Hey, it's the anniversary of the Golden Record -- the one that Carl Sagan lovingly assembled and pasted to the side of Voyager 1, sending it off into space for parts unknown.
What do you put on a record meant for curious aliens to grok centuries from now? A little rock 'n' roll, fer sure: Johnny B. Goode. A little Mozart, some Beethoven, Navajo dances, Indian dances (chill: from INDIA), etc, etc.
So, in forty years, Voyager has managed to travel 13 billion miles but likely won't find a listener for another 38,000 years or so. That's the problem with traveling at a mere 18K per hr when your nearest sentient neighbors likely live in another galaxy.
More likely, we'll have figured out how to travel at Warp 9 or Warp 999 by then, and maybe go after the thing, scoop it up and hand deliver it as a sign of good will to the giant warlords of Planet Plaxton, with super powers so far beyond our own, it'll be a nervous bribe to buy another period of relative peace at their hands.
Uncle Carl put a lot of research and thought into that record, replete with an unblushing illustration of two nicely-endowed naked humans, a diamond stylus to play the record and instructions on how to do so. As if the Plaxtonians needed that.
But how cool to attempt to sum up our earthly sonic culture in one collection of recordings, with barely 75 years of content to choose from. Imagine how much richer the experience would be now if we'd included some Miley, Garth and Kendrick. In fact, if we'd wanted everyone to just leave us ALONE, I can think of a trove of recordings that just might do the trick…
So this would be like a huge portion of Europe rocking out to 80's music in the 90's, but on an inter-galatic scale?
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