Pick Five Music Videos You Would Send to the Universe

My co-worker posed a question the other day.  He asked, “If you had the opportunity to send five music videos into the cosmos in the hopes that some alien civilization would find and be able to watch them, what videos would they be?”

We spoke for a few minutes and set up some guidelines. The videos, in our opinion, would have to be ones that would give the alien race an overall sense of what music videos are, how they are and why MTV doesn't play them anymore. The popularity of the song or the artist(s) would not matter, just the video.

And somehow, it wasn't hard to pick.  I had about ten and then just had to narrow it down.

I'll list mine first with a little commentary. If Jeffrey has any comments, I can add those later. Feel free to drop your top five in the comments and your reasons why they should be sent into space.

Worlds Apart – Journey 

Worlds Apart is the quintessential music video. Full band playing invisible instruments. Lip syncing. Real emotion that is faked. Then real instruments. A girl who seems not to notice them. A wharf. This is the Rosetta Stone of music videos. 

Wires - RED FANG

This video is very instructional as it gives a step by step course on how to make a video. And they break shit because that is what rock is all about.

Sledgehammer – Peter Gabriel 

Sledgehammer takes the Worlds Apart Rosetta Stone and smashes it in front of the Golden Calf of the music industry. This is the best video ever.

Psycho Killer (From the Film “Stop Making Sense) - The Talking Heads 

David Byrne does not need to have his video shot into space, because he is God and can do it himself.  He'll get to it once the Earth is destroyed and he finds himself seeking entertainment on another ethereal plane. 

Jerk It – Thunderheist 

thunderheist - jerk it from thatgo on Vimeo.

I have my reasons for liking this video.  You can read about them here.

Here are Jeffrey's videos. Not a bad collection to send our alien friends to be. 

Take on Me- aha

Thriller-Michael Jackson

Hot for Teacher- Van Halen

Fat- Weird Al 

OK, so to understand this one, the Aliens would need to know that this is a parody, so we are allowing a 4.5th video to go along and that would be:

Bad- Michael Jackson

Gin and Juice-Snoop Dog and Dr. Dre

Scientist Plans for Frozen Noah’s Ark

Source

Belgian scientist Dr. Mark Drascht believes the Earth is doomed. “Whether by global warming or cooling, nuclear terrorism or just plain stupidity, we are all going to be dead in the next 100 years.”

When the world is wiped clean, Dr. Drascht doesn’t want our history to be destroyed as well. Dr. Drascht is creating a time capsule, and it is not just your basic newspaper, deck of playing cards and Twinkies in a concrete box either. He’s creating a frozen, biological “life capsule,” so that future alien space explorers can find us and perhaps revive our species.

“It’s a kind of frozen Noah’s Ark. I’ve even included doves and an olive tree!”

Dr. Drascht has plans to collect over two hundred mammals and birds, sixty reptiles and six hundred plant species for his life capsule. “Timing is very important. We can only afford to make one trip to the South Pole, and the animals and plants must be frozen alive at the site. It’s one hell of a coordination feat.”

Using data from the past 200 years, Dr. Drascht has located a spot 100 miles from the South Pole that he believes will remain frozen for the next 10,000 years. “Plate tectonics in that area will continue to rotate around the pole. This exact spot will allow our specimens to remain at sub-zero temperatures for the next ten millennia. Basically, it is a maintenance-free freezer.”



Dr. Drascht will transport all the living biological specimens to Antarctica, where they will be flash frozen alive and placed into the life capsule. “We are actually going to use the animals and two human specimens to help dig the area necessary for the life capsule. We’ve been working on training the animals for the dig. We’ve modified elk horns and squirrels’ teeth to assist with digging in the rock hard ice. For the humans, we've procured a number of high-tech digging tools, including two highly-modified Garden Weasels (tm) originally designed for the military.”

There seems to be an endless supply of males who are willing to be flash frozen alive. Finding women who want to be frozen alive is a bit more difficult for Dr. Drascht. “I’ve received applications from two women. One was 75 years old, and the other woman was over 125 kilos (275 pounds.) We’d need to carve a larger hole in the ice for that type of specimen!”

The original plan for the life capsule has changed over the years, but Dr. Drascht is still hopeful. “We originally planned on separate ice caverns for each type of specimen, but the budget has deemed otherwise.” Dr. Drascht’s team will now dig just one hole or “life pit” and place all the specimens in one space. According to Drascht, the biggest challenge will be to quickly freeze the animal specimens before the carnivores eat the herbivores. "The plan is to ensure that all the predators are very well fed prior to being placed into the life pit. I’m considering feeding the animals with protein infused pages from a set of encyclopedias so the future autopsies will reveal a summation of Earth’s history."

One other hole will be used for the “Demise Database” equipment. Drascht is not looking to preserve technology, but rather to create an historical database, so that alien space travelers will know why the planet became devoid of life forms. “At the life pit, we are setting up a satellite internet connection and a printer. Once a week, we will download and print the contents of cnn.com and one random site, pornography excluded, so that we can have a hard copy of Earth’s demise.” There are obvious technological issues with electronics at the South Pole, but printing in sub-zero temperatures won’t be a problem. “We’ve mixed the printer ink with a jellyfish-based anti-freeze. It keeps the ink from freezing and really stretches out our ink inventory. That printer ink is expensive!”

Dr. Drascht is justifiably excited about the earth's imminent demise. "It's all too much, really. I just wish the dinosaurs had possessed brains bigger than peas so that they could have created life capsules to clue us in on their extinction."