"Space Invaders" is a song by Australian songwriters

Russell Dunlop Russell James Dunlop (21 October 194516 May 2009) was an Australian musician, singer-songwriter and record producer-engineer. From the late 1970s he collaborated with Bruce Brown in a production company for albums and singles by Australian perfo ...

and Bruce Brown, recording under the band name Player One (commonly stylised as Player '') in 1979. The song is based on the hugely successful 1978

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed to the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed shooter and set ...

''. It was a novelty hit in Australia,A drummer for all times: Russell Dunlop, 1945-2009
(''Sydney Morning Herald'', 19 June 2009) peaking at No.3 on the

Kent Music Report The Kent Music Report was a weekly record chart of Australian music singles and albums which was compiled by music enthusiast David Kent from May 1974 through to January 1999. The chart was re-branded the Australian Music Report (AMR) in July ...

charts, and ending up as the seventh best selling single in Australia for 1980. It spent 28 weeks on the Australian charts. The song approached

Platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platinu ...

status in Australia as of October 1980. The single was very popular in South Africa and received much airplay. It also reached #20 in the New Zealand charts.

History

The

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade v ...

of the same name, ''

'', was released by Japanese company

Taito is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, toys, arcade cabinets and game centers, based in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the importing vodka, vending machines and jukeboxes into Japan. It b ...

in 1978 and had become a global phenomenon by 1979. The

Warner Music Warner Music Group Corp. ( d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and t ...

office in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

had its own

arcade cabinet An arcade cabinet, also known as an arcade machine or a coin-op cabinet or coin-op machine, is the housing within which an arcade game's electronic hardware resides. Most cabinets designed since the mid-1980s conform to the Japanese Amusement Ma ...

of the game, which prompted the idea of a song cashing in on the game's popularity. They took the project to Sydney producer duo Russell Dunlop and Bruce Brown, who took inspiration from the ''Space Invaders'' game to create the song's

bassline Bassline (also known as a bass line or bass part) is the term used in many styles of music, such as blues, jazz, funk, Dub music, dub and electronic music, electronic, traditional music, traditional, or classical music for the low-pitched Part ( ...

. According to Brown: "We actually went out with a machine before we did the record and recorded all the sound effects of it and had a little fiddle around with it". Dunlop and Brown also released an album as Player One, ''Game Over''. Dunlop recalled: "We sat down and wrote a bunch of space songs, but instead of sticking to the concept of the hit, we wandered off into the 'clever' musical genre with fancy time signatures, radical chord progressions and so on. The reply came back for the States that this was intended for 13- to 14-year-olds: 'You've lost us.'" The song was released internationally but failed to chart outside Australia. The single and album were released in the US under the band name Playback, which Brown and Dunlop had used for other projects, to avoid confusion with the US band

Player Player may refer to: Role or adjective * Player (game), a participant in a game or sport ** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games ** Athlete, a player in sports ** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who is ...

. The US version of the album was titled ''Space Invaders''.

Legacy

"Space Invaders" was influential in the history of electronic dance music: the bassline was re-used by

Jesse Saunders Jesse Saunders (born March 10, 1962) is an American house music artist, DJ, record producer, film producer, and entrepreneur. His 1984 single, "On & On", co-written with Vince Lawrence, was the first record with a house DJ as the artist that ...

for what is commonly held to be the first

Chicago house Chicago house refers to house music produced during the mid to late 1980s within Chicago. The term is generally used to refer to the first ever house music productions, which were by Chicago-based artists in the 1980s. History and origins Disco ...

record, "On and On" (1984), based on a bootleg mashup called "On And On" that used the original recording of "Space Invaders".

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{reflist Australian songs Australian dance songs 1979 singles Music based on video games Songs about video games 1979 songs Warner Music Group singles