"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 1 (commonly stylised as Player '') in 1979. The song is based on the hugely successful 1978

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Taito for Arcade video game, arcades. It was released in Japan in April 1978, with the game being released by Midway Manufacturing overseas. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed s ...

''. 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 historian David Kent from May 1974 through to January 1999. The chart was re-branded the Australian Music Report (AMR) in July 19 ...

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; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a density, dense, malleable, ductility, ductile, highly unreactive, precious metal, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name origina ...

status in Australia as of October 1980. The single was very popular in South Africa and received much airplay. It also reached No. 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 game of skill, games of skill and in ...

of the same name, ''

'', was released by Japanese company

Taito is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, Toy, toys, arcade cabinets, and game centers, based in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the importing vodka, Vending machine, vending machines, and Juk ...

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

Warner Music Warner Music Group Corp., 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 the third-largest in the gl ...

office in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

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, and classical music, for the low-pitched P ...

. 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 i ...

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

Legacy

"Space Invaders" was influential in the history of

electronic dance music Electronic dance music (EDM), also referred to as dance music or club music, is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres originally made for nightclubs, raves, and List of electronic dance music festivals, festivals. It is generally ...

: a bootleg

mashup Mashup may refer to: * Mashup (culture), the rearrangement of spliced parts of musical pieces as part of a subculture * Mashup (education), combining various forms of data and media by a teacher or student in an instructional setting * Mashup (mus ...

called "On And On" used the original recording of "Space Invaders," and the bassline was re-used by Jesse Saunders 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 original house music of DJs and producers from the area, such as Ron Hardy and Phuture History and origins D ...

record, also called "On and On" (1984).

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{Space Invaders 1979 songs 1979 singles Australian songs Australian dance songs Music based on video games Songs about video games Player One Warner Music Group singles