In slang/ebonics, it’s been said: “The streets is watching.”
In cyberspace, it’s been said: “The Tweets is twatching.”
But what do you say if NASA’s watching? “Space is Watching”?
Well, Beyonce can most certainly tell you.
The Love on Top powerhouse’s surprise, unadvertised, impromptu, mid-night hour CD and multi-video release on December 13, 2013 was one hell of a blast-we all can attest to that. Not yet in music history (since the digital age has any artist made such a risqué’, brazen, bold, and unusual move like such-which we all know resulted in over 1 million dollars in sales in less than seven days and most certainly blasted her to the top. It was completely out of this world if I should say so myself.
I guess Beyonce must have been feeling herself in that way as well-when recording the CD before its unanticipated release and take off [in digital/download album sales], because on one song (a love song) she recorded on the CD called ‘XO’ produced by Ryan Tedder (and Terius Nash, who the R & B world knows goes by the stage name: as “The Dream”).
Well let NASA tell it, the first six minutes of the song is a nightmare (relived). According to NASA Beyonce was insensitive for using the snippet of one of the most historical tragedies in America history that took place on January 28, 1986. A crew of NASA astronauts leaving the Kennedy Space Center were going for launch aboard Space Shuttle ‘Challenger’ when after 73 seconds of liftoff, the spaceship exploded-all seven crew members aboard were killed as the world watched the wreckage fall toward the ocean on live television.
Although Beyonce’s innovative marketing moves and love song ironically produced ‘The Dream’ may have very well been that [a dream] use of the first six minutes of the song, according to NASA and the families of the victims, t’was a nightmare relived.
Now, here we are: twenty-seven years later, [in a love song about a troubled relationship] Steve Nesbitt (the now, retired NASA public affairs officer) can be heard in the first six minutes of Beyonce’s “XO,” in the 13 word/94 character snippet (lasting all but six seconds) being sampled/recorded: “Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation-obviously a major malfunction.”
BEYONCE DID RESPOND however, in an exclusive statement to ABC News this morning:
(quote): “My heart goes out to the families of those lost in the Challenger disaster. The song ‘XO’ was recorded with the sincerest intention to help heal those who have lost loved ones and to remind us that unexpected things happen, so love and appreciate every minute that you have with those who mean the most to you.The songwriters included the audio in tribute to the unselfish work of the Challenger crew with hope that they will never be forgotten” (end quote).
According to former and current NASA astronauts, employees, and Challenger family members, that reasoning will suffice. They all concluded that the use of the snippet for the use of a pop song merely mocks the crew’s sacrifice and opens up fresh wounds for everybody.
June Scobee Rodgers, the widow of Challenger Space Shuttle Commander: Dick Scobee and founder of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, told ABC News that she was disappointed in Beyonce’s decision to include the snippet because the six-minute moment included in the song is an emotionally difficult one for Challenger families, colleagues, and friends and they’ve always chosen not to focus on how their loved ones were lost but rather, how they lived their lives and how their legacies live on today.
NASA wasn’t done weighing in.
Former NASA employee, Keith Cowing, stated: “This choice of historic and solemn audio is inappropriate in the extreme. The choice is little different than taking Walter Cronkite’s words to viewers announcing the death of President Kennedy or 911 calls from the World Trade Center attack and using them for shock value in a pop tune.”
According to reports, Cowing wants Beyonce to remove the clip and apologize to the families of the Challenger crew.
Other (current) NASA astronauts (who are not authorized to speak publicly) expressed the same sentiments as Cowing at (quote): “Beyonce’s use of a tragedy to sell a pop song” (unquote).
Retired NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson (who, in 2003) assisted the ‘Space Shuttle Colombia’ family members when the news reported all seven of them had died when their spaceship disintegrated while re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, told ABC News that use of the snippet was “simply insensitive, at the very least,” however, he gave Beyonce and those involved in producing the record the benefit of the of the doubt (and scorn).
He rationalized the ordeal by using a little psychology and understanding [along with having heard about?] some right moves Beyonce obviously made years ago which probably kept her in Anderson’s good graces.
Anderson stated, (quote): “What we do in space just isn’t as important to young people today,” he expressed.
Well, Beyoncé is deeply rooted in the community, I’ll have you know.
She was born in Houston-which is the same home as NASA’s astronaut training campus: the JohnsonSpaceCenter. In 2011, she worked with the space agency in the past-once; having recorded a wake up greeting for the orbiting crew of STS-135 by recording this snippet for them:
“You inspire all of us to dare to live our dreams, to know that we’re smart enough and strong enough to achieve them,” she told the Atlantis crew.
We, Other Side of the Fame, wouldn’t dareeeeeeeeeeeee say that Beyonce and her camp secretly felt like fair snippet exchange is no robbery, but…
YOU blast off, take our poll. What do YOU think!?
