No this is not a report about a horrible diseases on Mars we could potentially bring back to Earth – that was pretty much the plot of The Andromeda Strain, except that disease came back from the moon.
This is about the band Anthrax, one of the “Big Four” along with Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth, and apparently their music is helping wake up Miss Curiosity on Mars.
As Blabbermouth.net and Business Insider report, Anthrax is the only metal band that’s played up on Mars, and the song NASA picked was their cover of Joe Jackson’s “Got the Time,” which was on their 1990 album Persistence of Time. No comment from the band about their music being played up there yet, but I can’t see why they wouldn’t enjoy this news.
As any card carrying metal-head knows, Anthrax came along at about the same time Metallica and Slayer were making waves as a faster, harder, more aggressive form of metal that would eventually redefine metal as we knew it.
Where most of the thrash scene was based in the Bay area, Anthrax were the best known thrashers out of New York, and as we reported last summer here at TG, they even fulfilled a lifelong dream of playing Yankee Stadium on the “Big Four” tour. (Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian has the Yankees logo on at least one of his guitars).
Where Metallica would always be number one out of the big four, Anthrax always had their own style, and like a lot of their New York thrash brethren, they had a healthy sense of humor and didn’t take themselves too seriously.
And in terms of metal rhythm paying, Metallica’s James Hetfield and Scott Ian have to have the deadliest right hands in the business, and pretty much pioneered the style of all downstroke picking instead of alternate picking (up and down) every note, which makes your riffs ultra tight when you double track them in the studio.
So after that little metal history lesson, what other tunes were played up on Mars? As we just mentioned, Anthrax was the only metal band on the list, but Miss Curiosity also played “Good Morning Good Morning” from The Beatles, “Good Morning, Good Morning” from the movie Singing in the Rain, “The Ride of the Valkries” From Wagner, the theme from Mission Impossible, “Echelon” from 30 Seconds to Mars, “Break On Through” from The Doors, “Got My Mind Set On You,” from George Harrison, the theme from Star Wars, “Wake Up Little Susie” from Simon and Garfunkel, and “Come Fly With Me” by Frank Sinatra.
