The 30 Best Space Albums of All Time

Jeff Lynne was often accused of ripping off The Beatles, but not even John Lennon at his most zooted would have conceived of Time. The concept album follows a 1980s man transported to 2095, where the wonders of casual space travel are no match for the romance of the past. Nostalgia and science fiction go to war, and while critics at the time weren’t kind to the synth-forward sound, the instrumentation makes the retrofuturism even more poignant — a trick only ELO could pull off without disappearing up their own wormhole. — Wren Graves

The legendary Quebec progressive metal band opened a portal to an eerie new dimension on their fifth album. Opening track "The Unknown Knows" slowly immerses listeners into this dark and ominous world before unleashing a barrage of jagged guitar riffs. The virtuosic instrumentation — built on classical techniques and jazz's dissonance — pair well with the apocalyptic narrative that anchors the record. Their cover of Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine" serves as a haunting tribute to the band while giving it an entirely new meaning, as it encapsulates the album's dystopian vision. Nothingface is both unsettling yet incredibly captivating, tuning listeners into the alien frequency that is Voivod. — Sun  Noor

The French duo Air have proved throughout their career that they can make the atmospheric and serene feel seismic, and they thoroughly achieve this dichotomy on their conceptual sixth album Le voyage dans la lune. Intended as a companion soundtrack to a restored version of the massively influential 1902 film (which we named as one of the best space movies ever), the album packs in all the wonder and optimism from its source material and adds a touch more psychedelia and restlessness. At one moment, it's regal and majestic; at another, it feels like the weight of our cosmic insignificance is suffocating. Air bottle the grandeur and the loneliness of space in equal measure, turning a silent film into something you can feel in your chest. — P. Ragusa

To put it simply, Kool Keith was one of the first rappers to lose his fucking mind on wax. Specifically, the adventurous MC uses the front half of 1999's Black Elvis / Lost in Space to elucidate on space travel, and the general feeling of being lost in space. Over clangs, bleeps, warbles, and other space-y soundscapes — courtesy of Kool Keith himself — the rapper spits complex, at times abstract, rhymes about "Rockets on the Battlefield" and "Livin' Astro." "Master of the Game" reverberates with elastic bass as featured artist Roger Troutman interjects with his signature, futuristic talkbox effects. While only half of this album is dedicated to space, Keith's interpretation is so potent that the brevity of dedicated tracks works in his favor. — Kiana Fitzgerald

Iron Maiden have always refused to tone down the drama and magnitude of their sound, so it's fitting that their 2010 effort The Final Frontier concerned itself with exploration, discovery, and the infinite mysteries of outer space. While the album is a little bit more loose conceptually compared to some of the other space records on this list, there's a repeated focus on science fiction and frequent references to stars, the sun, and other cosmic milieu. And like the best of Iron Maiden, these songs, from the epic sprawl of "Satellite 15... The Final Frontier" to the agony-ridden hard rock of "Starblind," are drenched in operatic grandeur. — P. Ragusa

I know what you're thinking: "Not The Darkside of the Moon?!?" Listen, nobody is denying the quality or importance of Pink Floyd's towering 1973 effort, but outside of having "moon" in the title, the record is actually much more focused on earthly, human concerns (money, time, conflict, sanity, etc.). Piper at the Gates of Dawn has two psychedelic space rippers in "Astronomy Domaine" and "Interstellar Overdrive," but when it comes to the most out-of-this-world Floyd record, it's gotta be Saucerful of Secrets. Is it the best Floyd release in the grand scheme of things? Maybe not, but it's the first to feature David Gilmore and the last to have Syd Barrett's touch. Even more importantly, the act pivots to fully embrace the spacier side of their sound, starting with opener "Let There Be More Light," hitting an apex with "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun," and eventually getting lost in the black abyss with the title track. — J. Krueger

Denver-based death metal band Blood Incantation's latest record occupies a space between the familiar and unknown. Even though Absolute Elsewhere solely features two lengthy compositions, "The Stargate" and "The Message," the album transcends beyond time and space, slowly building in intensity. The record embarks on a philosophical journey to the great expanses of the unknown with an eclectic soundscape of metal, dark ambient music, and krautrock. “What lasts is consciousness,” screams frontman Paul Riedl on the opening track; Blood Incantation explore life’s big questions and aims to expand our worldview through a perspective that looks beyond this worldly plane. — S. Noor

In a vacuum, there's nothing that inherently links outer space and huge, distorted, washed-out guitars. And yet, there's something about being blasted by walls of speaker cabinets and fuzz tones that makes you feel like you're Dave Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey barreling through wondrously abstract colors and shapes. One of the best examples of this effect is Hum's appropriately-titled You'd Prefer an Astronaut. The influential shoegaze classic counted stars and helped lay the groundwork for the success of other heavy heroes like Smashing Pumpkins and Deftones. While the songs are admittedly more involved with interpersonal relationships and intoxicating love than exploring the secrets of the galaxy, such feelings are explored through cosmic imagery, passing references to astronomy, and the atmosphere of floating in the vast vacuum. For that, we'd prefer nothing else. — J. Krueger

Vangelis could make a sneeze sound epic. The maestro behind the Blade Runner and Chariots of Fire soundtracks conceptualized Albedo 0.39 around physics in space, especially the matter-bending furnace of the early universe (“Nucleogensis Pt. 1” and “Nucleogenesis Pt. 2 “) and the insane properties of light. The name, Albedo, refers to light reflected off a surface, and yes, the scale runs from 0 to 1. “Pulstar” is the most soundtrack-ready, but don’t sleep on the heroic “Alpha” or the quietly beautiful “Sword of Orion.” These shimmering tunes are as stirring as any of his more famous OSTs, with an expansive ambition that sets his solo work apart. — Wren Graves

A cult classic of '90s alternative rock, Failure's Fantastic Planet bridged the gap between grunge, shoegaze, and space rock. Throughout the tracklist, the guitar tones are otherworldly, the production is swirling and pristine, and cosmic references are sprinkled generously between the hooky riffs. Particularly on the record's final stretch of tunes — "Another Space Song," "Stuck on You," "Heliotropic," and "Daylight" — Failure burn bright as the sun, coming through with impressive, gravity-defying alt rock tunes. Boasting 17 songs and over an hour of music, Fantastic Planet certainly has a scope that's, well, fantastic and planet-sized, but it's a scope that's earned through well-crafted songs and instrumentals that send listeners straight to space. — J. Krueger

Jason Pearce's opus with Spiritualized concerns itself with very, very big questions about love, pain, existence, and our place in the universe. While much of the album's lyrical content takes place on Earth as we know it, there are several evocations of the great plane of outer space. For one, there's its title, which Pearce took from the philosophical novel Sofia's World; but the overall instrumentation and melodic majesty, which ranges from softly pure to cathartic enormity, makes Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space a seminal space rock document. It's less a record about space than one that exists within it, suspended between gravity and oblivion. — P. Ragusa

The debut album from the hip-hop supergroup comprised of rapper Del the Funky Homosapien, producer Dan the Automator, and DJ Kid Koala transports listeners to a distant future set in the year — you guessed it — 3030. The record follows the cosmic journey of Deltron Zero, a former mech soldier embarking on a Herculean attempt at challenging the iron grip of the New World Order. Like many entries on this list, Del uses the space opera framework to tackle earthly themes like social inequality, racism, and colonialism, all over Automator's head-nodding cinematic beats and Kid Koala's technical scratches. The narrative builds to "Battlesong," where Deltron emerges triumphant as the Galactic Rhyme Federation Champion following an interplanetary rap battle spanning Mercury, Pluto, and the Earth colony Sicilia. — Eddie Fu

With apologies to follow-up U.F.Orb, The Orb’s debut album Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld is about as cosmic as Earth music gets. Mixing ambient, electronic, and even a bit of dance, Adventures gained a cult-following among clubbers hoping to float through the comedown. But Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty’s ambitions go far beyond that — and far beyond the confines of our home planet. From the initial launch of “Little Fluffy Clouds” through closer “A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld,” space has rarely sounded so expansive. — W. Graves

Big K.R.I.T.'s 2014 album Cadillactica opens with a couple coyly contemplating when they should "create." After establishing the timeline ("The planet Cadillactica was created within the history of the Big Bang, or what we like to call the 808," from "Life"), the album ventures back to the land of subwoofers that K.R.I.T. has been exploring since his early mixtapes ("My Sub Pt. 3"). Produced by DJ Dahi and DJ Khalil, the title track encapsulates the cosmic adventurousness of interplanetary space travel, sonically venturing among the stars as K.R.I.T. raps passionately about the life he sees on Earth, and how it differs from the alternative place that has nurtured him creatively: "I'm way outta here, don't get lost/ I come in peace from somewhere unique/ Have no fear." — K. Fitzgerald

Having achieved acclaim with Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, a record of melancholic and drony songs that mainly center around acoustic guitar and despondent vocals, songwriter Liz Harris took her Grouper project in a new direction with her follow-up, the two-part album A I A. The 2011 effort traded in the raw, nostalgic warmth of the acoustic guitar for an icy, alien, more synthetic sonic world. Particularly on A I A: Alien Observer (technically the second part of A I A), Harris' deeply affecting hushed vocals float over even dronier pieces of dreamy, ambient slowcore. Perhaps more than any other album on this list, A I A: Alien Observer will make you feel the visceral solitude of space, as if you're drifting aimlessly through the stars, at once crushed by loneliness and appreciating the incomprehensible beauty of your surroundings. — J. Krueger

Mastodon have never been accused of underreach, but Crack the Skye might be the most unhinged concept album in metal history. A paraplegic boy astral projects too close to the Sun, gets sucked through a wormhole, and ends up possessing Rasputin. The cosmos here isn’t a place of wonder so much as a brutal transit system connecting personal grief to the infinite — drummer Brann Dailor’s sister Skye committed suicide at 14, and the wormhole is basically a metaphor wearing a Viking helmet. That the result is gorgeous rather than treacly is the miracle. Here, space is just loss with better riffs. — W. Graves

Picture yourself aboard an Apollo shuttle, floating in zero gravity as you gaze through a viewport at the bright blue ball you call home. Washing over you is the awesomeness of the infinite, the improbable accident of your own existence, the vastness of human potential both squandered and yet unrealized. It's beautiful, terrifying, and wondrous. Inevitably, the music playing in your head as these thoughts swirl in the void is Brian Eno's Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks. Recorded with Daniel Lanois and Brian's brother Roger Eno, the collection was made for the documentary For All Mankind, featuring original footage from NASA's Apollo program. It's since become a landmark of ambient composition, evoking not just the great expanse, but the very weight of being alive within it. — Ben Kaye

For the uninitiated, the warm-blooded and human spirit of jazz might seem to be at odds with the alien, solitary nature of space. But as anyone who's spent time in Sun Ra's sprawling, cosmic universe (or any fan of Cowboy Bebop) will tell you, not only is space jazz a real thing, it's fuckin' awesome. One of the best examples of having a crew of cool cats cook among the stars comes by way of George Russell and his 1960 release Jazz in the Space Age. Written and recorded in the midst of the United States and Soviet Union's infamous space race, and thus during what might have been the height of pop culture's interest in the final frontier, Jazz in the Space Age is an ambitious collection of pan-tonal compositions complete with asymmetrical phrases and an intentional rejection of harmonic resolution. In a real sense, the music is alien, avoiding the structures and conventions ingrained in Western music. Dress it up with retro-futurist cover art and titles like "Chromatic Universe" and "Waltz from Outer Space," and you've got a bona fide space record — and a great one at that. — J. Krueger

In the 16 years since the release of Cosmogramma, Steven Ellison has thoroughly embraced his cinematic side as Flying Lotus, scoring films and eventually writing and directing them. Those impulses are all over Cosmogramma, which indeed bears the ambitious, epic scope that often comes with space-themed flicks — and much of it is due to the emphasis on expansion and discovery. Throughout its 17 tracks, Flying Lotus takes us on a cosmic journey with both retro and contemporary synths, drums that glitch and skitter, and jazzy detours that feel like you've stumbled upon a brand new galaxy. It's a universe unto itself, and one worth getting lost in. — P. Ragusa

No band has made space a more integral part of their identity than Coheed and Cambria. Ten of their 11 albums to date center on The Amory Wars, a sprawling sci-fi epic set within the seven-star system called Heaven's Fence. Although Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One zooms out from the core concept to reveal The Writing Writer, the fictional author of this fictional tale, it still progresses the Amory Wars saga — including some crazy inter-reality crossover with the Writer meeting his characters. More importantly, it's the most Coheed of Coheed albums, a prog metal cavalcade of unbounded ambition, anchored by two of the band's all-time greatest songs, "Welcome Home" and "The Suffering." — B. Kaye

Leave it to clipping. to make a conceptual hip-hop album that actually sounds like it was recorded on an abandoned spacecraft. The beats of Splendor & Misery are made up of heavy ambience, the bleeps and bloops of industrial technology, alarms, and metal clanks. All the while, rapper Daveed Diggs spins a deeply engaging Afrofuturist tale, following a slave known only as Cargo #2331 as he takes control of the spaceship where he's held captive and interacts with the vessel's AI system. The result allows for both abrasive sonic experiments ("Break the Glass," "Baby Don't Sleep") and genuinely catchy bangers ("Air 'Em Out," "A Better Place"). Hell, they even find room to throw in moments of gospel courtesy of Take 6. Splendor & Misery is a wildly engaging listen (even nabbing a Hugo Award nomination for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form in 2017) that, like all great science fiction, utilizes fantastic technology and cosmic settings to reflect back deeply human themes. — J. Krueger

On their third album, French metal heroes Gojira touch on the environmental topics they've tackled throughout their career, but with the added element of space travel. From Mars to Sirius centers on the rebirth of a dead planet through a protagonist who goes on an interplanetary mission and acquires knowledge on climate change and marine life. The 2005 LP also happens to be arguably Gojira's best album in their stellar discography, powered by standout tracks like "Flying Whales," "Backbone," "From the Sky," and "Global Warming." In fact, it sits at No. 1 on Consequence's ranking of the band's albums. — S. Kaufman

If Mothership Connection's title and cover art aren't enough evidence of it being a prototype for the space album, Parliament leader George Clinton used Star Trek as inspiration to establish the P-Funk mythology central to Afrofuturism. The album's live instrumentation and vivid lyrical imagery are equally out of this world, reacting to the end of the civil rights era with joyful celebration and imagination that still influences R&B, rock, and hip-hop today. From "P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)" to "Night of the Thumpasorus Peoples," it's fearless and counterculture, daring to imagine Black astronauts leading the galaxy and introducing the gospel of funk to extraterrestrials. It's hard to imagine better ambassadors for the human race.  — E. Fu

Motörhead-heads know Hawkwind as the band that first had Lemmy pick up the bass (and the band that fired him), but real sonic explorers of the cosmos know Hawkwind as some of the best space rockers to ever grace this humble blue marble. Space Ritual — an unwieldy, psychedelic, dimension-hopping live recording presented as a double album — captures the band at the height of their powers. Otherworldly electronics and swaths of delay collide with extended hard rock jams to produce a true ritual of intergalactic rock 'n' roll. The live energy of the band and the conceptual performance (including artsy interludes and spoken word segues) enhance the amphetamine-fueled, stargazing prog rock of their studio counterparts; just take a listen to "Space Is Deep" and compare it to that version on Doremi Fasol Latido. Paradoxically, the Space Ritual renditions make the compositions feel both even more spaced-out and even more visceral — like this ritual might just transport you to some sublime, chaotic, distant spot elsewhere in the universe. — J. Krueger

If there was anyone on this list that we might actually believe hailed from beyond the stars, creating music in the void and beaming it down for our comparatively simple-minded species, two names would come to mind. Sun Ra is one of them (more on the second, a stardusted spider-wrangler, in a few), and for obvious reasons. A pioneering figure of jazz, experimental music, Afrofuturism, synthesizers and electronics, and performance art, it's almost easier to believe his invented backstory of being a missionary from Saturn than to think Earth could produce such a visionary. And if his claim that his music could transport listeners to other planets were true, it'd probably happen via Space Is the Place, perhaps Sun Ra's defining statement. Anchored by the 21-minute title track, the recordings are dense, forward-thinking, and impressively performed. It's as if Ra and his famed band the Arkestra took the conventions of jazz and big band, aimed a particle accelerator at it, and blew apart its foundation to create something only they could. — J. Krueger

RUSH were coming off a couple of disappointing albums sales-wise when they hit the studio to record 2112, but that didn't stop them from making the bold move of recording a single 20-minute, seven-suite song for the entirety of Side A of the 1976 album. What's more, drummer Neil Peart's Ayn Rand-inspired lyrics tell the dystopian story of a city named Megadon that's ruled by the Solar Federation in the year 2112 following an intergalactic war that took place a half century earlier — not exactly relatable material to everyday humans. Yet, 2112 proved to be a landmark album for RUSH, establishing them as prog-rock titans, and still standing as one of their finest efforts. — S. Kaufman

"They alienate us 'cause we different," André 3000 spits on the ATLiens title track, bars wise beyond his years. "Keep your hands to the sky." As young Black men — both around 21 years old at the time of the album's 1996 release — André and Big Boi were long aware of the dangers that lurk around each earthbound corner. Alienation from community is at the top of that list of dangers, and Outkast used their sophomore album to face that reality head-on and escape through their otherworldly, creative efforts. On "E.T. (Extraterrestrial)," Big Boi makes a direct claim: "Extraterrestrial — straight from ATL." Ultimately, the duo drew on the limitlessness of space to encourage us to stay engaged with one another, and to lock in on our own personal missions. — K. Fitzgerald

Ziggy Stardust is not only the best space album of all time, it's one of the greatest LPs ever. The incomparable David Bowie was at his finest on this front-to-back masterpiece about an androgynous alien rock star who attempts to save Earth from impending doom. While two of Bowie's spaciest songs — "Space Oddity" and "Life on Mars?" — appeared on earlier albums, there's no shortage of space-themed tunes on Ziggy Stardust. Tracks like "Moonage Daydream," "Starman," and "Ziggy Stardust" evoke images of space and alien life, all featuring innovative instrumentation (thanks in part to guitarist Mick Ronson) and infectious, sing-along choruses. With Ziggy Stardust, Bowie established himself not only as one of rock 'n' roll's brightest stars, but as one of its greatest storytellers. — S. Kaufman