On this episode of Music In Time, host Evan McCormick celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Mars Exploration Rover mission landing on the red planet in January 2004 with a playlist of space-themed tunes. From far-out sounds for zero gravity to songs about interplanetary disillusion, this music-only episode has everything you need for your cosmic trip.

Playlist:
1. Man or Astro Man? - Rocketship XL-3
2. Galaxie 500 - Leave the Planet
3. Radiohead - Sail to The Moon
4. Spiritualized - Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space
5. Winter - Constellation
6. Björk - Dark Matter
7. King Krule - Space Heavy
8. Kraftwerk - Spacelab
9. Destroyer - The Space Race
10. Kinks - Supersonic Rocket Ship
11. Angel Olsen - Some Things Cosmic
12. Gorillaz - Every Planet We Reach Is Dead
13. Modest Mouse - Space Travel Is Boring
14. David Bowie - Life On Mars
15. Beastie Boys - Intergalactic

Music does not just exist. It exists in specific times and places, and in the sonic world of each individual listener who engages with it. That’s the basic idea behind "Music in Time," which explores the social and political context in which songs and albums emerge, are listened to, and reflected on over the years. Each broadcast will focus on a single album, detailing the social and political circumstances surrounding its release and moments in time that made certain music resonate anew. How is music shaped by these historical moments, and, in turn, how does it shape the histories that we remember?

By day, Evan McCormick is a historian at Columbia University, where he is part of the Obama Presidency Oral History project, interviewing a range of people — from cabinet members to ordinary folks — about their memories of the Obama years. By night McCormick is a music lover and singer-songwriter, recording under the stage name Egan Caufield. For most of his life these two worlds remained separate, but after relocating to Catskill, in 2020, he chose to bring history and music together over the airwaves, and Music in Time was born.