Ugly Duckling & the ATV-4 Docking Day Music Video

Ariane performed flawlessly, ATV’s in orbit and Europe’s resupply mission is enroute to the ISS! For this year’s ‘Docking Day Music Video, ESA teamed up with California hip hop group Ugly Duckling, who have produced a super space remix of Elevation.

Rock along to the beats of DJ Young Einstein and the visuals of ATV Albert Einstein!

Access previous Docking Day Music Videos

Music, lyrics and original video animation Copyright (C) Ugly Duckling 2012-13. ESA remix video credit ESA/European Space Agency, used with permission. Original video and animation made by Justin Ridge.

Click below to read the back story!

Ugly Duckling video

Here at the ATV blog, we did a brainstorming session to think of suitable groups for our now-traditional Docking Day Music Video.

Landscape, the band behind the 80’s hit Einstein A-Go-Go was an obvious choice, but the backing track seems to have been lost in someone’s attic (they are still looking).

In the meantime, Ugly Duckling came to mind based on one of us (that would be hip-hop fanatic Julien; you can’t run a space blog without one! – Ed.) being a big fan of their concept album Taste the Secret released in 2003. The long-time DJ for Ugly Duckling goes under the stage name DJ Young Einstein and is often mentioned by name in their songs. The group is known for their ‘old-school’ hip-hop with an upbeat message and non-violent lyrics.

A quick email message sent through the official website confirmed their willingness to cooperate; “Thanks for your remarkable email, it is not often we get contacted by a space agency!” replied one of the singers. As they own all their own music on the latest album, collaboration was not a problem.

By chance they had recently released a new single, Elevation, that fit nicely with the ATV-space theme. The creator of the original video, Justin Ridge, agreed to a remix and donated the source files.

Originally more overlaying of the animations was planned but had to be scrapped due to time constraints in Europe and landlord problems in California! Enjoy!

– JH