Pulpy sc-fi and popular music aren't total strangers, but it's a rare example of the genre that gets to number one. But with the moon landings a contemporary concern, science fiction in 1969 was becoming science fact and 'In The Year 2525' jacks into the public interest in that 'nowness' quite shamelessly (the song was actually written in 1964 and originally released in 1968 so I guess it needed that 'stopped clock is right twice a day' good fortune to give it an unimproveable context).*Not that we're obviously in the space age here - 'In The Year 2525' opens out onto a spaghetti western soundtrack of Spanish guitar and mariachi trumpet before locking into a rail straight beat that marches the lyric through the centuries like Rod Taylor in 'The Time Machine' as mankind hurtles toward its destiny. "In the year 3535, ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies. Everything you think, do, or say is in the pill you took today" - hokum then? Yes indeed, of 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' proportions, and it doesn't help that Rick Evans' high and mighty vocal casts him as a would be Nostradamus demanding to be taken seriously; it makes the clog handed lyrics and crowbar rhymes faintly ludicrous, especially when that highfalutin title promising something approaching quasi academic stature.
In its favour, 'In The Year 2525' eschews the temptation to go all 'computer font' and doesn't pander to any of the (then) new fangled futuristic strokes or gimmickry that would have dated (a 1983 version of this by Visage comes stuffed with boxfresh eighties synth washes and noodles and has aged with far less grace). And just as you wouldn't read HG Wells for scientific accuracy, there's a lot of fun to be had here. As long as you take it on its own terms and turn a blind eye to its overt humourlessness.
* Though the fact that David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' only made number 5 that year could be enough to blow this little theory out of the water.
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