For this installment of Video Vinyl, we’re featuring this Space Invaders record from Germany by a band known as Player [1]. Released in 1979 — actually pre-dating Pac-Man Fever by a few years — it’s a 12″ 45rpm single for this song titled “Space Invaders,” backed with a track called “A Menacing Glow in the Sky.”
The songs are both late-70s style synth pop, comparable to Kraftwerk or Gary Numan, but pretty bland. The title track includes a few sound effects from the Space Invaders arcade game, and lyrics about fighting for your life with a chorus that just repeats “Space Invaders” a lot. The B-side is unrelated to any videogame and is instantly forgettable.

There’s no information on the jacket whatsoever about any licensing of the Space Invaders name, sound effects, or arcade artwork from Taito or Midway, so being on a major label (Warner Bros, known as WEA at that point in their history), I’m not sure how they got away without having such cresit listed. According to this Wikipedia entry, Player [1] was a pair of Australian dudes who released these songs on a album called Game Over, which apparently flopped pretty hard. It was even released in the US with the band using the name Playback and the album itself retitled Space Invaders, just to make things confusing.

If you want to spend 6 minutes of your life listening to the song, you can find it on YouTube. I call “meh,” but I can’t stop you if you’re curious.