Beyoncé Slammed for Sampling Shuttle Tragedy on New Album

yahoo.com/Good Morning America ^ | December 30, 2013 | CLAYTON SANDELL and GINA SUNSERI

[grundle]

Beyoncé has been labeled "insensitive" by some current and former NASA astronauts and their families for sampling audio from the space shuttle Challenger disaster for a love song off her newly released album.

Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center Jan. 28, 1986. All seven crewmembers aboard were killed.

"Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction," now-retired NASA public affairs officer Steve Nesbitt said as the nation watched wreckage fall toward the ocean on live television.

Twenty-seven years later, Nesbitt's voice is heard at the beginning of the video for Beyoncé's new song "XO," about a troubled relationship. The singer has said that "XO" was written and produced by Ryan Tedder and Terius Nash, who goes by the stage name The Dream.

The audio clip is short, lasting six seconds.

Beyonce, in an exclusive statement to ABC News this morning, said, "My heart goes out to the families of those lost in the Challenger disaster. The song 'XO' was recorded with the sincerest intention to help heal those who have lost loved ones and to remind us that unexpected things happen, so love and appreciate every minute that you have with those who mean the most to you.

[Plain Old American]

Challenger exploded on the way up - Columbia came apart on the way back...

[Disambiguator]

Here's a tune from back when the shuttle was something new and exciting, and the possibilities seemed limitless.

[lee martell]

That is very true. I don’t have a good opinion of either her or him, but they don’t need to please me. Somebody at least put an ounce of brainpower into writing out that statement for her. As Obama would tell her’ You didn’t write that! I’m more surprised the x-rated dialogue in her slbum is not getting more public discussion, unless profanity really has become so much like yesterdays Parkay Margarine, that most people (mainly the 47%) don’t even notice it.

[Berosus]

Beyonce should have used the “Houston we have a problem” sound clip. At least that incident had a happy ending.

[Libloather]

Isn’t he smoking that cigar kinda backwards?

[nascarnation]

LOL your typical Obama “bundler”

[TigersEye]

It’s a piece of our history. I don’t see anything wrong with it.

[Mad Dawgg]

"The heat shield problem was the Columbia disaster...................."

yeah Challenger was bad "o-rings" in the boosters IIRC...

[righttackle44]

Sorry. I don’t believe for one moment that this woman has ANY concern or grief for the crew or the American people who grieved on that day and for years afterward. She lives in a world that smirks, believes it’s okay as long as they spelled the name right—more sales—and then issues some kind of blather that is supposed to be an apology. This woman closed down an entire wing of a hospital maternity ward at the expense of other families who needed maternity services on the exact days she did so. Do you REALLY think that she has any apologetic intent in either situation?

[Opinionated Blowhard]

How many kids even know about the shuttle disaster now?

Do you think Beyoncé herself knows anything about the shuttle disaster?

[PieterCasparzen]

The Rush song Countdown from 1983 includes a sampling of STS-1, the first shuttle flight, which was the Columbia's first flight.

While I have a lot of bones to pick with space programs both publicly and privately funded, technology and flying both tug at my heartstrings; accordingly, so does any little audio clip of the shuttle.

Of course, what's really troublesome about both shuttle disasters is that they sprang from issues that were known before the flights and not fully looked into.

It really gets under my skin that those in the shuttle were in the situation of catastrophe that did not necessarily have to happen but for, IMHO, negligence. IMHO, when you're working with anything that flies, you dot all the i's and cross all the t's.

Personally, I'm not a listener of current music at all.

As I understand it, there is profanity on the album, and I find that concerning. IMHO, the audio clip brings back sobering yet the most hopeful and optimistic thoughts that have a special place in the hearts of many people. Perhaps the juxtaposition to profanity is what troubles some people, but since I didn't listen to the rest of the "song" and I love listening to shuttle radio chatter, I guess I'm just blissfully ignorant.

That being said, I pray that entertainers would clean up their acts, start out on a whole new course, for their sake and really everyone's. Art should, when considered in its entirety, be edifying and uplifting.

[a fool in paradise]

I’ve never heard of a disaster as such being sampled and used in the beginning of a song. I know Rob Zombie, Godsmack, Guns N’ Roses, and Metallica (among others) have sampled old movies and incorporated them into their music, but never something like a tragedy with a space shuttle.

I think there are supposed to be industrial bands that used bits of the Jim Jones tapes and other attrocities. But not such a "mainstream" artist.

This is akin to taking a selfie while the shuttle is going up in smoke.

[a fool in paradise]

Ron McNair was her OG boi on the horn, knowhutimsayindawg?

Rest in peace

[a fool in paradise]

Barack Obama gave a shout out before the Ft. Hood terrorist attack press conference and nobody at OMGMABCDisney gave a &#^@.

[grundle]

I remember when the Space Shuttle was new we used to watch the launches at school - it was indeed considered a huge deal back then!

[POWERSBOOTHEFAN]

Cool photo.

[POWERSBOOTHEFAN]

There is an Australian band named ‘Vic Morrow’s Head’. I kid you not.

Talk about sick and disrespectful. I am a big fan of his and it truly upsets me. Even if I wasn’t a fan it would still upset me.

[POWERSBOOTHEFAN]

They were frozen. What’s worse is that NASA knew about it.

[Political Junkie Too]

The difference here is that the clip is from NASA, paid for by taxpayers. I don't think the 30 second rule applies here. It's legal to use it regardless.

The rule applies when a group is sampling another group's copywrited lyrics or music.

Government announcements are public domain.

-PJ

[a fool in paradise]

Maybe the remix version will incorporate bits from the Jim Jones People’s Temple tape.