Luniversal Hit

"We interrupt this record," says a breathless voice after only a few bars of music, "to bring you a special bulletin. The reports of a flying saucer hovering over the city have been confirmed." So begins a record called The Flying Saucer, released five weeks ago on the "Luniverse" label and now one of the big off-beat hits in the jukebox trade.

The record gives an amusingly phony account of an invasion from space ("We switch you now to our on-the-spot reporter downtown . . . Take it away, John Cameron Cameron"), with rock-'n'-roll overtones. In a dizzy pastiche, almost every sentence of the invasion "broadcast" is matched by an answering snatch of some popular rock-'n'-roll record. The result is a kind of contrapuntal dialogue. "The flying saucers," says a breathless announcer, "are real!" "Real." echoes a familiar rock-'n'-roll record a split second later, "Real, when I feel what my heart can't conceal."

An official taps on the saucer and calls, "Are you there?" and the tune that cuts in immediately is: "I hear ya knockin' but ya can't come in." Announcer: "Have you come to conquer the world?" Tune: "Don't want the world to have and hold." Announcer: "The Secretary of Defense has just said_" Tune: "Ain't it a shame?" Announcer: "I believe the spaceman has a final parting word." Tune: "See you later, alligator."

Flying Saucer was dreamed up by a pair of young men who are trying to crash the music business: Dick Goodman, 22, who quit N.Y.U. to write songs, and Bill Buchanan, 24, a song publisher. The idea looked so good to them that they started the Luniverse label to make the record.

Since The Flying Saucer includes no fewer than 16 "quotations" from other records, music publishers and record companies at first claimed infringement of their copyrights, and threatened lawsuits. But settlements were quickly reached with most of the publishers, particularly when it appeared that the record was becoming a hit; being quoted on The Flying Saucer actually improved sales of rock-'n'-roll tunes. By now, record companies whose disks are not represented on The Flying Saucer are downright hurt. "It's the greatest sampler of all," wailed one publisher. "If you're not on Saucer, you're nowhere!"

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