My boyfriend recently bought me Lou Reed’s Transformer on vinyl and it’s quickly become one of the more worn-out records in my collection, mainly on the strength of “Satellite of Love.” Man, I love that song. David Bowie sings backup, it has that killer line, “I watched it for a little while/ I love to watch things on TV,” and I get those “bom-bom-bom”‘s stuck in my head for days. Then I got to thinking about how many pop songs there are that feature satellites. I guess in the modern age, after centuries of poetry and lyrics, stars in the night sky have become too cliche. Thus:There’s the super-sad-sack “Satellite” on Elliott Smith’s self-titled album. There’s a pretty cheese-tastic Beyonce song called “Satellites.” There’s the predictably execrable Dave Matthews Band song “Satellite,” which Mike Seely sang to me when I got into the office this morning. I send out the Counting Crows’ “Recovering the Satellites” to Chris Kornelis. There’s a righteous Sex Pistols B-side called “Satellite.”

Iron Maiden has a brand-new song called “Satellite 15” that’s so cringingly bad, it’ll probably make Rocket Queen cry. Natalie Imbruglia, B.o.B., Jewel, and Smash Mouth all have written songs called “Satellite.” There you have it. Satellites are the new stars. Anything I’m missing? Add to my list!