aka the 20’s version of Opus number 1. Wait, what?

While feeling generally like crap the last few days and half sleeping letting YouTube play random crap it’d eventually come across a ‘live premier’ and they all of course have the same music.

At first in a haze I thought it was looping videos, but no it was 2 completely different people however the intro music was the same. So in the middle of the night the quest had started to track down the tune.

And in no time I managed to find what most everyone else found. It’s from ‘Silent Partner‘ who made a bunch of free to use music. And in the compilations on soundcloud is the Space Walk.

And of course you know them from ‘Spring in My Step‘ among many many others.

Although they do have an official channel now, with a short BIO in their about:

In 2013, YouTube reached out to producer Bryce Goggin, asking if he was interested in creating music for their new Audio Library which aimed to give billions of video creators access to free, safe to use music. His answer was simple – “Yes”. Goggin, who’s worked with the likes of Phish, Sean Lennon, Space Hog, and Pavement, recruited a close circle of session musicians to help take on the mighty endeavor. The team worked out of his studio in Brooklyn NY, creating a diverse collection of over 1k songs that would go on to be used in hundreds of millions of videos.

And from the official song:

Since June 2018, every YouTube premiere is preceded by a colorful countdown that features vibrant, abstract animations and a clock ticking its way down to zero. Every countdown also includes the same song playing front and center, a two-minute instrumental track that stirs up anticipation with its nostalgic electronic synths, drum machine percussion, and orchestral string plucks. This song, “Space Walk” by Silent Partner is often referred to as the “unofficial YouTube national anthem”.

Commenters on YouTube re-uploads of the song agree, as they’ve shared a variety of feelings about the track. One person noted, “People in 2030/2040 will be like: This is soooo nostalgic!! Only real ones remember this.” Somebody else wrote, “This is honestly such a fitting song for YouTube Premiere countdowns, it just perfectly goes with your imagination running wild about what you’re about to see.” Another user painted a picture of the end of YouTube with “Space Walk” as the soundtrack: “I feel like this is something that would play in the final minutes of youtube before the site shuts down. Just this music and a few minutes to remember everything that has happened on this site over the decades before it all goes away.”

“Space Walk” has been heard billions of times (literally). Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You,” the most popular all-time song on Spotify, has nearly 3 billion spins, and it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that the YouTube premiere song — across every YouTube premiere ever, music video or otherwise — has been heard more times than that.

And there you go. The site Uproxx has a great article on the hunt for the origin of the song. Like so many I’m just here after the fact, wondering what is the deal with the song.

If IVR’s, hold music and answering machines were still a touchstone, I’m sure Space Walk would be up there. But instead now it’s just intro lead music.

And since it is royalty free here is the MP3 for anyone who really wants it that bad.