50 'moon' songs to celebrate 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing

You're going to be hearing a lot about the moon in the coming weeks, so why not crank a playlist to match?

The 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing is coming up on July 20, and to capitalise on the buzz (sorry), Spotify crunched through its catalogue and found that there are more than 185,000 tracks on the music streaming platform with the word "moon" in the title.

To whittle it down, Spotify listed 50 of the most streamed of these tunes, and it could make a pretty great playlist for the coming months.

Tracks like Ariana Grande's "Moonlight," LeAnn Rimes' Coyote Ugly track "Can't Fight the Moonlight," and Frank Sinatra and Count Basie's classic "Fly Me to the Moon" are no-brainers to celebrate the anniversary, but Creedence Clearwater Revival's hootenanny of a banger, "Bad Moon Rising," is the most streamed.

Here's the list in full. It's not officially listed as a Spotify playlist, unfortunately, but you can pick and choose.

• “Bad Moon Rising” - Creedence Clearwater Revival

• “Talking to the Moon” - Bruno Mars 

• “Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words)” - Frank Sinatra, Count Basie

• “Moonlight” - Ariana Grande  

• “Man On The Moon” - R.E.M. 

• “Walking On The Moon” - The Police 

• “Runnin' Outta Moonlight” - Randy Houser 

• “Moonage Daydream” - David Bowie

• “Moondance” - Van Morrison 

• “Can't Fight The Moonlight” - LeAnn Rimes

• “Moonlight” - Grace VanderWaal 

• “Mwaka Moon” - Kalash, Damso 

• “Get You The Moon (feat. Snøw)” - Kina, Snøw 

• “Dancing in the Moonlight” - Toploader 

• “Harvest Moon” - Neil Young 

• “Dancing In The Moonlight (feat. NEIMY)” - Jubël

• “The Killing Moon” - Echo & the Bunnymen

• “Pink Moon” - Nick Drake 

• “Bark at the Moon” - Ozzy Osbourne

• “My Moon My Man” - Feist 

• “Dancing In The Moonlight” - King Harvest 

• “Sonata No. 14 "Moonlight" in C-Sharp Minor", Op. 27 No. 2: I. Adagio sostenuto” - Ludwig van Beethoven, Paul Lewis

• “Neon Moon” - Brooks & Dunn

• “The Moon and the Sky” - Sade 

• “Moon River” - Frank Ocean

• “Half Moon” - Blind Pilot 

• “Shoot the Moon” - Norah Jones 

• “Why iii Love the Moon” - Phony Ppl

• “Howling At The Moon” - Milow 

• “Moonlight Shadow” - Mike Oldfield 

• “Harvest Moon” - Poolside 

• “Moonlight” - XXXTENTACION 

• “Man On The Moon” - Kid Cudi 

• “Blue Moon” - Beck 

• “To The Moon” - Phora 

• “To the Moon & Back” - Savage Garden 

• “Dark Side Of The Moon (feat. Nicki Minaj)” - Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj

• “Moon River (From Breakfast at Tiffany's)” - Andy Williams 

• “Moonshadow” - Yusuf / Cat Stevens 

• “Moonlight” - Charli XCX, Lil Xan 

• “To the Moon and Back” - Luke Bryan 

• “Moonlight Serenade”- Glenn Miller 

• “This Is How We Walk On The Moon” - José González

• “Dancing In The Moonlight (It's Caught Me In It's Spotlight)” - Thin Lizzy

• “Hollow Moon (Bad Wolf)” - AWOLNATION

• “Moon River (Vocal Audrey Hepburn)” - Henry Mancini

• “Moon Trance” - Lindsey Stirling

• “Blue Moon - 1998 Digital Remaster” - Frank Sinatra

• “Moonlight Sonata” - Michael Silverman

• “Autumn Moon On A Calm Lake” - Lang Lang, Lü Wencheng

NASA's own Third Rock Radio put together a playlist of moon-inspired tunes as well, which is a little more abstract and thematic with inclusions such as Elton John's "Rocket Man," and, of course, David Bowie's "Space Oddity." It's the result of more than one million "Moon tunes" submissions requested from the public.

NASA has a time-honoured tradition of playing music from Mission Control as wake-up calls for flight crews onboard space shuttles — staff at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California even used music to try and wake the sleeping Opportunity rover on Mars.

So, did the Apollo 11 crew, about to land on the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969, have a playlist themselves? They certainly did.

NASA reportedly equipped every astronaut from Apollo 7 with a compact Sony TC-50 cassette recorder in order to allow them to log mission notes. But before they held mission recordings, the cassettes could be filled with music for the trip — you're just going to record over them, right?

In an interview with Vanity Fair, late record executive Mickey Kapp spoke of the mixtapes he would make for astronauts in the 1960s, including one for Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin.

“They could put music on the tapes for the ride up, and then record over it with their notes later, because who cares?" he told the magazine in 2018, explaining he would ask each astronaut for their musical preferences. “From that, I could develop a list of 30 or so songs, since I knew all the repertoire that was out there."

On Aldrin's mixtape was reportedly Barbra Streisand’s "People," "Angel of the Morning," by Bettye Swann, and Glenn Campbell’s "Galveston." In a recording of the historic mission, you can hear a mention just before the six-minute mark. "Let’s get some music," says Aldrin. "How about these tapes?"

Happy landing.