Editing Karlheinz Stockhausen (section)

=== Wider cultural renown ===
Stockhausen, along with [[John Cage]], is one of the few avant-garde composers to have succeeded in penetrating the popular consciousness.{{sfn|Anon.|2007b}}{{sfn|Broyles|2004}}{{sfn|Hewett|2007}} [[The Beatles]] included his face on the cover of ''[[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band]]''.{{sfn|Guy and Llewelyn-Jones|2004|loc=111}} In particular, "[[A Day in the Life]]" (1967) and "[[Revolution 9]]" (1968) were influenced by Stockhausen's electronic music.{{sfn|Aldgate, Chapman, and Marwick|2000|loc=146}}{{sfn|MacDonald|1995|loc=233–234}} Stockhausen's name, and the perceived strangeness and supposed unlistenability of his music, was even a punchline in cartoons, as documented on a page on the official Stockhausen website ([http://www.stockhausen.org/cartoons.html Stockhausen Cartoons]). Perhaps the most caustic remark about Stockhausen was attributed to Sir [[Thomas Beecham]]. Asked "Have you heard any Stockhausen?", he is alleged to have replied, "No, but I believe I have trodden in some".{{sfn|Lebrecht|1985|loc=334, annotated on 366: "Apocryphal; source unknown"}}

Stockhausen's fame is also reflected in works of literature. For example, he is mentioned in [[Philip K. Dick]]'s 1974 novel ''[[Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said]]'',{{sfn|Dick|1993|loc=101}} and in [[Thomas Pynchon]]'s 1966 novel ''[[The Crying of Lot 49]]''. The Pynchon novel features "The Scope", a bar with "a strict electronic music policy". Protagonist Oedipa Maas asks "a hip graybeard" about a "sudden chorus of whoops and yibbles" coming out of "a kind of jukebox." He replies, "That's by Stockhausen ... the early crowd tends to dig your Radio Cologne sound. Later on we really swing".{{sfn|Pynchon|1999|loc=34}}

The French writer [[Michel Butor]] acknowledges that Stockhausen's music "taught me a lot", mentioning in particular the electronic works ''Gesang der Jünglinge'' and ''Hymnen''.{{sfn|Santschi|1982|loc=204}}

Later in his life, Stockhausen was portrayed by at least one journalist, John O'Mahony of the ''Guardian'' newspaper, as an eccentric, for example being alleged to live an effectively [[Polygamy|polygamous]] lifestyle with two women, to whom O'Mahony referred as his "wives", while at the same time stating he was not married to either of them.{{sfn|O'Mahony|2001}} In the same article, O'Mahony says Stockhausen said he was born on a planet orbiting the star Sirius. In the German newspaper ''[[Die Zeit]]'', Stockhausen stated that he was educated at Sirius (see [[#Sirius star system|Sirius star system]] below).

In 1995, [[BBC Radio 3]] sent Stockhausen a package of recordings from contemporary [[techno]] and [[ambient music]] artists [[Aphex Twin]], [[Richie Hawtin]] (Plastikman), [[Robin Rimbaud|Scanner]] and [[Daniel Pemberton]], and asked him for his opinion on the music. In August of that year, Radio 3 reporter [[Richard Witts|Dick Witts]] interviewed Stockhausen about these pieces for a broadcast in October, called "The Technocrats" and asked what advice he would give these young musicians. Stockhausen made suggestions to each and they were then invited to respond. All but Plastikman obliged.{{sfn|Witts|1995a}}{{sfn|Witts|1995b}}