Some musical artists have used their platform to promote and raise money for environmental causes. Efforts have also been made to improve the sustainability of the music industry and live music.
After a radioactive isotope (Strontium-90) was found in cows milk in 1959, the concern for the environmental effects of the nuclear arms race increased. This sparked songs about the invisibility of environmental effects like radioactive isotopes. In his song "Mack the Bomb", Pete Seeger wrote a comparison between a shark and Strontium-90, explaining that the threat of a shark is at least visible, unlike radioactive isotopes.[7] In 1962, Malvina Reynolds also wrote a song called "What Have They Done to the Rain?", which was inspired by above-ground nuclear testing, and how it was putting Strontium-90 into the air, then into soil through rain, which is how it got into cows and their milk.[8] Songwriter Peter La Farge released As Long as the Grass Shall Grow in 1963, a collection of native American songs discussing environmental destruction.[9]
Pete Seeger released what is considered the first environmentalist album, entitled "God Bless the Grass" in 1966. The 1960s produced a large number of environmental-focused songs, primarily due to the popularization of folk music and the musicians that penned many environmental protest songs, in that genre.[3]
The primary view perpetuated by mainstream versions of environmental music from the 1960s onward have foregrounded the idyllic cohabitation of natural landscapes and humankind.[clarification needed] The shorthand being the pastoral mode. However the pastoral mode has been used to perpetuate beliefs of a separate and untouched wilderness, as well as anti urbanism. These beliefs do not reflect critical environmental justice practices, which emphasize multidimensionality and intersectionality in issues relating to human health and environmental degradation.[14] The pastoral mode also excluded experiences of minority groups that are an integral part of pastoral landscapes, as well as face the effects of food and heat deserts, increased pollution, unclean water, and more in urban areas.[15]
In 1995 singer Michael Jackson came out with the hit "Earth Song" which was about environmental and animal welfare. The production of the music video had an environmental theme, showing images of animal cruelty, deforestation, pollution, poverty, and war. Jackson and the world's people unite in a spiritual chant—"Earth Song"—which summons a force that heals the world. Using special effects, time is reversed so that life returns, war ends, and the forests regrow. The video closes with a request for donations to Jackson's Heal the World Foundation.[17][18] The clip was shown infrequently in the United States.[19]
2000s
In 2007, a massive concert entitled Live Earth was held in several locations around the world simultaneously to raise awareness and provoke action on climate change.[20][21]
Taiwan's Sheng-Xiang Band (生祥樂隊 [zh]) has been described as pioneering exploring environmental topics in the music of their home country. Their 2016 album Village Besieged has been described as an elegy for victims of Taiwan's petrochemical pollution.[27]
2020s–present
Billie Eilish's most recent album featured the song "All Good Girls Go to Hell,"[28] which was meant to bring attention to humans inability to stop climate change. It came out in the aftermath of a series of forest fires which is what the song was mainly targeted at.
The 1975's track "The 1975" is entirely dedicated to climate change activist Greta Thunberg. This track contains lyrics such as "We are right now in the beginning of a climate and ecological crisis" and "now is not the time for speaking politely or focusing on what we can or cannot say. Now is the time to speak clearly."[29] Some of these lyrics were taken directly from Thunberg's speeches or press releases.
By genre
Blues and gospel
In the days of the African slave trade to the United States, the role of the environment was closely tied to spirituality and agricultural labor. Enslaved generations born in Africa passed down beliefs in divinity, superstition, and human connection to the natural world. "Africans believed in the interconnectedness of the human, spiritual, and environmental realms and felt that harm toward or care for one necessarily affected the others."[30] These influences were expressed in the form of Spirituals or Gospel music and generally performed in either "praise houses" or in outdoor communion called "brush arbor meetings" or "bush meetings" [31] This style of music was a way to authentically express the black experience in America, which in many ways meant reflecting on suffering. In reaction to this, references to heaven in gospel refer to it as a natural or pastoral landscape.[32]
The Blues which came out of the south at the beginning of the 1900s spoke on the agrarian and impoverished lifestyles of the African American community. Firmly grounded in the realities of slavery and the systemic discrimination that followed, the Blues exemplified by artists like Roosevelt Charles was a reflection of rural labor and connection to the land.[33] Later versions of the Blues shifted to faster tempos and themes of urban life as communities of colour migrated to cities like Chicago, Detroit, and New York. Some historians denote the dukes as an expression of reliance in the face of a continued struggle against white oppression. Thereby the Blues derived community amongst the minority in shared experience. Geographer Clyde Woods claims that citing artists like Robert Johnson that the Blues as well as Hip-Hop represent sustainability ethics by promoting the ‘co-operative rural and urban land forms’ through communities as sacred outside of their material value.[33]
Modern classical music
While composers have often used nature as their inspiration, modern classical from the period since World War II has seen an ever increasing amount of music in this regard.[34] Composers such as John Cage and Olivier Messiaen began using patterns in nature as their materials in musical composition.[35][36] One example of Cage's use of environmental sounds is the piece "Child of Tree". This work involves amplifying a cactus and pea pod shakers in addition to other instruments chosen by the performer.[37]John Luther Adams writes music directly from his surroundings in Alaska.[38] He is an environmentalist who has written and discussed the role that artists can play in combating global warming.[39] An example of his music is the piece The Place Where You Go to Listen. This work involves a sound and light installation that is "controlled by natural events occurring in real time."[40]
Folk music
Folk music has had a considerable influence on the environmental movement. Richard Kahn wrote that folk's "populist spirit, tradition of protest rhetoric, and general reliance upon acoustic—and even homespun—instruments, many see folk music as the style that best fits and represents the environmental movement".[3]
In the 1970s, along with grievances over the Vietnam War and Civil Rights activism, environmentalism was in the public eye as a political point of unrest. Within the African American community the transition into R&B emphasized the importance of these issues. Artist Marvin Gaye released an album in 1971 titled What's Going On wherein he criticizes the role of the United States in the Vietnam War, as well as the social and environmental degradation of inner city residences, particularly in "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)".[41]
The birth of hip-hop in the 1970s out of the primarily black, lower class communities in the South Bronx was also a reflection on issues related to race, poverty, violence, and injustice. Environmental hip-hop is an extension of the issues faced by communities of color. Artists like Mos Def in his song "New World Water", released in 1999, use the medium to break down the struggles in urban areas for some neighbourhoods to have access to clean water.[42]
Groups like the Hip-Hop Caucus and Grind for the Green continue to promote increased advocacy for environmental issues in communities of color through the medium of Hip-Hop.[43][44] These groups have found that using a platform like Hip Hop to engage youth resonates. Removing environmental injustice from academia and into oral performance historically better promotes shared experiences and shared interest.[citation needed]Malik Yusef and Lennox Yearwood have been involved in the People's Climate Movement, and have attempted to raise awareness of Hurricane Katrina and air pollution being environmental issues affecting black people.[44]
A rock club in New York City called Wetlands Preserve served as both a performance venue and a hub for environmentalist activism from 1989 to 2001.[70][71] The Baltic Sea Festival was founded on the theme of preserving the environment. Countries surrounding the Baltic Sea are brought together to solve problems with the body of water. Music "serves as a good platform" in discussions of solutions which can only be solved jointly.[72][better source needed]
Coldplay's Music of the Spheres World Tour set out to be as sustainable as possible and included recyclable batteries powered by renewable resources such as hydrotreated vegetable oil, solar power and kinetic energy.[79] They utilized visual effects which required less explosive charge and new formulas to reduce harmful chemicals,[80] while unavoidable emissions were offset according to Oxford's principles.[81] The band also pledged to plant a tree for every ticket sold through One Tree Planted.[82]
The format of music consumption also has an impact on its carbon footprint. On an hourly basis, streaming tends to release 55 grams of CO2, whereas CDs are closer to 165, and vinyl and cassettes reach 2000.[83]
^ abcdefghKahn, Richard (2013). "Environmental activism in music". In Edmondson, Jacqueline (ed.). Music in American Life: An Encyclopedia of the Songs, Styles, Stars, and Stories that Shaped our Culture. ABC-CLIO. pp. 412–417. ISBN978-0-313-39348-8.
^Dibben, Nicola (June 2009). "Nature and Nation: National Identity and Environmentalism in Icelandic Popular Music Video and Music Documentary". Ethnomusicology Forum. 18 (1): 131–151. doi:10.1080/17411910902816542. S2CID144481532.
^de Amorim, CelmaraCoelho; Sá, Uliane RaimundaNunes (May 2015). O Avanço Do Desmatamento no Municipo de Petroline-PE: Um Desgaste na Biodiviversidade da Caatinga [Deforestation of Progress in Petrolina-PE County: A Weat on Biodiversity Caatinga]. II Simpósio Brasileiro de Recursos Naturais do Semiárido. doi:10.18068/IISBRNS2015.biod499.
^Glave, Dianne D. (2010). Rooted in the Earth: Reclaiming the African American Environmental Heritage. Chicago Review Press. pp. 44–45. ISBN978-1-56976-753-5.
^Ingram, David (2006). "'The clutter of the unkempt forest': John Cage, Music and American Environmental Thought". Amerikastudien. 51 (4): 567–579. JSTOR41158263.
^Cermak, Michael J (2012). Hip hop ecology: Investigating the connection between creative cultural movements, education and urban sustainability (Thesis). hdl:2345/2887. S2CID127084248. ProQuest1235864869.
^Lucas, Olivia R. (October 2019). "'Shrieking soldiers … wiping clean the earth': hearing apocalyptic environmentalism in the music of Botanist". Popular Music. 38 (3): 481–497. doi:10.1017/S0261143019000308. S2CID211654173.