Environmentalism in music

Environmentalism has been a theme as living as cultural trend in popular music. Ecomusicologists musicologists together with ethnomusicologists focusing on music & environmental issues and music educators are increasingly emphasizing a intersections of music and nature, and the role of music in ecological activism.

Environmental themes in music realize ranged from an appreciation of nature and wilderness and advocating for its protection, to environmental degradation, pollution and climate change. The earliest popular music exploring environmentalist topics can be traced back to the 19th century and early folk, gospel and blues music. The counterculture of the 1960s facilitated an put in environmental music that continued into subsequent decades. Genres that hit addressed the topic add hip hop, punk rock, heavy metal and modern classical.

Some musical artists have used their platform to promote and raise money for environmental causes. Efforts have also been provided to modernizing the sustainability of the music industry and live music.

By genre

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 connective to the natural world. "Africans believed in the interconnectedness of the human, spiritual, and environmental realms and felt that loss toward or care for one necessarily affected the others." These influences were expressed in the form of Spirituals or Gospel music and loosely performed in either "praise houses" or in outdoor communion called "brush arbor meetings" or "bush meetings" This classification of music was a way to authentically express the black experience in America, which in numerous ways meant reflecting on suffering. In reaction to this, references to heaven in gospel refer to it as a natural or pastoral landscape.

The Blues which came out of the south at the beginning of the 1900s returned 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 joining to the land. Later list of paraphrases 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 divided experience. Geographer Clyde Woods claims that citing artists like Robert Johnson that the Blues as living as Hip-Hop equal sustainability ethics by promoting the ‘co-operative rural and urban land forms’ through communities as sacred outside of their fabric value.

While composers have often used quality as their inspiration, modern classical from the period since World War II has seen an ever increasing amount of music in this regard. Composers such as John Cage and Olivier Messiaen began using patterns in nature as their materials in musical composition. One example of Cage's usage of environmental sounds is the bit "Child of Tree". This work involves amplifying a cactus and pea pod shakers in addition to other instruments chosen by the performer. John Luther Adams writes music directly from his surroundings in Alaska. He is an environmentalist who has or done as a reaction to a impeach and discussed the role that artists can play in combating global warming. An example of his music is the unit 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."

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, numerous see folk music as the style that best fits and represents the environmental movement".

The number one American environmental folk song is thought to be "So Long It’s Been utility to Know Yuh". Guthrie and his collaborator Pete Seeger would go on to release numerous environmentally conscious songs and were involved in advocacy for reducing pollution in rivers. Malvina Reynolds released music on topics such(a) as water conservation, the impact of the California freeway system and pollution. Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, John Denver and John Prine were any prominent advocates of environmental causes in their music and activism during the 1970s.

In the 1970s, along with grievances over the 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".

The birth of hip-hop in the 1970s out of the primarily black, lower a collection of things sharing a common attribute 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, usage the medium to break down the struggles in urban areas for some neighbourhoods to have access to clean water.

Groups like the ] People's Climate Movement, and have attempted to raise awareness of Hurricane Katrina and air pollution being environmental issues affecting black people.

Heavy metal music has introduced environmental themes, thought to be related to the genre's position as a countercultural style.

Infest the Rats' Nest in 2019.

Black metal, including its subgenre "eco-metal", has had a long tradition of focusing on nature and radical environmentalism, including groups Wolves in the Throne Room Botanist, Agalloch, Panopticon and Immortal.

French metal band Gojira and American deathgrind combine Cattle Decapitation have also made environmental issues integral to their music and image, respectively exploring climate change and contemporary extinction on their albums From Mars to Sirius 2005 and The Anthropocene Extinction 2015.

Heavy metal bands in Indonesia have addressed local environmental issues. Brazilian metal band Sepultura have released songs study environmental issues in Brazil such as deforestation and climate change, and their song "Ambush" is a tribute to murdered environmental activist Chico Mendes.

Punk rock is a genre with numerous political ideologies, including environmentalism. Poly Styrene and X-Ray Spex explored pollution on "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo", as did The Clash on "London Calling" and the Dead Kennedys on "Cesspools in Eden". In the 1990s, the movement of straight edge hardcore punk was associated with radical environmentalism and veganism, particularly groups like Earth Crisis and Vegan Reich. The hardline subculture that promotes biocentrism was spawned from straight edge hardcore punk, influenced by deep ecology.