"Has the music industry finally started to wake up and smell the burning forests?" - The Face writes in its introduction to the article about music and climate change. The Face breaks down some efforts being made in music streaming, vinyl, festivals, NFT, and touring in order to help the environment.
The 11-year-old music sensation Nandi Bushell has teamed up with Tom Morello’s 10-year-old guitar-playing son Roman for the new song 'The Children Will Rise Up'. The two deliver an ecological message, with Jack Black, activist Greta Thunberg, and Roman’s dad making cameos in the music video.
Massive Attack have released their climate plan aiming to restructure the music industry, in order to combat the climate crisis, Guardian reports. Years in the making, the findings of their partnership with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, the plan is proposing a course of action for the “urgent and significant reassembly” of the music industry. Required actions include the immediate elimination of private jet use, a switch to electric transportation for concerts and festivals, and, by 2025, phasing out diesel generators at festivals.
Pitchfork looks back at 40 years of albums by "pop stars to metal urchins to avant experimentalists" covering the issue of climate danger. The list goes back to The Clash and Dead Kennedys, and also covers today's pop stars such as Grimes and Billie Eilish, as well as metal heroes Cattle Decapitation, avant-guard artist Babe, Terror, and indie-rock heroine The Weather Station.
Adam Met from the pop trio AJR wrote an outline for eco-friendly touring, including the ways in which everyone - artists, agents, promoters, venues, fans - can participate in technological, agricultural, and psychological solutions. For agents it would mean connecting flydates in ways that permit less travel, encouraging less private plane usage, and choosing the most direct bus routes. Venues could transition to electricity from renewable sources, standardize the requirements for food and drink vendors to use local farms and move away from single-use plastics...
Music journalist Greg Cochrane and Savages drummer Fay Milton have launched a new podcast Sounds Like a Plan which aims to shine a light on the music community’s fight against the climate crisis, NME reports. Launched this month, SLAP will feature an “inspiring climate advocate from the music community" like The 1975’s manager Jamie Oborne, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, and Melvin Benn, director of Festival Republic, which includes Reading + Leeds, Latitude...
Massive Attack‘s Robert Del Naja said he was “pretty livid” over the live music industry not meeting pledges to reduce its carbon footprint, Sky News reports. 3D highlighted Coldplay’s decision to stop touring until they could make it “environmentally friendly as possible”, adding, however, that “one band not touring doesn’t change a thing”. Del Naja also highlighted the possible “different solutions” for transportation like trains and buses. “Now is the time for action, no more pledges” - he told the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee as part of its ongoing investigation into the future of UK music festivals.
Rapper Lil Dicky is celebrating the first anniversary of his animated short film 'Earth' by donating $800,000 to help combat climate change and contribute to COVID-19 relief, All Hip Hop reports. "The fight to save this planet isn't even close to over, and we're going to have to amplify our efforts way more to turn this thing around. Because pretty soon, it'll be too late" - Lil Dicky said, adding - "even though times have never been scarier with the COVID-19 pandemic, it has shown me something: that we can modify our day-to-day behavior to adapt to a crisis when it's right in front of us". Rapper and entrepreneur Sean "Diddy" Combs has linked with The National Bankers Association to launch a new platform "Our Fair Share" to help minority-owned small businesses get access to the second round of Paycheck Protection Program Funding, PR Newswire reports.
Michael Stipe, Patti Smith, Cat Power, Rebecca Foon, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ben Harper, Rain Phoenix and The Strokes bassist Nikolai Fraiture are slated to play Pathway to Paris’s 50th Anniversary Earth Day Festival on Sunday. Pathway will be livestreamed online via the organization’s Instagram page, on Sunday, April 26th (4 p.m. Haiti time, 9 p.m. Lagos time, 10 a.m. Monday Kiribati time).
