The BP oil slick disaster gets more and more depressing by the day. This really is going to get worse before it gets better, and who knows if it will get better? BP don't. It's truly end-of-days stuff.
I'm no longer the idealist, hardline environmentalist i was at the age of 16 or whatever, but one thing that i felt back then and that's still blindingly obvious now is that society's ridiculous consumption demands are completely unsustainable in the long-term - right now, it's looking like the long-term mightn't be so long at all.
Anyway, if it's not a bit suspect to use such a disaster as an angle for a music post, it did get me thinking about bands/artists who've dealt with environmental concerns in their music. And there's not that many, which makes it all the more notable when it does happen.
Talking Heads - 'Nothing But Flowers'
Devastatingly clever lyric from David Byrne, set in a post-peak-oil society and narrated by an increasingly desperate soul who can't adapt to the new, simplified lifestyle necessary to survive - "If this is paradise/I wish I had a lawnmower"...
R.E.M.
Not only did R.E.M. write some pretty eloquent songs dealing with environmental issues, they also walked the walk, donating money to home-state Georgia's conservation funds, promoting Greenpeace on their tours and generally being prominent environmental activists. They even named one of their albums Green. 'Cuyahoga' dealt with the pollution of the titular Cleveland river, which was so badly polluted at one stage that it caught on fire. "Let's put our heads together / And start a new country up" sings Stipe, but it sounds like a doubtful scenario. 'Fall On Me', meanwhile, is commonly interpreted as being about acid rain, although Stipe denies this. Don't heed him.
Neil Young
'Mother Earth' is one of Young's more divisive songs- many of his fans despise it, i quite like it. Young insists on playing it regularly, and there's something quite subversive about a rock star singing a plea for environmental awareness mid-set. 'After The Goldrush' referred to "Mother Nature on the run in the 1970's" - it rings truer than ever today. His most recent album, meanwhile, was a 'concept' album about his Lincoln Continental, which had been retooled to run on alternative energy sources.
Radiohead
The frankly terrifying 'Idioteque' conveyed growing dread and impending doom - "Ice Age coming, Ice Age coming ... We're not scaremongering / This is really happening..". Lead singer Thom Yorke insists on playing venues well-served by public transport, and the band turned down Glastonbury for this very reason. “One of the conditions of the band carrying on touring is that we do everything we can to minimise our impact on the environment. That has included buying two lots of equipment and keeping one in Europe and one in America so we never have to fly our kit around the world again.” Bono, take some notes.
Gorillaz
Latest album Plastic Beach refers, both in title and theme, to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a symbolic monument to human waste: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch. The BP oil leak makes it sound tame.
They’re quite fond of Ireland, R.E.M.. Having already released the R.E.M. Live set (recorded at the Point Theatre) back in 2007, they’re now set to release a 2CD document of their five-night ‘working rehearsals’ stand in the Olympia in the same year. Now I tend to give live albums a wide berth generally, but just check out the tracklisting:
01 Living Well Is the Best Revenge 02 Second Guessing 03 Letter Never Sent 04 Staring Down the Barrel of the Middle Distance 05 Disturbance at the Heron House 06 Mr. Richards 07 Houston 08 New Test Leper 09 Cuyahoga 10 Electrolite 11 Man-Sized Wreath 12 So. Central Rain 13 On the Fly 14 Maps and Legends 15 Sitting Still 16 Driver 8 17 Horse to Water 18 I'm Gonna DJ 19 Circus Envy 20 These Days 21 Drive 22 Feeling Gravity's Pull 23 Until the Day Is Done 24 Accelerate 25 Auctioneer 26 Little America 27 1,000,000 28 Disguised 29 The Worst Joke Ever 30 Welcome to the Occupation 31 Carnival of Sorts 32 Harborcoat 33 Wolves, Lower 34 I've Been High 35 Kohoutek 36 West of the Fields 37 Pretty Persuasion 38 Romance 39 Gardening at Night
‘Harborcoat’? ‘Disturbance at the Heron House’? ‘Gardening at Night’? ‘Kohouek’?!? I’ll have some of that! As well as that, of course, you’ll get the chance to hear songs from last year’s Accelerate at their early stages of development.
A special edition will add a DVD featuring recorded footage of the gigs and behind-the-scenes action. R.E.M. Live at the Olympia will be released on October 27th.
