Songs of change: data reveals how musicians advocate for the environment
In this article, we consider how musicians are using their talent and voice to respond to the climate crisis. We have analysed data from Spotify and the Official Singles Charts (UK) and explored trends in music about the environment and climate change across the last six decades.
Throughout history, crises and social challenges have driven artists’ work. Today, climate change has become the defining issue of our time, and musicians have been using their platform to engage in the climate conversation, raise awareness and stir public sentiment.
Some artists are pledging to reduce the carbon emissions of their tours, are raising funds to support projects tackling climate change or using music and arts to highlight the connections between the climate emergency and other issues.
The music industry is making significant strides toward achieving net-zero emissions, according to a recent report commissioned by the Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre. Its commitment to environmental sustainability can be seen from the Music Declares Emergency campaign, which is endorsed by over 3,000 UK music artists, to initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint of tours and vinyl record production. The sector’s leading artists and businesses have also long been engaged with the cause, with globally recognised musicians such as Billie Eilish leveraging their platform to foster dialogue about tackling the climate crisis.
And then there is the long history of singers and songwriters expressing their opinions and emotions directly through song. From one of the first known environmental songs Woodman! Spare that Tree! in the 19th century to Billie Eilish’s All the Good Girls Go To Hell of 2019 referencing wildfires and rising sea levels.
A question, however, has been raised by media and researchers about the potential lack of present-day anthems to fight climate change. This is particularly surprising given that a large majority (82%) of music enthusiasts care about climate change.
In this article, we take an experimental, data-driven approach to explore the trends in the representation of environmental themes such as climate change and general appreciation of the Earth in popular music over the past few decades. We have analysed the shifting numbers of songs released over the years and ascertained their popularity, as well as less tangible properties — like the mood and energy they convey.
Approach
To identify songs concerned with environmental themes, we sourced lists of songs published by researchers, music news media and music enthusiasts. We also carried out a small crowd-sourcing exercise at Nesta. This resulted in an initial collection of more than 400 potentially relevant songs.
We reviewed and narrowed down to a final playlist of 206 songs, filtering them based on the criteria outlined in the methodology (below), particularly those that are topically and contextually relevant and feature lyrics in the English language.
While our analysis focuses on songs with English lyrics, it’s essential to recognise that many musicians worldwide are actively addressing climate justice in their work in various languages.
The aim of this analysis is to uncover possible trends rather than to unearth a complete list of environment-themed songs. Although we were not able to capture every relevant song, we believe that it is representative enough of popular Anglophone music concerning this topic. To give a sense of the songs which make up the playlist, we have picked out a few examples that span the decades covered.
For example, Louis Armstrong admires the beauty of the world and creation in general in What A Wonderful World (1967).
I see trees of green
Red roses too
I see them bloom
For me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Alabama worried about the catastrophic change in the elements in Pass It On Down (1990).
Well, there’s a change taking place way on the mountains
Acid rain is falling on the leaves
And down in Brazil, the fires are burning still
How we gonna breathe without them trees?
More recently, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard explicitly tell us we have no other planet in Planet B (2019).
Open your eyes and see
There is no Planet B
In the following sections, we will refer to our final playlist of songs as ‘environment-themed songs’.
Findings
Climate song releases — is a new peak coming?
We found that the number of song releases over time suggests a peak in environment-themed songs during the 1990s, with a potential resurgence in the early stages of the 2020s.
The surge of environmentally conscious tracks in the early 1990s aligns with the period when global warming began to command national attention in the US. This suggests that mainstream artists might have responded to this increased awareness by incorporating environmental themes into their work. That said, this trend also mirrors a more general increase in song releases during the early to mid-1990s, as reported by the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research.
Despite a decrease in environment-themed song releases in the following decades, our analysis reveals an encouraging uptick in recent years. Even though we’re only a few years into the 2020s, we’ve already identified at least 15 environment-themed songs. If this momentum persists, the 2020s could rival, and potentially surpass, the volume of climate-focused music produced in the 90s.
The historical events that inspired music about the environment
Looking more closely at the yearly data (Figure 2) we notice a distinct peak in climate-related music production during the early 1970s. This period was also marked by significant environmental controversies in the US, including widespread concerns about the ecological risks associated with the pesticide DDT. Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi notably referenced this issue, illustrating the direct influence of these environmental discourses on the music of the time.
Hey, farmer, farmer, put away your DDT
I don’t care about spots on my apples
Leave me the birds and the bees
Please!
Another possible symptom of growing societal concerns is the discovery of a hole in the ozone layer in 1985. A few years later, the Earth Summit was held. This period witnessed a noticeable increase in the production of environment-themed songs, reaching a peak in 1991 and 1992.
Leaping ahead to the 21st century, the early 2000s saw a gradual dip in the release of environment-themed music, which did not go unnoticed. Pitchfork magazine said that it “almost felt as if culture itself was averting its eyes”.
However, the recent resurgence since 2015 aligns with the rise in climate activism spearheaded by individuals such as Greta Thunberg. Technology may be playing a part here; as the internet and streaming services have increased the ability to share information, climate campaigns may bring attention to songs about these causes, encouraging people to engage with them.
One standout example from 2018 is Childish Gambino’s Feels Like Summer, a track that addresses the harmful human impacts on politics, race, and climate change.
Every day gets hotter than the one before
Running out of water, it’s about to go down
Go down
Air that kill the bees that we depend upon
Birds were made for singing, wakin’ up to no sound
No sound
Which climate songs are the most popular?
Musicologist Natheniel Sloan said in a 2021 interview that there is a unique challenge for pop music that covers topics about the environment, in particular climate change: it is tricky for these songs to connect to the listener on a personal emotional level (compared to a heartbreak song for example).
A few environment-themed songs and anthems did make an impression on music listeners looking at how they charted in the Official Singles Charts (UK) and how popular they are on Spotify. Out of the 206 songs we collected, around 10% were found in the UK charts.
Figure 3 shows that the 1980s saw a quarter of these songs charting in the UK Official Charts, followed by those released in the 1960s with a fifth and 1990s with a tenth of songs charting.
This could possibly highlight the mainstream anthems that swept the 60s, 80s and 90s pushing for people to identify with other songs covering environmental issues . For example, the 90s saw Michael Jackson sweep the UK charts with Earth Song peaking at #1 and Heal The World peaking at #2.
Although not as many environment-themed songs are charting now, the concern that audiences have a harder time relating to these songs have a personal level, and the strategy of “few songs, big hits” might be contributing to this shift.
Spotify also measures how popular songs are now on its platform. We find that some songs in our playlist are still being listened to. The Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun is the most popular song on Spotify from our sample. Although the song was created as a general appreciation of the sun, some music fans have reinterpreted the song as a warning about climate change.
Are these songs all doom and gloom or optimistic?
We used the song features available on Spotify that measure the positiveness (valence), danceability and energy of songs. In addition, we compared our playlist of environment-themed songs to a baseline, which is the representative mean of the most mainstream songs spanning from 1960s to 2020s (using Spotify official playlists representing each decade with about 150 songs per decade).
Positiveness
The first measure we’ll look at is the valence score or the measure of positiveness (further explained in methodology). Figure 5 shows that across most decades, the songs span a wide range of the level of positiveness.
The average valence for the environment-related songs, however, tends to stay below the average valence of the representative mainstream songs (which we will call the baseline).
Valence of both mainstream as well as environment-themed songs has trended downwards in the past few decades, which suggests that while mainstream songs sound less happy, our representative sample of environment-themed songs sound even less happy over time.
To get a sense of the differences between valence, here are a few songs to listen to:
- Fallen Fruit (2021) by Lorde has a low valence score of 0.10.
- Whereas Emergency on Planet Earth (1993) by Jamiroquai has a high valence score of 0.87.
Danceability
Another interesting feature is the danceability score, which can be thought of as how easily you can do a two-step while listening to the song (or three-step if it follows a waltz-like rhythm).
Over the decades, we see that the danceability of the environment-themed songs stays around the danceability score of 0.5 (Figure 6). Compared to the baseline, mainstream songs over time have increased in danceability.
This may imply that mainstream music has become more danceable over the decades, in contrast to environment-themed songs, which have stayed about the same. The lack of danceability could be one reason these songs haven’t increased in popularity over the last decade.
Here are some examples of the range of danceability amongst the environment-themed songs:
- Hands All Over (1989) by Soundgarden has a low danceability score of 0.19.
- Fish Ain’t Bitin’ (1997) by Corey Harris has a high danceability score of 0.89.
Energy
Our final measure we looked at was energy, where those that score high sound loud, noisy and fast. Here are some examples of songs on the energy scale:
- Man Walks Among Us (1990) by Jonathan Richman has a low energy score of 0.05.
- Meanwhile, Planet B (2019) has a high energy score of 0.90.
Just like the previous two measures, the mean energy score of environment-themed songs stayed below the mainstream baseline over the decades. Although the energy of environment-themed songs increased to around 0.7 in the 1980s, it steadily decreased from then on (Figure 7). However, the baseline has seen energy increase over the decades followed by a drop in the energy measure in the past two decades.
Compared to danceability and valence, the distribution of the energy scores have more variability. Nonetheless, the downward trend for environment-themed songs is still apparent.
Is this the decade for climate-themed music?
As showcased in this article, artists have continued to release songs appreciating the environment, pointing out the woes of pollution and climate change and calling for action. However, our sample of environment-themed songs also suggests that these songs might still be quite niche, with only a few making it into the charts over the years.
Could the difference between environment-themed songs and more mainstream songs in terms of positiveness and other measures of mood reflect the challenge of environment-themed songs relating with listeners on a personal level because of the stylistic choices? Or is this a reflection of how musicians feel about the climate in general: less hopeful and energetic?
Climate reporter Kendra Pierre-Louis, in a discussion on anthems for social movements, pointed out how anthems “basically say that this work [activism] is hard and necessary, and the way we do it is to find joy in each other”. Perhaps this suggests one of the keys to approaching environment-themed music, by reflecting on the joy of coming together to tackle the defining challenge of our time.
There are, however, encouraging signals that the 2020s might be shaping up to be the decade for climate-themed music and climate activism in the music industry.
There has been an increasing trend of music artists actively participating in the climate movement, composing for and with nature. In late 2019, Nick Mulvey pressed his single “Anthropocene” onto a record made from recycled plastic, which had been washed up on Cornish beaches. The work explored the themes of human responsibility and freedom affecting the climate and environment, and the proceeds were donated to Surfers Against Sewage.
Following their 2021 collaboration with Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research on the Roadmap to Super Low Carbon Live Music, Massive Attack plan to launch a show in 2024 using lower-carbon measures such as powering the side with renewable energy, a meat-free venue and special pre-sale for local neighbourhoods to dissuade people travelling from further afield.
EarthPercent’s co-founder Brian Eno in 2022 released a 10-song album calling attention to the climate crisis and ironically performing his song “There Were Bells” at the Acropolis in Athens where temperatures were soaring and wildfires happening near the city where he said: “Here we are at the birthplace of Western civilisation, probably witnessing the end of it.”
Cathy Runciman, the Executive Director of EarthPercent told us: “We notice, at EarthPercent, that many artists are wanting to engage with campaigns like ‘The Earth As you Co-writer’ or our new Featuring Nature campaign as a way to consider how the song can embed the Earth or nature in their work and creative a positive impact.”
2023 also saw a fair share of climate-focused news in the industry. Just Stop Oil activist Louise Harris achieved the first ever climate song to reach number no.1 in the UK iTunes charts. Yo-Yo Ma, Pattie Gonia and Quinn Christopherson hope to have their song as the next anthem for the climate movement whilst Greenpeace unveils a star-studded cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Don’t Stop to inspire young activists. More than 60 artists donated their songs for an EarthPercent compilation album for Earth Day 2023 where proceeds go to organisations fighting the climate crisis.
Music industry leaders Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music recently formed Music Industry Climate Collective (MICC) to amplify environmental stewardship and offer guidance on reducing the industry’s carbon footprint. Following this news, it will be interesting to see if this increases the trend of more climate activism across the industry.
New and emerging artists like North London-based Louis VI increasingly use music to tackle the climate crisis alongside capitalism and colonialism through a wide range of genres such as hip-hop, Afrobeat, jazz, funk and electronic. In his 2023 single Orange Skies, he is mixing “Amazonian rainstorms, British birdsong and uncomfortable truths”:
Orange skies all on my feed, yea
Use the Thames put more water on the trees, yea
Mother nature calling me all week, yea
Ain’t humans the puzzle to this piece, yea?
With all of that said, music is incredibly subjective and personal, as is our relationship with climate change and activism.
Listen to our playlist on Spotify and share your environment-themed songs in the comments below.
Methodology
All of the code for this analysis is written in Python. The code lives publicly on this GitHub page.
Compiling the environment-themed songs playlist
For this article, we collated a playlist using the Society for Conservation Biology song list, NPR Music’s “Songs for Climate Change: A COP26 Playlist”, several Spotify playlists created by the NY times and Spotify users (found here and here) and crowdsourced some suggestions from Nesta colleagues.
We reviewed and selected these songs by filtering them based on the following criteria:
- Songs should mention climate or environmental topics in the lyrics (for example, rising temperatures, rising sea levels, pollution and biodiversity). The meaning of the song shouldn’t be overly vague.
- Songs could also be mentioned in online articles and discussions as relevant to the climate conversation. For example, while Here Comes The Sun (1969) by The Beatles was originally not written about climate change, some have created that association now.
- Songs should have lyrics. This means that instrumental compositions, such as those by the acclaimed UK-based Fara that have been inspired by the renewable energy innovation in Orkney, were out of scope for this analysis.
- Lyrics should be in English. We recognise that many of the communities most affected by climate change are not primarily using English language, but we restricted our analysis to songs most likely listened by Anglophones.
- Songs should be found on Spotify. This allows for easy access to data provided by Spotify such as track features but we understand that there are many songs out there that aren’t found on the platform.
This list was created into a Spotify playlist and we used Spotipy, a python library for Spotify Web API to extract data and features for the analysis. The final list includes songs which were released from the 1960s to 2022.
Identifying songs that charted in Official Singles Charts (UK)
To analyse which songs have charted, we used the Official Singles Chart Top 100. To scrape the weekly top 100 charts dating from November 1952 to October 2022, we used and adapted python code written by Caine Osborne.
To find the environment-themed songs in the chart dataset, we utilised the fuzzy-matching method using Nesta’s jacc-hammer library and used the threshold score of 0.7 as we found suitable matches from this score and up.
Characterising Spotify song features & popularity
To analyse the features of the songs, we utilised the Spotify API track audio features through Spotipy, and focused on “valence”, “danceability” and “energy”.
Valence, according to Spotify, measures the musical positiveness conveyed in the track on a scale from 0.0 to 1.0. Where tracks with a high valence sound more positive (e.g. happy, cheerful, euphoric) and tracks with a low valence sound more negative (e.g. sad, depressed, angry)
Danceability is measured on a scale from 0.0 (least danceable) to 1.0 (most danceable) which describes how suitable a track is for dance based on the musical elements of tempo, rhythm stability, beat strength and overall regularity.
Energy is scored from 0.0 to 1.0 based on the perceptual measure of intensity and activity in a track. Musical elements such as the dynamic range, perceived loudness, timbre, onset rate and general entropy are included to interpret the energy level of the track. For example, an energetic track that is loud, noisy and fast would have a high energy score according to Spotify.
Additionally, we looked at the popularity. Popularity is measured on a scale from 0 to 100, least popular to the most popular respectively. This is calculated by Spotify’s algorithm which factors the total number of listens and how recent those listens are.
The final set of songs used in our analysis can be found on this playlist.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Karlis Kanders for his guidance, and Deborah Fox and Anna Landreth Strong for their insightful feedback and support for this project. I’m grateful to Liz Gallagher and Chris Williamson from Nesta’s Data Science Practice for their help in reviewing the climate song playlist. Thank you to Alexandra Burns, George Richardson and Siobhan Chan for reviewing the report. Also, thanks to Siobhan Chan and Lauren Orso on the communications front.
I wish to express my sincere gratitude to EarthPercent and specifically Cathy Runciman for her insightful comments on an earlier version of this report. Please note that their input does not necessarily imply endorsement of the findings or discussion.
