The Museum for the United Nations’ UN
Live has launched Sounds
Right
— a global music initiative that enables Nature to generate conservation funding
from her own sounds. The initiative aims to spark a global conversation about
the value of Nature and support millions of music fans to take meaningful action
to protect our planet.
Sounds Right was developed and delivered in close partnership with musicians,
creatives and nature-sound recordists, as well as environmental, campaigning and
global advocacy organizations. With timeless classic sounds such as ocean waves,
wind, rainstorms and birdsong, Nature has a long history of contributing to
music. Now, “Nature” will be recognized as an official artist with her own
profile on major streaming platforms. By simply listening to music that features
sounds of the natural world, UN Live says fans will help to fund Nature
conservation and restoration projects in our most precious and precarious
ecosystems.
“Popular culture — like music — has the power to engage millions and millions of
people, ignite positive global change at scale, and get us all on a more
sustainable path,” said UN Live CEO Katja
Iversen. “In a world where empathy
is declining and many people often feel that their actions hardly matter, Sounds
Right and UN Live meet people where they already are — on their screens and in
their earbuds — with stories and formats they can relate to, and actions that
matter to them. Recognizing Nature as the valuable artist it truly is will be a
game changer."
From Colombia to India by way of Norway, Venezuela, Kenya,
Denmark, UK, US and Indonesia, a truly global selection of
artists took part — releasing new tracks or remixing hits to “Feat. Nature” by
including sounds from a vast range of ecosystems all over the world. Fans can
also relax with ambient nature sounds — ecosystem recordings from The Listening
Planet and
VozTerra — with a significant portion of
royalties directed to high-impact conservation initiatives.
Ellie Goulding’s “Brightest Blue — Nature
Remix”
uses sounds from the lush rainforests of Colombia recorded by VozTerra. Brian
Eno’s new mix of his David Bowie collaboration, “Get
Real,”
features the cries of hyenas, rooks and wild pigs; while **Anuv Jain’**s
“Baarishein” features the sounds of Indian rains, and Cosmo Sheldrake’s
"Soil"
is a homage to the generative capacities of subterranean ecosystems. Louis
VI collaborated with acoustic ecologist and Listening Planet and
Biophonica founder Martyn
Stewart for “Orange
Skies”
— a track also featuring artists Mick
Jenkins and Jelani
Blackman
that focuses on the environmental destruction caused by forest fires, with
sounds from the Borneo rainforest.
As Eno told the BBC:
"It's a way of saying to artists, 'We all use sounds like seagulls and waves and
wind. Why don't we pay Nature a royalty?' Hopefully it'll be a river, or a
torrent, or a flood of royalties — and then what we do is distribute that among
groups of people who are working on projects to help us deal with the future."
All tracks can be enjoyed on the “Feat. Nature”
playlist
on Spotify and the tracks can be found on major music streaming platforms.
The goal of this evergreen initiative is to activate fans, raise funds, spark a
global conversation about how we value nature, and inspire a sense of agency in
our collective efforts to protect the planet. Fans will be encouraged to take
follow-up actions to conserve nature — such as recording morning birdsong for
biomonitoring and adopting sustainable behaviors — all helping to build a wider
movement for change. Sounds Right knowledge partners project the initiative will
generate over $40 million for conservation with over 600m individual listeners in its
first four years.
Sounds Right comes at a critical time. Wildlife populations have declined by an
average 69 percent in the past 50 years, at least 1.2 million plant and animal
species are estimated to be at threat of extinction, and biodiversity has
been added to the list of critical sustainability
considerations
for the corporate world. Sounds Right looks to flip our extractive relationship
with nature on its head while recognizing Nature’s contribution to the creative
industries.
“Biocultural heritage will greatly benefit from music royalties and donations,”
said Mindahi Bastida, leader of the
Otomi-Toltec
people and Sounds Right Expert Advisory Panel Member. “In a way, it is about
paying back to life systems that have inspired the human spirit through the
magic of sound. The time has come to live in permanent reciprocity.”
UN Live says Sounds Right is not a one-off, but the start of a broader push for Nature — with inbuilt heart beats, regular track releases, and discussions about the value of nature across the globe The initiative creates a new, credible and scalable finance mechanism to capture music royalties and distribute them to high-impact conservation projects around the world and will spark conversations about how Nature can — and should — be valued in our society and economic models.
The initiative was developed by UN Live in
close collaboration with a unique coalition of partners including AKQA,
Axum, Biophonica, Community Arts Network, Count Us In, Dalberg,
EarthPercent, Earthrise, Eleutheria Group, Hempel Foundation,
LD Communications, Limbo Music, The Listening Planet, Music Declares
Emergency, No. 29, Rare and VozTerra.
Spotify is supporting Sounds Right through a charitable donation to the Sounds
Right fund managed by EarthPercent — the
music industry’s climate foundation — and by promoting the campaign through its
app, OOH media and social channels to aid nature conservation. Sounds Right has
been developed in consultation with the UN Department for Communications, and is
joining forces with The Nature Conservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society, APCO,
Riky Rick Foundation and AWorld x ActNow to encourage millions of music fans
around the globe to recognize the value of Nature and to inspire them to take
action.
“It's been fantastic to see so many brilliant artists excited to engage
creatively with the sounds of Nature and supportive of Sounds Right's core
objective to see that Nature is fairly compensated for her musical
contributions,” said Cathy
Runciman, Co-Executive Director
of EarthPercent. “We know that many artists care deeply about protecting and
restoring Nature and it's a privilege to launch these collaborations via the
Feat. Nature playlist and together generate positive impact for biodiversity.”
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Apr 25, 2024 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST