NEW YORK, Nov 9 ― The United Nations is categorical: the destructive impact of the climate crisis is reaching an unprecedented level. The seriousness of the situation has led many musicians to address the environmental cause in their lyrics, in turn giving rise to apocalypse pop.
Apocalypse pop is not a specific musical style, as the American news site Vox explains. Rather, it is the embodiment, in song, of a prevailing feeling of climate anxiety. While anyone can suffer from this new kind of anxiety disorder, it is particularly widespread among younger generations. In fact, 60 per cent of 16-25 year olds in 10 countries across the world say they suffer from this condition, according to a 2021 study published in The Lancet Planetary Health.
Music fans are not spared from this climate anxiety, regardless of age. Researchers at the University of Glasgow found that 54 per cent of British music lovers agree that “tackling climate change should be a top priority now, above other issues,” compared to 47 per cent of respondents who were not music fans.
As such, it's not surprising that more and more musicians are echoing the environmental demands of a part of the world's population ― Billie Eilish in the lead. The American singer organised conferences on the climate crisis in London, coinciding with her latest world tour, named after her second album, Happier Than Ever. She also spoke about the dramatic consequences of climate change and the collapse of biodiversity in her song All the Good Girls Go to Hell, taken from her first album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
The soundtrack to climate anxiety
And other artists have followed suit. In 2020, the New York Times analysed Billboard's music charts from the past two decades and found at least 192 references to the multiple consequences of climate change. Childish Gambino alludes to global warming and the destruction of biodiversity in his track Feels Like Summer, while the band Gojira addresses the (too) many threats facing the Amazon rainforest in its song Amazonia.
At a time when social networks are being used as an outlet for a whole generation, young people are bringing their climate anxiety to TikTok in a host of videos. These are often set to the sound of apocalypse pop songs like Orange by the band Pinegrove. “I worry about our planet weekly, I'm aware I'm not doing enough daily, I'm hurt there's only so much I can do hourly... but there are glimmers of hope for earth,” the musician Limbo explains to 222,000 followers on TikTok, in a video posted April 22 for Earth Day.
But is this a genuine cry of distress, or a falsely sincere outpouring echoing the social media trend for “sadfishing”? The question is open to debate, but Sarah Jaquette Ray, professor of environmental studies at California Polytechnic State University and author of “A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety,” sees it as a need to reach out to each other and connect. “The antidote to our feelings is the same antidote to the climate crisis, which is community,” she told Vox.
A call to action
Apocalypse pop allows music lovers gripped by climate anxiety to fully embrace their deep fears about the end of the world and their anger at political inaction. It encourages them not to wallow in these negative emotions, but rather to channel them into becoming an agent of change. This is one of the virtues of climate anxiety and, by extension, its musical incarnation. “[It] expresses a lucidity, which makes us want to create places of utopia, joy, connection and encounter that can restore confidence in a future perceived as compromised,” explains Alice Desbiolles, a physician and author on the subject of climate anxiety, told ETX Studio.
Alarmist as they may be, apocalypse pop songs offer a (small) glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. They are not only a tool of peaceful protest, but they also help to build a protest identity insofar as they leave their mark on people and stick in their minds. These songs encourage their listeners to shake off their lethargy and prepare themselves for the environmental changes to come.
Take Bartees Strange, for example. This American songwriter left his job in an environmental nonprofit in 2020, in order to devote himself fully to his music. He has since released two albums, Live Forever and Farm to Table, in which he addresses themes that are dear to him, including the climate challenge. In Escape the Circus, Bartees Strange addresses the thorny issue of the individual and the collective, and the efforts to be made in the face of the climate emergency. “We are all part of this circus. All on our own horses,” he sings. A call to action, and to act now. ― ETX Studio
