Newsletter: Introducing the Canary Media energy and climate playlist

Last Friday, we asked readers to send us climate- and energy-themed songs to add to a crowdsourced playlist. Boy, did you all deliver!

Without further ado, here is Canary Media’s energy and climate playlist:

There was a ton of variety in the hundreds of suggestions we received, but a handful of songs were recommended by multiple readers. The most popular request was the Beatles’ ​“Here Comes the Sun,” followed in close second by MGMT’s ​“Electric Feel.”

The tone ranged wildly too. The playlist kicks off with the high energy of The 5^th Dimension’s ​“Let the Sunshine in (Reprise)” but later gets somber with Ludovico Einaudi’s ​“Elegy for the Arctic.”

Also on the more serious side is ​“The Wolf Is at the Door,” written and performed by Alex Goldman, co-host of the popular podcast Reply All, who, like many of us, struggles with climate anxiety.

Reply All even has a whole podcast episode about climate anxiety and the creation of the song. Emily Atkin, author of the Heated newsletter, contributed to the song’s creation.

Solar analyst Bryan White recommended the ​’90s bop ​“Steal My Sunshine” by the band Len and joked that it ​“is clearly a metaphorical exposé of utilities fighting rooftop solar adoption.”

Tiffany Douglass, director of marketing communications at Stem, wrote, ​“If I had to sum up my altruistic energy career motivation in one lyrical verse, it’d be from ​‘I Was Here’ by Beyoncé. The music video alone gives me chills.”

Ethan Tremblay, a solar and storage analyst in the Maine Governer’s Energy Office, wrote, ​“Maine-based indie-folk group GoldenOak released a climate change-focused album, Room to Grow, earlier this year. [There are] lots of soulful reflections on the ecological and social effects of climate change and associated transitions.”

Matt Roberts of SimpliPhi Power tweeted a suggestion of ​“GRID” by Public Enemy, calling it ​“a treatise on the [California] grid.”

Thank you to Ken Oatman, Emily Kehmeier, Simon Mahan and the teams from Sonoma Clean Power, Silicon Valley Clean Energy, First Solar and more that sent over pre-curated lists.

We also couldn’t help but include a song called ​“Canary” (they did spend a lot of time in coal mines, after all).

Thank you for your submissions and for being Canary subscribers! Hopefully, you will find a new favorite song to add to your own rotations.

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