Newsletter: Introducing the Canary Media energy and climate playlist

We asked and you delivered a diverse crowdsourced playlist of energy and climate-themed songs.
By Mike Munsell

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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 5th 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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Mike Munsell is director of growth at Canary Media.