Quantcast
Powered by RebelMouse

Neil Young's New Album EARTH Breaks All the Rules

Lorraine Chow
Apr. 29, 2016 10:14AM EST Animals

Neil Young has announced his new, full-length album EARTH. The 98-minute record, out June 17, features an unusual set of collaborators: live animals.

Young described his latest project on social media:

We made a live record and every creature on the planet seemed to show up. Suddenly all the living things of Earth were in the audience going crazy. Then they took over the stage, letting their wild sounds mingle with the Vanilla Singers perfect corporate harmony. Earth's creatures let loose, there were Bee breakdowns, Bird breakdowns and yes, even Wall Street breakdowns, jamming with me and Promise of the Real! The show was non stop bliss for 98 minutes, no breaks. EARTH does not fit on iTunes. It breaks all their rules (and couldn’t all really be heard that way anyway) No one who was there will ever forget the love, wonder and beautiful madness of EARTH. I know I won’t. Neil

EARTH consists of recordings from Young's tour last year with the band Promise Of The Real for his preceding album, The Monsanto Years. AlterNet described Young's 36th studio album, as a "concept-based criticism" of Monsanto, the world’s biggest seed company, and also a condemnation of other multinational agriculture giants like Syngenta, Dow, Dupont and Bayer that have also, like Monsanto, "garnered control of global seed production."

Promise Of The Real guitarist Lukas Nelson lauded the new LP. "I just listened to our new record EARTH with Neil Young ... One of the single greatest audio experiences I've ever had," he wrote on Instagram.

The world premiere of EARTH will be hosted by the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles on May 6. And, according to an announcement about the event, it's sure to be spectacular:

Against the backdrop of the Museum’s blossoming outdoor Nature Gardens, musician and icon Neil Young will present the first public playback of his upcoming release, EARTH, in its entirety in Pono high definition fidelity audio, before its June 17 release. The album features “After the Gold Rush,” “Vampire Blues,” and an explosive 29-minute version of "Love & Only Love,” and includes some unexpected accompaniment—the sounds of many different kinds of wildlife.

The Grammy Award-winning artist and environmental crusader said in a press release that EARTH "flows as a collection of 13 songs from throughout my life, songs I have written about living here on our planet together. Our animal kingdom is well represented in the audience as well, and the animals, insects, birds, and mammals actually take over the performances of the songs at times."

Young also told Rolling Stone last year that EARTH is "like nothing that I've done. It's more like a giant radio show."

"It has no stops," he continued. "The songs are too long for iTunes, thank God, so they won't be on iTunes. I'm making it available in the formats that can handle it ... Imagine it's a live show where the audience is full of every living thing on Earth. And also they overtake the music once in a while and play the instruments. It's not conventional, but it is based on live performance."

On Tuesday, Young kicked off his 2016 world tour with Promise Of The Real in New Braunfels, Texas with guest star and legendary rocker Willie Nelson.

The tour then stopped by Nashville, Texas's Ascend Amphitheater yesterday. The concert received rave reviews from local publication, The Tennesseean:

At 70 years old, the rock icon hasn't lost a step. His voice is still in fine form, and the audience sang along reverently to every word of classics like "Heart of Gold" and "Long May You Run." After an opening set from singer-songwriter Steve Earle (whose debut album "Guitar Town" turned 30 this year) and half a dozen of his own solo songs, Young brought out his backing band Promise of the Real: Five rootsy rockers including Willie Nelson's sons, Lukas and Micah Nelson—and played another 90 minutes.

Here is EARTH's track listing:

1. "People Want to Hear About Love" (from The Monsanto Years)

2. "Big Box" (from The Monsanto Years)

3. "Mother Earth" (from Ragged Glory)

4. "The Monsanto Years" (from The Monsanto Years)

5. "I Won't Quit" (previously unreleased)

6. "Western Hero" (from Sleeps With Angels)

7. "Vampire Blues" (from On The Beach)

8. "Hippie Dream" (from Landing On Water)

9. "After The Gold Rush" (from After The Gold Rush)

10. "Wolf Moon" (from The Monsanto Years)

11. "Love & Only Love" (from Ragged Glory)

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

featured biodiversity animals featured-home

EcoWatch Daily Newsletter

beef

Beef Industry Takes the Biggest Bite Out of Earth's Natural Resources

Climate

georgeclerk / E+ / Getty Images

By Jennifer Molidor

One million species are at risk of extinction from human activity, warns a recent study by scientists with the United Nations. We need to cut greenhouse gas pollution across all sectors to avoid catastrophic climate change — and we need to do it fast, said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

This research should serve as a rallying cry for polluting industries to make major changes now. Yet the agriculture industry continues to lag behind.

Read More Show Less
beef industrial agriculture beef production agriculture agribusiness
elephants

Botswana Lifts 5-Year Ban on Hunting Elephants

Animals
Edwin Remsburg / VW Pics / Getty Images

Botswana, home to one third of Africa's elephants, announced Wednesday that it was lifting its ban on the hunting of the large mammals.

"The Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism wishes to inform the public that following extensive consultations with all stakeholders, the Government of Botswana has taken a decision to lift the hunting suspension," the government announced in a press release shared on social media.

Read More Show Less
conservation wildlife poaching elephants botswana chobe national park
Sponsored
chemicals

Company Safety Data Sheets on New Chemicals Frequently Lack the Worker Protections EPA Claims They Include

Insights + Opinion
Pxhere

By Richard Denison

Readers of this blog know how concerned EDF is over the Trump EPA's approval of many dozens of new chemicals based on its mere "expectation" that workers across supply chains will always employ personal protective equipment (PPE) just because it is recommended in the manufacturer's non-binding safety data sheet (SDS).

Read More Show Less
chemicals epa trump administration environmental defense fund
nuclear

Former U.S. Nuclear Safety Chief: 'New Nuclear Is off the Table'

Energy
De Molen windmill and nuclear power plant cooling tower in Doel, Belgium. Trougnouf / CC BY-SA 4.0

By Grant Smith

From 2009 to 2012, Gregory Jaczko was chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which approves nuclear power plant designs and sets safety standards for plants. But he now says that nuclear power is too dangerous and expensive — and not part of the answer to the climate crisis.

Read More Show Less
nuclear climate change offshore wind solar renewable energy conservation
plastics

‘It’s Raining Plastic’: Researchers Find Microscopic Fibers in Colorado Rain Samples

Popular
A lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. Brett Walton / Circle of Blue

By Brett Walton

When Greg Wetherbee sat in front of the microscope recently, he was looking for fragments of metals or coal, particles that might indicate the source of airborne nitrogen pollution in Rocky Mountain National Park. What caught his eye, though, were the plastics.

Read More Show Less
plastics circle of blue marine life water wastewater
Sponsored
fur free

Prada Bans Fur in Victory for Animal Rights

Animals
Gabriele Holtermann Gorden / Pacific Press / LightRocket / Getty Images

In a big victory for animals, Prada has announced that it's ending its use of fur! It joins Coach, Jean Paul Gaultier, Giorgio Armani, Versace, Ralph Lauren, Vivienne Westwood, Michael Kors, Donna Karan and many others PETA has pushed toward a ban.

This is a victory more than a decade in the making. PETA and our international affiliates have crashed Prada's catwalks with anti-fur signs, held eye-catching demonstrations all around the world, and sent the company loads of information about the fur industry. In 2018, actor and animal rights advocate Pamela Anderson sent a letter on PETA's behalf urging Miuccia Prada to commit to leaving fur out of all future collections, and the iconic designer has finally listened.

Read More Show Less
animal rights fur ban fur fur free nyc peta fur free
climate change

Drastically Shorter Workweeks Needed to Fight Climate Crisis, Study Finds

Climate
Amer Ghazzal / Barcroft Media / Getty Images

If people in three European countries want to fight the climate crisis, they need to chill out more.

That's the conclusion of a new study from think tank Autonomy, which found that Germany, the UK and Sweden all needed to drastically reduce their workweeks to fight climate change.

"The rapid pace of labour-saving technology brings into focus the possibility of a shorter working week for all, if deployed properly," Autonomy Director Will Stronge said, The Guardian reported. "However, while automation shows that less work is technically possible, the urgent pressures on the environment and on our available carbon budget show that reducing the working week is in fact necessary."

The report found that if the economies of Germany, Sweden and the UK maintain their current levels of carbon intensity and productivity, they would need to switch to a six, 12 and nine hour work week respectively if they wanted keep the rise in global temperatures to the below two degrees Celsius promised by the Paris agreement, The Independent reported.

The study based its conclusions on data from the UN and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) on greenhouse gas emissions per industry in all three countries.

The report comes as the group Momentum called on the UK's Labour Party to endorse a four-day work week.

"We welcome this attempt by Autonomy to grapple with the very real changes society will need to make in order to live within the limits of the planet," Emma Williams of the Four Day Week campaign said in a statement reported by The Independent. "In addition to improved well-being, enhanced gender equality and increased productivity, addressing climate change is another compelling reason we should all be working less."

Supporters of the idea linked it to calls in the U.S. and Europe for a Green New Deal that would decarbonize the economy while promoting equality and well-being.

"This new paper from Autonomy is a thought experiment that should give policymakers, activists and campaigners more ballast to make the case that a Green New Deal is absolutely necessary," Common Wealth think tank Director Mat Lawrence told The Independent. "The link between working time and GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions has been proved by a number of studies. Using OECD data and relating it to our carbon budget, Autonomy have taken the step to show what that link means in terms of our working weeks."

Stronge also linked his report to calls for a Green New Deal.

"Becoming a green, sustainable society will require a number of strategies – a shorter working week being just one of them," he said, according to The Guardian. "This paper and the other nascent research in the field should give us plenty of food for thought when we consider how urgent a Green New Deal is and what it should look like."

Related Articles Around the Web
From Your Site Articles
green new deal climate change workweek labour party climate crisis
climate change

Amazon Votes Down Employee-Backed Climate Resolution

Business
Amazon Employees for Climate Justice held a press conference after the annual shareholder meeting on May 22. Amazon Employees for Climate Justice

Amazon shareholders voted down an employee-backed resolution calling for more aggressive action on climate change at their annual meeting Wednesday, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Read More Show Less
fossil fuels business sustainability climate change