Most people might not open their streaming platform of choice and play a track of wave sounds or bird calls. But on the cross-DSP page that lists “Nature” as an official artist, listeners will hear many of Mother Earth’s greatest hits, rarities and B-sides woven into songs from a growing group of musicians making nature-infused music for a good and urgent cause.
Launched in April 2024, this project, called Sounds Right, raises money for conservation efforts by generating royalties from noises credited to “nature.” On Tuesday (April 22), in honor of Earth Day, the multi-genre playlist is adding music from 36 new artists, all of whom have created original songs incorporating elements like the crashing of waves and glaciers, the delicate buzz of moth wings, running antelopes and wildlife in the dense Amazonian rainforest — all recorded out in the field.
Some of the artists involved include U.K. disco pop duo Franc Moody, Belgian techno star Amelie Lens, Indian pop artist Armaan Malik, hip-hop group KAM-BU and Swedish House Mafia’s Steve Angello. A track by I. JORDAN features the call of the U.K.’s rare Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, while London producer Alice Boyd layered vintage 1970s bird songs with present-day recordings to illustrate the natural soundscapes that have been lost to human development. Many of the project’s archival nature sounds were donated by esteemed field recording artist Martyn Stewart and his project, The Listening Planet.
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As the music industry grapples with how to mitigate climate change within the sector, Sounds Right’s expansion is another indicator that artists are keen to plug into opportunities to help. Sounds Right global program director Gabriel Smales tells Billboard that many of these artists were recruited by EarthPercent and Eleutheria Group — both Sounds Right partners who reached out to musicians with “what we think is one of the most meaningful creative opportunities in music,” he says. Other artists reached out to Sounds Right directly with a desire to contribute, raise money and, Smales says, “treat the natural world as a partner — a creative force with something urgent to say.”
While the original group of Sounds Right artists mostly remixed pre-existing songs to incorporate wind, waves, birds and more, Tuesday’s addition is largely new music, a shift that Smales says “tells us this isn’t a one-time campaign — it’s becoming a space for genuine artistic and cultural expression.” He cites an ambitious goal of “every artist” making at least one track “with Nature” and says Sounds Right will soon be announcing a way for anyone who’d like to participate to get on board.
A huge incentive to do so? The project is working. The tracks included in Sounds Right’s 2024 launch have racked up more than 100 million streams from more than 10 million listeners, with Smales citing “significant” media interest and social media engagement. In the last year, Sounds Right has raised $225,000 for Indigenous and community-led conservation in the Tropical Andes, an area famous for its biodiversity, with $100,000 coming from royalties and the rest coming from individual and institutional donations.
This money has funded organizations like Colombia’s Fundación Proyecto Tití, which protects critically endangered cotton-top tamarin monkeys and employs locals to steward more than 2,200 acres of regenerated forest. The money from Sounds Right has specifically funded the group’s restoration work with local farmers and the preservation of forest corridors. Meanwhile, money donated to Reserva Natural La Planada is being used to invest in scientific tourism and the protection of biocultural heritage across nearly 8,000 acres of land governed by 10 Indigenous communities in Colombia’s Awá Pialapí Pueblo Reserve.
As more artists contribute and Sounds Right streams grow, royalties are expected to scale “significantly,” says Smales, at which point leaders will invite more donors and match-funders to multiply funding. Smales anticipates committing “far more” funding in 2025 than in 2024 and aims to raise $5 million annually by 2028.
But he says Sounds Right leaders “are under no illusion” that $5 million a year will fix the accelerating horrors of climate change and attendant environmental degradation. Wildlife populations have dropped by an average of 69% in the past 50 years, more than 1.2 million species are currently at risk of extinction and more than two-thirds of the Earth’s land and marine ecosystems have been degraded by human activity. Meanwhile, wildfires, floods, extreme heat and other weather events are affecting delicate ecosystems and displacing humans and animals around the world.
“So far we’ve failed to address the root cause of the biodiversity crisis,” Smales says. “Our economic model doesn’t value nature properly, treating it as a resource to be optimally exploited and a place to dump our waste.” As such, a major goal for Sounds Right is getting people to see nature’s inherent value and recognizing the earth as not just something we use and live on, but as a living entity to protect.
Sounds Right is pushing this message on multiple continents. In Denmark, the project is helping send young people on artist-led nature trips and encouraging them to share 10-second field recordings as part of a #naturesings campaign. In Colombia, Sounds Right partner VozTerra is supporting teachers to train their students in acoustic ecology. A project in Kenya is forthcoming, as is additional music to be added to the playlist in conjunction with World Mental Health Day in October. Ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in the Brazilian Amazon this November, Sounds Right will spotlight musical “collaborations” with the Amazon and Congo Basins, which together produce roughly 40% of the world’s oxygen and which are targeted to start receiving Sounds Right funding from 2025 onwards.
While climate change is daunting and the world is vast, Smales thinks Sounds Right has huge potential to effect change, given that it meets people in a very personal place: “their ears and the phones in their pockets.” The idea is to create greater interest in and love for nature by putting it in the music we all live our lives to, an awakening Smales hopes will inspire people to do more and to demonstrate the public demand for change to business and political leaders.
“We’re working,” he says, “to go beyond the headphones and build a deeper sense of agency in our collective efforts to protect the planet.”
