New book Decomposed explores music’s environmental impact
The new book Decomposed: The Political Ecology Of Music is being published by MIT Press.
It’s easy to argue that recorded music has evolved from physical discs to invisible sights and has therefore reduced its environmental impact. Think again.
In the book Decomposed: The Political Ecology Of Music, author Kyle Devine offers another perspective, showing that recorded music “has always been a significant exploiter of both natural and human resources and that its reliance on these resources is more problematic today than ever before.”
Decomposed “uncovers the hidden history of recorded music- what recordings are made of and what happens to them when they are disposed of.”
Devine’s story focuses on three forms of materiality, namely rpm records (resin), CDs/cassettes/LPs (petroleum-based plastic) and data-based audio files.
Sounds like environmental impact, to me
We tend to think of the recordings we buy as finished products, without contemplating how it got there- “the people who harvest and process these materials, from women and children in the Global South to scientists and industrialists in the Global North.”
Vinyl is making a major comeback, but remember that vinyl records are oil products, making the vinyl revival part of petrocapitalism.
And of the topic of online streaming, Devine says it doesn’t present a responsible alternative because “streaming music relies on infrastructures of data storage, processing and transmission that have potentially higher greenhouse gas emissions than the petrochemical plastics used in the production of more obviously physical formats such as LPs. To stream music is to burn coal, uranium and gas.”
Buy the new book Decomposed: The Political Ecology Of Music via Amazon.
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