'Rock' Stars: Nature Officially Becomes a Musician
Here's a musical riddle: "The greatest artist of all time has never been credited for her work. Until now."
It's difficult — you might not guess it.
The answer is: "Nature."
But that's not the name of a band or a singer. The world around us — the waves of the sea, the chirps of crickets, the whistling wind — has officially become a musician.
You might ask how on earth that could work.
The project is called "Sounds Right." It's being run by the Museum for the United Nations — UN Live.
Musicians have always loved experimenting with the sounds around them. You might know the Beatles' song "Blackbird," which includes real bird noises, or perhaps you've heard the real rain on Guns N' Roses' "November Rain."
And more recently, American singer Ariana Grande used the noises of crickets on her song "Positions."
The idea of this new project is to recognize nature as a contributing artist on these tracks, in listings on streaming platforms like Spotify.
Think of it as: "The Beatles, featuring Nature."
The result of these credits is that Nature will make money in royalties, and these royalties will then be given to environmental charities and initiatives.
Artists will be able to choose if they would like to credit "Nature" on their track. Bands and artists including London Grammar, Ellie Goulding and Tom Walker have already done it.
Nature's "artist page" will also include nature sounds that other artists can use.
The UN hopes the project will raise $40 million in the first four years.
Gabriel Smales, the director of Sounds Right, said: "The dream is that any artist who's interested in collaborating with Nature is able to visit our website, download nature samples and tag nature on their tracks."
In the words of AKQA, one of the partners of the project: "It's not every day a rock becomes a star."
And let's hear it for the beetles too!
