Month: April 2021

Hong Kong Beat music set for Earth Day – Side 2 ‘Hope’

While curating this playlist, two things occurred to me: first, there is much to celebrate about the Earth but there are few modern songs that do that; and second, maybe the reason for that, awareness in the minds of many artists wanting to sound warnings about what we are doing to create a precarious future.

There is a third as well, and that was the difficulty in choosing so few songs for a meaningful set, so I’ve made two ‘sides’. The first highlights how we are abusing the Earth and jeopardising our long term survival, the second celebrates the wonders of the Earth and how we should perhaps treasure them, as well as some songs of perhaps forlorn hope.

Side 2 brings songs that celebrate the wonders of the Earth, or a message of hope. One song raises what some see as a way out of trouble – extra-terrestrial salvation, but the following suggests that any visitors from other planets might see what we have done and decide that we aren’t worth it. We have to fix this ourselves.

Hong Kong Beat raising awareness on Earth Day – Side 1 ‘Awareness’

While curating this playlist, two things occurred to me: first, there is much to celebrate about the Earth but there are few modern songs that do that; and second, maybe the reason for that, awareness in the minds of many artists wanting to sound warnings about what we are doing to create a precarious future.

There is a third as well, and that was the difficulty in choosing so few songs for a meaningful set, so I’ve made two ‘sides’ – the first highlights how we are abusing the Earth and jeopardising our long term survival, the second celebrates the wonders of the Earth and how we should perhaps treasure them, as well as some songs of perhaps forlorn hope.

The biggest thing to take away from side 1 is that most of these songs are classics in the pop, rock or R&B genres, but are around 40-50 years old! The message is that we have not been listening for a long time now and, to quote Marvin Gaye in 1971 “How much more abuse from man can she stand?”