What is solarpunk music?

We explore the audio landscape of deliciously sustainable futures

Solarpunk is a movement that comes with a genre but does it have a soundtrack too? Is there such a thing as solarpunk music?

In the third part of Indigo Gaming’s epic documentary series about Cyberpunk, they say the music for this genre were brooding synths alongside industrial techno, rock and metal. These elements reflected the gloomy, technological pessimism of that genre.

We asked our social media followers what their solarpunk tracks were. Chillwave, ambient, trance and lofi electronica were some of the most popular responses. They are also the top hits you get when you search for solarpunk on YouTube.

But when you look at tracks titled ‘solarpunk’ you see a lot more variety. There’s foot-tapping electro, jaunty pop and even industrial techno. Some other of our social media followers suggested European classical, American hip-hop and world music.

This poses the question - is there just one genre of solarpunk music or many?

Just as we’ve argued there are lots of shades of solarpunk art and fiction, we also think there are different types of solarpunk music. Like in our deep-dive “What is solarpunk? One thing or many?” we think that for songs to be solarpunk they need to be sunny, soulful or uplifting to some degree. Nothing too dark, grim or heavy.

After that it depends on your taste. If you’re more of a Cottage Solar type of person then folk, world or acoustic might be more your thing. Metropolis Solar could be more synth and electronic. Rooted Solar might be more urban like hip-hop and drum and bass or even punk.

In our SolarPunk Stories playlist we’ve got tunes from many different genres. We’ve chosen our tracks based on their lyrics, vibe and titles rather than just the musical style.

For example, we’ve included The Morning Aria: The glitt'ring Sun by the 18^th Century composer Thomas Arne. This is because of its bright title as well as cheerful tune. We added the song Imagine by the rapper Common due to its chorus of;

“I’ve been dreaming of a paradise

Somewhere a little Paris-like

Where I want to be.

Let’s travel to the greener side

A lovely place inside my mind

Don’t you want to see?”

We’ve also included some tunes due to the afro-futurist influences on solarpunk. Tracks like Sun Ra’s Sunology and Con La Brisa from Wakanda Forever.

Giallo by Robohands is on our playlist partly because of the colour of the album cover and also as a nod to our SolarPunk Detective stories. Robohands was inspired by the music of Italian mystery films of the 60s and 70s which were called ‘giallo’ due to the yellow colour of the crime books they shared murderous themes with. We’ve also included it as we think it sounds awesome.

Then there are tunes such as the recently released SolarPunk Anthem by Utopian Art Machine. This poppy track has the most explicitly solarpunk lyrics of any we’ve heard so far. Not just in its title but also how it urges us to rise boldly into a world of vertical farms, ‘mighty wind turbines’ and cities in bloom.

What are your thoughts? Are certain genres definitely solarpunk and others definitely not? What songs do you think of as being solarpunk? What are your favourites from our playlist?

If you saw a solarpunk club night or festival (like those run by our friends Solarpunks Club) what type of music would encourage you to go along and groove down?

Let us know in the comments below.

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See you in the sunshine,

Alex Holland

Founder, SolarPunk Stories