For the Record

Author: Melissa Marshall

Maybe it all started with the female M&M, but nowadays, green is sexy. Ever the trendsetter, Thom Yorke of Radiohead fame embarked on an eco-friendly tour this summer, choosing to bumble about by bus in lieu of celebrity-cache jet setting. Despite the band's efforts to vigilantly monitor their carbon footprint - tracking the differences between small and cityscape venues as well as fuel and food consumption - most of their emissions were accrued by their lifeblood: the fans. Thinking about the sincerity of Yorke's plaintive cry on "My Iron Lung," I never question his good intentions; however, one has to examine the effectiveness of a "green tour." You can't dissuade faithful listeners from traveling to a show, and it seems that the purpose of touring is to hit as many locales as possible - especially in the indie-rock genre where live shows generate the only revenue and reputation for under-the-radar artists. Paradox or not, Yorke's dedication to the environment deserves commendation, but he seems to have shook the eco-world more effectively with his industry shattering move from hard-copy music to purely digital.

Cultivated as more of a screw-you to the record labels, October 2007's name-your-own price download of In Rainbows topsy-turvied the music world's economy, but it also had the unforeseen impact of cutting carbon emissions: no plastic for jewel cases, no trees for pamphlets.

Even without Radiohead and after the demise of Napster and the faltering of LimeWire, digital purchase has taken the forefront of how post-Generation-Xers consume music. And while idealism protests feeding the machine of iTunes, other music download services such as mp3fiesta.com (20 cents per download), Rhapsody.com and Zune.net offer alternatives when unable to buy directly from the band's website.

From Pearl Jam's $100,000 donations to Green Day's eco-friendly YouTube videos to Guster's Reverb tours, the music industry is humming an environmentally friendly tune and backing it up with the banknotes. Even the guitar strings from Barenaked Ladies' concerts are being recycled into fashion-forward jewelry.

In the shadow of famous heads of green-marketed headliners of the likes of Dave Matthews, Jack Johnson and Sheryl Crow, however, is the Minnesota band Cloud Cult. If they sound familiar, it's not because of a Zoroastrian seminar you took last Fall - the sextet took the stage as part of Middlebury's 2007 Energy Symposium.

Formed in the pre-"An Inconvenient Truth" days of the early 90s, Cloud Cult records music in a small studio made from reclaimed scrap materials and packages their CDs in personally-polished reused jewel cases, which are also shrink-wrapped in environmentally benign LDPE plastic rather than the industry-standard toxic PVC. And that's not all - they also donate all profits after expenses to eco-charity efforts. Oh, and they also produce catchy music.

While the rough-around-the edges 2005 Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus is as skip-able as their first two releases and 2008's Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tomatoes) - very possibly their last album - spins solid but unremarkably, 2007's Meaning of 8 is the proverbial just right. The album incorporates some of the acoustic-driven anthems of high school in true Taking Back Sunday tradition, with "Take Your Medicine" mixed with the Dashboard Confessional endearing earnestness of "Your 8th Birthday" and "Deaf Girl's Song." In short, Meaning of 8 sounds nostalgic on the first listen. Despite the comparisons I have just made, the album is actually good. "2x2x2" highlights the genre mixing of electronic, acoustic and even a hint of hip-hop typical of Craig Minowa's mishmashing style, while "Dance of the Dead" whips out the whimsy of previous, less formulaic releases.

From the twang of Willie Nelson's guitar and the bass of The Roots to the innocuous acoustics of Cloud Cult, the green movement has bent genres and given a facelift to production in the hopes of keeping the world spinning as long as the music.