A Norwegian company is prepping a doomsday vault of tracks to be buried deep underground for 1,000 years
We’re mid-way through 2021 and it’s already feeling like the plot of a dystopian thriller (see: ocean on fire). So much so, in fact, that a Norwegian company, Elire, has started prepping a doomsday vault, intended to preserve an extensive selection of music’s most important works, on an Arctic island somewhere between the North Pole and Norway.
The chosen music will be buried on the Svalbard archipelago beneath 1,000 feet of ice and snow. According to Billboard, the storage technology for the Global Music Vault will be preserved using binary coding and high-density QR codes written onto special durable optical film that will allegedly be able to withstand electromagnetic pulses from a nuclear explosion.
A global committee is currently working with various business groups to select the “most precious and loved” music from all over the world, with national submissions expected to be voted on by the public. “We want the nations and regions of the world to curate what music gets deposited,” said Luke Jenkinson, managing director of the Global Music Vault and managing partner at Elire.
The company aims to have completed the Vault in early 2022, with the first “deposit” set to focus on the preservation of Indigenous music with pop efforts to follow. With suggestions still open, here’s a selection of songs we think should make the cut.
“DON’T DOUBT YOUR VIBE”, ELON MUSK
It’s 3021 and the mega rich have found a way to upload their consciousnesses online. Elon Musk is still kicking about. So is Grimes and X Æ A-12. Together, they rule over the world remotely via a cyber corp located on Mars. Naturally, Musk uses the opportunity to plug his pre-apocalypse music. The future Earthlings haven’t heard anything like it. All hail the techno overlord. Recognition, at last.
“FRIDAY”, REBECCA BLACK
When Rebecca Black first released “Friday”, the internet wasn’t ready. The track was too camp, too ahead of its time for an era fuelled by Nyan cats and double rainbows. But history has been kind to the singer. Arguably an early aughts cultural touchstone, the track has been adopted by ironic scenesters and queers who appreciate the track’s memeic value. Black celebrated the track’s 10-year anniversary earlier this year with a hyperpop remix starring scene stalwarts Dorian Electra and 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady. A precious gem that deserves to be preserved for millennia to come.
SEA SHANTIES
With sea levels rising, it’s safe to assume that Earth in 3021 will more closely resemble Atlantis than anything we know today. If there is life, it will be adrift, and dotted across an endless ocean. Sea shanties will be your bedrock, a semblance of community and shared purpose in an otherwise watery, barren landscape.
ANYTHING BY THE COCTEAU TWINS
Assuming we will have developed the technology to decrypt WTF they’re saying... Yeeeeeewwawoayyyyyruuuuupaaaahpearlyayoyo!
“SOUTHGATE YOU’RE THE ONE”, ATOMIC KITTENS
Ok, we admit that we might have chosen this one based on the England vs Denmark semi-finals happening tonight. Still, Atomic Kitten is a cornerstone of early-2000s pop lore, and we’d like to think of this as a historic crossover. Will the football come home? Who cares.
HYPERPOP
Hyperpop is what I would imagine 2020 to sound like if you plugged it into a sound deck and simultaneously smashed it against the wall. The pounding, pixellated quote-on-quote genre (read: movement) is so chaotic, so terminally online that it simply must be included in the doomsday vault – if not for musical kudos, then at least as a reminder of the angst-ridden shitshow that was (and is) the pandemic. Besides, I love the idea of some future version of humanity to stumble across said vault, only to be confronted with a litany of fatalistic teen melodies, like osquinn’s “i hate it here’ or d0llywood1’s “ihonestlymightjustgiveup”.
“MONTERO”, LIL NAS X
This one’s for the future gays. Lil Nas X’s devilishly good track slid straight into hell via a stripper pole and into the queer canon. It must be remembered at all costs.