Portugal. The Man has always kept their perspective on the world around them sharp, so it makes a lot of sense that they decided to team up with the Smithsonian’s Conservation Biology Institute to shed light on the endangered Sumatran Tiger for their Record Store Day/Earth Day release. With the track, the band hopes to spread awareness of the fact that less than 400 of those tigers are left in the wild today, and with all the social media outpourings that have resulted, it seems that they've been doing a pretty remarkable job thus far. It's a noble effort put forth by the bunch, no matter the fate of the aforementioned animal, and it's an undertaking seldom seen by those with as much acclaim as the band, so we commend the members for their ecological altruism. There are only 400 copies of the track (which was pressed to vinyl) available, and, ironically, the materials embedded within are set to degrade over time. Unless the vinyl is ripped and recorded, it will disappear (in much the same way the tigers are disappearing from the globe). consists There's no digital copies of the track, then, but thankfully, the song has finally surfaced on the internet courtesy of the SoundCloud link found below. While you listen to the track, you can read what the band had to say about the single, so as to get a better picture of the overall endeavor they've partaken in. [do action="manual-block-quote"]"[The song is] a metaphor for endangered species in hopes that it will raise awareness for the tigers and also keep the song alive like we're trying to keep the tigers alive," said bassist Zachary Scott Carothers. The number of copies was hardly arbitrary, as there are only 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild. "In order to raise funding and support to save the species, we need awareness," says the narrator in the video above. The track, "Sumatran Tiger," does not officially exist digitally, and, like all vinyl records, will eventually degrade and also become extinct. According to the video above, the copies were sent "to 400 carefully chosen influencers, among them actors, activists, musicians, conservationists, bloggers and journalists" and is, as the band claims, "the first song meant to go extinct unless it's reproduced."[/do]
Portugal. The Man