‘Monumental: Ellie Goulding at Kew Gardens’ Is Mix Of Pop Music And Environmental Advocacy

Art and political activism. They go together like peanut butter and jelly. Or tuna fish and Nutella, depending on your perspective. There are some who think it is the artist’s responsibility to decry injustice, uplift the downtrodden, warn of dangers ahead and always walk the path of righteousness. The other side just wants to be entertained and scoffs at the supposed hypocrisy of actors and musicians speaking out against a system that has rewarded them. Shut up and play the hits, they say.  

Monumental: Ellie Goulding at Kew Gardens finds the chart-topping UK singer advocating for environmentalism in-between performances at the landmark London botanic garden. Currently streaming on Freevee through Amazon Prime Video, it is the premiere installment of Monumental: An Artists Den Experience, a new live music series which features musicians performing and telling their personal stories in unique settings around the world. 

Imagine the biggest greenhouse you could ever see and plant it in a 500-acre park in Southwest London. That’s Kew Gardens. It’s so big it has its own police force, The Kew Constabulary, and contains the, “largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world,” according to its website. Fun fact: it’s also located in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, home of fictional soccer club AFC Richmond. There’s a synchronicity at work as many of Goulding’s newer songs sound like they could be playing during the emotional climax of a Ted Lasso episode.

Goulding describes Kew Gardens as “a sacred place for nature” and “kind of like a church for environmentalists.” She says playing there connects her two loves, “nature and performing.” During interview segments with British radio and television presenter Roman Kemp, she’s asked if she writes her songs in a similar environment. She says she doesn’t but does go on long walks and that her New Year’s resolution is to, “Maybe write a bit more outdoors.” 

Besides past hits, Goulding plays songs off her new album, Higher Than Heaven, which was released this past April. She says the new album is “post-pandemic music“ and likens it to musical escapism. “I just love writing clever pop songs with a great formula,” she says. Like Dua Lipa and other female UK singers, her music mixes the sonic hallmarks of European EDM with American R&B and British pop. Golding has a tendency to sing at the top of her register with a breathiness which at times makes it sounds like she just took a hit off a helium balloon. 

Filmed inside Kew Gardens Temperate House, Goulding and her able backing band perform surrounded by giant leafy plants and shrubbery. It’s a gorgeous setting and is filmed beautifully. During the performance, Goulding wears a white romper which appears to be made out of wet gauze and white boots with three inch soles, similar to those worn by the residents of Mega-City One in the Judge Dredd comic book series. Later, while interviewing Kew Gardens Senior Science Officer Dr. Carly Cowell, Goulding sports a dress fabricated to look like an oversized Winchester shirt with a brown plastic bra taped on the outside.

In a voiceover, Goulding tells us that besides its park and botanic gardens, Kew Gardens maintains a bank of over two billion seeds, “just in case, you know, the apocalypse.” Cowell explains how the study of plants and fungal life benefits all humankind, whether through food, medicinal use or possible bulwarks against climate change. Then she says, “We’re also looking at AI technology now to identify areas of high biodiversity globally.” DUH DUH DUH!  I guess she didn’t get the memo about AI and the apocalypse.

“When we invest in nature it’s just a win for all of us,” Goulding says. She tells how touring opened her eyes to the dangers of climate change as she witnessed glaciers melting in Greenland and the destruction of nature. “I often get grief for being a hypocrite and people saying, you know, ‘You fly around the world for work so how can you be an environmentalist?’ But it inspires me to keep going when I get told that I should stick to music”. When asked to name her favorite environmentalists, she mentions Jane Goodall, Sylvia Earle and Greta Thunberg, of whom she says, “She continues to be legendary.”

Though Ellie Goulding is an exemplary songwriter and performer, she’s a less than eloquent spokesperson for climate change and environmentalism. But you know what? Who cares! Her message is too important to worry about whether her lifestyle contributes to carbon emissions or if she’s a good orator. My own smugness evaporated in inverse proportion to the amount of orange smoke clogging the skies of New York and making it hard to breathe as a result the Canadian wildfires. The Earth is on fire. More disasters are waiting off screen.

Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician. Follow him on Twitter:@BHSmithNYC.