Work is underway to construct a doomsday vault that will preserve our best music.
Oslo's Elire Management Group wants a place that houses history's greatest and culturally significant tunes in Svalbard, which is an archipelago between the North Pole and Norway.
Described as 'one of the most geopolitically secure places in the world', the vault would be stored somewhere on one of the eight islands in the region and hidden under the ice.
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According to Billboard, Elire's Global Music Vault wants a 'future-proof digital storage' location that could protect recordings ranging from The Beatles to Australian Indigenous music that could be lost forever.
The entertainment site claims the Group is consulting with Piql, who currently run the Arctic World Archive.
That Archive is an impressive vault buried hundreds of metres under the permafrost in Svalbard in an abandoned coal mine.
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It was built to withstand nuclear and electromagnetic blasts. Even if the power was to be cut off, the steel vault would be kept below freezing and effectively would preserve the contents inside for decades or more.
It includes information about the biodiversity of Australia, examples of culturally significant Australian works, the Atlas of Living Australia, and machine learning models created by Geoscience Australia, which help us understand things like climate change and bushfires.
It also houses digitised artworks like 'The Scream' by Edvard Munch and a digitised version of Dante's master-work of Italian literature, The Divine Comedy for the Vatican Library.
These digital versions are stored offline on digital film that is expected to last up to 500 years.
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Elire is hoping to replicate this type of vault, but with music.
Luke Jenkinson, managing director of the Global Music Vault and managing partner at Elire, said in a statement: "We want to preserve the music that has shaped us as human beings and shaped our nations."
The big question is who decides what is defined as 'good' music. Will the likes of 'Whip My Hair' or the entire catalogue of The Wiggles get a coveted spot on the digital film so that aliens or our successors in hundreds of years can soak up our iconic choones?
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Elire has called on the International Music Council to create a global committee to make this very decision.
They will work with groups around the world to agree on the 'most precious and loved' music recordings.
International Music Council president Alfons Karabuda said: "This is about safeguarding the future of music in having these archives of the past. It's not just putting something in a drawer somewhere and keeping it for a thousand years."
The public will also get a chance to vote on their thoughts, however details on when that will happen isn't yet known.
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The Global Music Vault is hoping to get its first recordings deposited next year and they will begin with Indigenous music.
It's expected people will be able to get online access to the vault so that the recordings can be 'celebrated' by 'the communities that actually own it'.
Featured Image Credit: PA
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