The largest single pressing of any album of recorded music was not made by Michael Jackson or Mariah Carey, but by an animal the size of a city bus. Ten million copies of Songs of the Humpback Whale were inserted into the January 1979 issue of National Geographic, distributed around the world in 25 languages. The humpback’s cries are credited with inspiring the global movement of conservation measures to protect whales. But what is often overlooked is the true musicality of the sounds. The shrill wails, deep growls, rhythmic scratches, and spectral moans combine into repeating patterns so structured that they fit any conventional definition of music.

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