As popular sound art
As scientific data
As environmental recording
As New Age music
One of the neat things about hearing them again is that now I have a greater understanding of acoustics and I can really hear how the whales are using the ocean in the same way as yodeling uses a valley: “playing” it, sounding it out. The ocean is part of the whales' instrument as it were. Whale song co-evolved with its material medium. So in effect whale song really is ambient art, in itself.
There are notable songs about whales and so on since the 70s. But I wanted to mention two that stand out, as they're attempts to make a human instrument sing like a whale. I'm thinking of:
David Gilmour, psychedelic guitar solo in the midsection of the side-long Pink Floyd song “Echoes” (Meddle, 1971); surely Pink Floyd listened to Songs of the Humpback Whale (1970), interested as they were in environmentality and in sound-effects.
Steve Hillage, guitar in System 7, “Miracle (Orb remix)” (1991). This is a wonderful tune if you can find it. Steve Hillage is the lovely old hippie from Gong.
Nice pic of Detroit (home of the immortal Derrick May, who is on this recording)
This is from Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii (1972).