Drowned in Sound
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Drowned in Sound or DiS is a UK based music webzine dedicated to new music. It started as The Last Resort but was relauched as Drowned in Sound in 2000. It is run by Sean Adams, designed by Simon Menhinick, programmed by Matthew Willson (with server hosting and support from David Nattriss) and edited by Colin Roberts. The site is mostly based on contributions from unpaid writers and has an integrated forum to allow for discussion and comments on interviews, news and reviews. It also includes a user rated database of artists and bands as well as details for most live music venues (big and small) in the UK. Aside from space for comments, there are separate forums for general discussion, music related discussion and advertisements for people requiring bands or musicians. The site has almost 30,000 registered members.
The message boards themselves have taken on a life of their own, almost away from the site itself. The cliquey nature of the inhabitants of the site has occasionally been known to scare away new users and readers. Between them, however, a cavalcade of in-jokes and phrases have been created and purported, generally referred to as 'DiSisms'.
On March 19, 2006, The Observer Music Monthly ranked Drowned in Sound 9th on its list of top 25 internet websites. In July 2006, Mike Diver joined the full-time staff as Content Editor. In November 2006 it passed the 150,000 unique readers a week mark and was nominated in the Best Music Website category at the 2007 PLUG Awards.
The site and a handful of its writers received nominations at the 2006 Record Of The Day awards, held in London on November 21, 2006. The site won in the category of Best Podcast and finished runner-up in the category of Best Website to Popjustice.com. A year earlier the site was also runner-up in the category of Best Website, although then to NME.com.
[edit] Record label
In 2003 Drowned in Sound started a record label which has released recordings by:
- Adam Gnade
- Bat for Lashes
- Emmy the Great
- Jeniferever
- Kaiser Chiefs
- Komakino
- The Koreans
- Les Incompétents
- Martha Wainwright
- Metric
- Redjetson
- thisgirl
[edit] Podcast
In 2006 the site launched a podcast called Drowned in Sound Radio, presented by Adams and Roberts. The show provides a mixture of very new music with music that hasn't yet reached the mainstream.
