News
by Sean Adams
Before we get our teeth stuck in to 2013, we asked some of our favourite artists what some of their favourite albums of 2012 were. In the previous part the likes of Sharon van Etten, Yeasayer and School of Seven Bells shared their picks, and you can find those lists, alongside our albums of year lists and more, here. Here are five more of our favourites, sharing the five albums that touched, shocked and thrilled them in 2012... »
News
by Sean Adams
DiS' 12 days of festive giveaways! Win big!»
In Depth by Robert Leedham
Festive greetings fellow pop-lovers! 'Tis the season to celebrate the end of the X Factor, consume absurd amounts of mulled wine and proudly proclaim that Andrew Ridgley was Wham!'s best member by far. In DiS Does Pop's world, this can only mean one thing: an Xmas Bumper Edition of your favourite Top 40-related column. Go on, fill your boots with Christmas goodness...»
In Depth by Wendy Roby
The best singles from 2012, plus a Spotify playlist!»
News
by Sean Adams
...a record that will make your heart wobble ...a record that swooshes and sways its pain away ...that shivers, quivers and bawls, but has the strength of Lionness ...that has an ache in its paw, but despite the sense of gravity tugging on your emotions, manages to soar so gracefully that you can only ever imagine it as a crow dove looking down from another place and time...»
In Depth by Sean Adams
...and after a week of counting down from 100... Drowned in Sound's album of the year is...? Revealed... in...side...this...link...all you have to do is click it to find out.... »
News
by Sean Adams
We love to know what the artists we love have been listening to too. So, DiS went on an email rampage and asked for some top 5s and a few sentences about why the artist loves each one. We allowed them to also pick EPs and re-issues, if they wanted to.»
In Depth by Sean Adams
DIS' albums of the year countdown continues... What does your end of list say about you? And what does it say about 2012 that this isn't considered the most nauseating question imaginable? »
In Depth by Kyle Ellison
It's time again for us to look back over a year's worth of music - meaning, for me, it's time to think of some way to make sense of a year's worth of rap records. In some regards, trying to round up a year in hip hop is even harder than in other genres. The division between chart-friendly, club-ready singles and wordy, underground writtens can sometimes feel like you're dealing with different types of music entirely. How exactly should we compare the dense, poetic ramblings of say - Aesop Rock, with the synthetic energy of somebody like Future or Gunplay? Yet all these things have their place, and hip hop without one or the other would feel sorely lacking.»
In Depth by Sean Adams
The countdown of our favourite albums of the year continues... Hopefully you will find something amongst our yearendageddon that you haven't had chance to check out or invest some more time with over the festive break. If you click on the writer names after each of these review fragments, you can read the full-length reviews. »
In Depth by Sean Adams
DiS' albums of the year countdown begins...»
News
by Sean Adams
Hopefully this long list of names and releases gives you a clue about the individuals behind the screens at DiS. I've always thought of the site as being an aggregator of individual opinions, rather than some compromised coherent voice with a contrarian tone. It's near impossible to get music fans to agree on very much, which is why we do our album of the year list a little differently to most sites. We don't just tot up the votes and say what the most popular release was, as music to us isn't a popularity contest. Votes quickly become political, rather than personal and I hate the idea of mob rule. »
In Depth by Marc Burrows
This month Martin Rossiter. formerly of Gene, returns with a new album, The Defenestration of St Martin, a beautiful record of melodramatic, witty torch songs performed almost entirely as naked voice and piano, self released and funded through crowd-sourcing site Pledge. We ventured to a Brighton boozer on a windy Autumn afternoon to talk reunions, record company politics, expectations and slipping through the cracks of the music industry.»
In Depth by Sam Kinchin-Smith
Sam Kinchin-Smith explores the importance of music to E.L. James' erotic blockbuster trilogy. Why is so much of the 50 Shades books’ blatantly misogynist (and materialist) project played out to, and through, music? And what does this say about the place and status of music, both popular and “classical”, in contemporary culture?»
In Depth by Sean Adams
"...I find that in pop culture that the best records are the most disposable…not trash but…like the first Justice album is not disposable. It’s not a great record all the way through but the strong moments are incredibly strong and the less strong moments are still really good." - Johnny Jewel»
In Depth by Neil_Kulkarni
George Lewis Jr, aka TWIN SHADOW, has produced one of the most innovative and intriguing collections of high-tech pop songs you’ll hear all year. The fella’s got a mighty fine moustache, too. Words: NEIL KULKARNI from the first issue of Electronic magazine.»
In Depth by Sean Adams
If you wander into 'the monster pit' and pick almost any moment of tonight's over two hour feast of bombast in a castle (yes, I’ll say it again, a fucking C-A-S-T-L-E!) and you are - if you're me - soaring upon a sea of glee. »
In Depth by Al Horner
James Murphy is many things to many people: frontman to now defunct electro icons LCD Soundsystem, label boss to the influential DFA Records, producer, DJ, coffee entrepreneur, watch manufacturer, comedian, budding novelist and now with the release of Shut Up and Play The Hits, a two hour document of his band's final show at Madison Square Garden, a film star. With so many strings already to his bow, is there anything he can't do, asks Al Horner.»
News
by Sean Adams
Ever wondered what music the people who post on the DiS boards are into? Us too. We've always thought about doing some sort of poll-of-polls, and then - as is often the way with DiS - a member of the community took it upon themselves to start one. The results of which were revealed on the boards too but right here, right now, we can reveal far more than the top 20.»
In Depth by Marie Wood
Liars have never been a band to conform or be defined. Since the reactive title of their debut, We Threw Them All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top, they have consistently challenged expectations of the type of band they should be at every step of their career. From exploring percussion through the use of fictional characters on the fan-dividing Drum's Not Dead to creating a whole story album about their hometown of LA on 2010’s Sisterworld, Liars have never been anyone else’s band other than their own. »
In Depth by David Edwards
DiS' David Edwards and Simon Catlin talk guitars, music and collaborating with two icons of late twentieth-century guitar playing: Johnny Marr and Nile Rodgers.... we kick off an interview with such lines as “When I was playing with Bowie” and “When we were recording ‘There is a Light that Never Goes Out’” mentioned almost as casual asides. »
News
by Wendy Roby
This year, DiS was an official media partner at Latitude Festival. What this meant, is that we got a portakabin in back of the Lake Stage, and spent all weekend luring bands to it with the promise of a bacon and cheese toasties, a game of RISK, or an opportunity to learn How To Speak Suffolk Proper. Fun was had. Inappropriate jokes were told by Josh T Pearson. Haribo marriages were proposed to Sharon Van Etten. Here's Part One of our highlights.»
In Depth by Kevin EG Perry
Shirley Manson remains very much a shrinking violet.... She talks to Kevin Perry about reforming Garbage, negotiating the perils of being a woman in the music industry, and mellowing out.»
In Depth by Robert Leedham
Pete Waterman is a lot like John Lydon... to interview at least. Just as with the former Sex Pistol, chatting to the hitmaker-in-chief behind Kylie Minogue, Steps, Bananarama and many, many more is a noticeably combative experience. »
In Depth by Sean Adams
Sir Paul McCartney sits down with DiS, and musician Paul Draper of DiS heroes Mansun, to discuss songwriting and Sir Paul's album with Linda McCartney RAM (1971). »
In Depth by Jack Spearing
An introduction to the key works by one of the greatest composers who ever lived, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.»
In Depth by Robert Leedham
Hello! Welcome to the seventh edition of DiS Does Pop where the Top 40 is placed under a microscope of revelatory declarations and humorous asides. Like the search for Sean Paul’s dignity, it’s tough going at times but we’ll plough on nonetheless. This month with One Direction having conquered America, Conor Maynard riding high in the UK charts and Justin Bieber still very much in existence, there seemed no better time to write the 10 Commandments of Teen Pop.»
In Depth by Mike Diver
15 classic albums from the year of our Lord, 1997 - yeah, it was a good one. Included: Missy Elliott, Elliott Smith, Spiritualized, Wu-Tang Clan, Mansun, The Chemical Brothers, Portishead, Company Flow and some band called Radiohead.»
In Depth by David Edwards
Incredibly, it has been twenty-one years since The Magnetic Fields emerged with their debut record Distant Plastic Trees. As the band return from their self-imposed electronica exile with new album Love at the Bottom of the Sea on March 5th, Drowned in Sound was lucky enough to meet with bandleader and songwriter Stephin Merritt to discuss the new album and how apparently, romance is dead in the modern age...»
In Depth by Sean Adams
With a new album filled with life-disrupting guitars waiting in the wings, who better to ponder the apparent 'problems' with 'rock music' than Steven Ansell, one half of DiS-favourites Blood Red Shoes...
HARD TIMES FOR GUITAR MUSIC?
There's been a bi»
DiS joins the Music Alliance Pact + May 2013's global MAP compilation
Drowned in Bristol #12
DiS Does Singles 13.05.13: Swim Deep, These New Puritans, The National
Darkstar, Ed Harcourt, Halls, Wall +more for 3 DiS-curated nights at Great Escape 2013
Interview: Frank Turner on The Olympics, The Backlash, Thatcher and Black Flag
Drowned in Nottingham #14
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