Drowned in Sound

"My brothers are 20 and they're always like 'we are so cooked.' And I'm just like no we're not. There's hope but you just gotta believe, you gotta believe in something."

That quote accidentally captures Music Declares Emergency's strategic shift from awareness to action. After five years of "No Music On A Dead Planet" the Hope Over Fear campaign is building action hubs in grassroots venues - real physical spaces where fans, artists...

Many who otherwise couldn't afford a £40 show, let alone a £300 festival ticket, have accessed gigs because of a new initiative called The Ticket Bank.

In this episode, DiS founder Sean Adams meets Jack from Tickets for Good and The Ticket Bank to understand how they're redistributing access to live music. From seeing empty seats at the O2 to a partnership with Barnardo's, followed by offering tickets to NHS workers, teachers, and ...

Picking up where Part 1 left off, DiS returns to its conversation with Giles Bidder. Not to talk about how musicians survive, but about how stories travel, how listeners connect and what it really takes to build a music podcast in 2026.

In this second instalment, Sean Adams turns the lens on the medium itself (yes, we’ve gone meta). Drawing on nearly 600 episodes of 101 Part Time Jobs, Giles reflects on the craft of interviewing, t...

From scout-hut gigs to the economics of touring, DiS sits down with Giles Bidder - host of 101 Part Time Jobs for an unsentimental look at how creative lives are actually sustained today.

In this first instalment, Sean Adams talks to one of the UK’s most quietly compelling broadcasters about the hidden labour behind music culture. Over nearly 600 episodes, Bidder has built one of the most humane music podcasts around, asking artist...

Fresh from touring stadiums with Depeche Mode, DiS meets electronic music pioneer to discuss her past, the present, and the future of music.

This is part of Drowned in Sound’s 25th anniversary series in which Sean Adams continues the anniversary series by sits down with some of our favourite acts of the past quarter century. Kelly Lee Owens is very much one of those artists, who has featured in DiS year end lists and awards and pla...

So what will 2026 sound like?

In this episode, Drowned in Sound founder Sean Adams and journalist Emma Wilkes look into their crystal balls (and the release schedules). 

Tips on which artists should break through and the corporate barriers they’ll need to navigate.

Beyond tipping season, we explore the strange absence of shared musical moments, the growing anxiety around AI-generated music, the slow unravelling of trust in big tech...

Season 5, Episode 1: What if swifts sound like Slipknot? What are flying rivers? And how do you give water a voice? This New Year special takes you backstage at EarthSonic Live, where over 3,000 people gathered at Manchester Museum to explore how music and nature sounds can help us reconnect with the planet and drive real climate action.

Recorded across a single extraordinary day in November 2025, this episode captures conversation...

What does it actually mean to be a musician in an economy built for creators and why does it feel like the workload keeps growing while the rewards shrink?

In this episode of the Drowned in Sound Podcast, Sean Adams is joined by Hanna Kahlert from MIDiA Research, whose work sits at the intersection of music, platforms, and the wider creator economy. Drawing on recent research into artists’ working lives, they explore why musicians ...

What were the big music news stories of the year? In part 1 we charted the pressures building across music’s foundations and now Part 2 turns to the systems that decide who gets paid, who gets heard, and who gets left behind.

Drowned in Sound’s founder Sean Adams and music journalist Emma Wilkes count down stories #3, #2 and #1 -  from the strange feeling that there wasn’t really a song of the summer at all, to solidarity protest m...

What were the biggest stories in music this year?  No, not the releases or the hype cycles but the forces reshaping how music is made, played, toured, and valued.

In Part 1 of Drowned in Sound’s Stories of the Year, Sean Adams and Emma Wilkes count down stories #5 and #4, starting with a contradiction that defined 2025: record-breaking mega-gigs and billion-pound industry headlines on one side, and a grassroots ecosystem under exis...

It’s that time again: lists, arguments, consensus (or lack of it). So.. how do we choose an ultimate “Album of the Year’?

In this episode, Emma Wilkes joins Sean Adams to talk through their favourite albums of 2025. No this is not the definitive list, not the ‘right’ list, just the stuff that has stuck, been obsessed over, demanded repeat listens, or just briefly rearranged their internal wiring.

They also talk openly about the col...

82% of music fans want to stop climate breakdown but only 3% know what to do. Climate activist Tori Tsui reveals how Billie Eilish, Brian Eno, and Massive Attack are building the infrastructure to turn that care into action.

Recorded backstage at EarthSonic Live in Manchester, this conversation bridges the gap between wanting to help the planet and knowing how.

Drowned in Sound founder Sean Adams meets Tori Tsui, the climate justic...

The UK Government have announced a landmark decision: ticket resale above face value is to be made illegal, backed by strict limits on service fees and new enforcement powers. After decades of music fans being fleeced by industrial-scale touting, could this be the turning point?

In this special episode, the FanFair Alliance’s Adam Webb (a central figure in the long-running campaign against exploitative secondary ticketing) joins Se...

How can the UK music industry be both in crisis and booming? In 2024, the sector was worth a record £8 billion to the UK economy but at the same time, grassroots venues are closing, artists are struggling to tour, and AI threatens to steal musicians’ work for the profit of broligarchs.

In this week’s episode, Sean Adams speaks with Tom Kiehl, CEO of UK Music, about the findings in the organisation’s brand new annual report This Is ...

How “sleazy” was Indie Sleaze, really - and was it ever a scene that Paul Smith of Maxïmo Park recognised himself in?

At a time when the air was thick with lager and leather jackets, Smith was more inspired by art-school notebooks, Robert Wyatt, and the idea that pop could be poetry.

In this conversation, the Maxïmo Park frontman joins Sean Adams who also lived through the era being retrospectively called “indie sleaze”, was at tho...

Live music is nothing without the fans. Generating £5.2 billion to the UK economy PA, employing over 210,000 people and building the careers of those who contribute over £4bn to the export of live music, there is no doubting the UKs reputation as the international home of live music and the birthplace of the festival industry. Every pound of this economic success comes from a fans pocket and the House of Commons Culture Media and S...

With 41% of grassroots community music spaces at risk of closure due to financial pressures, what does the future hold for young musicians trying to break through? And what role can the wider industry and everyday fans play in keeping these vital pathways alive?

In this special DiSpatch episode of the Drowned in Sound podcast, Emma Wilkes heads to Troxy in London for Youth Music's annual awards ceremony, which celebrates some of th...

In this episode of the Drowned in Sound podcast, Sean Adams and Emma Wilkes are joined by Sophie K and Yasmin from the podcast, ’On Wednesdays We Wear Black’. Together they unpack what accountability really looks like inside the music industry - and why it’s still lagging decades behind.

From the Marilyn Manson, Chris Brown and Brand New controversies to the long-standing normalisation of abuse in classic rock (as laid bare in The ...

In part two of our Drowned in Sound podcast series on the Spotify exodus, Sean Adams sits down with Alexa Speed (founder of Cut Off The Spigot), and artist Kadhja Bonet alongside returning guest Laura Burhenn (The Mynabirds) to unpack the growing backlash against Spotify and other streaming giants.

From Spotify’s billion-dollar AI investments and Daniel Ek’s controversial war drone ventures to the ethics of billionaire ownership an...