Drowned in Sound
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- Último episodio
- 11 Nov 2026
Sobre el podcast
Music's least apolitical podcast. We meet musicians and campaigners to discover how the music industry shapes society and how fans, artists, and workers can organise for systemic change. Hosted by Sean Adams and Helena Wadia, DiS decodes streaming economics, sustainable touring, climate and tech, workers’ rights, and collective solutions with musicians, researchers, and changemakers.
Reminder: Music is upstream from politics.
Episodios 100
How Do You Turn Rage Into A Strategy? | Janey Starling from Yakkie
How do you make anger useful? Janey Starling's answer is that you bottle it, give it a strategy and then find the staying power to see that strategy through (she has a battle map, and one of her favourite books …
Notas del episodio
How do you make anger useful? Janey Starling's answer is that you bottle it, give it a strategy and then find the staying power to see that strategy through (she has a battle map, and one of her favourite books is The Art of War).
In this week's episode, Helena Wadia and Sean Adams sit down with Janey Starling of Yakkie and Level Up to ask a question Helena has been unable to shake since the Cornell case started dominating the news: how does change actually get brought about, and what does a band have to do with it?
Janey is the lead singer of Yakkie, a feminist punk band whose debut album Kill the Cop Inside Your Head came out in February 2026. Before Yakkie she was in Dream Nails, which she left in 2021.
Janey also co-directs Level Up, a feminist community campaigning for gender justice in the UK. Its Dignity for Dead Women campaign, born from Janey's anger in 2017 at newspaper reports of women who had been murdered and then blamed for their own deaths, has since taken media guidelines on reporting fatal domestic abuse into newsrooms, and Janey and Helena have trained journalists together.
The conversation covers why culture changes before the law does, what an all-women mosh pit does for the people in it, how Yakkie build a set that moves from anger to hope, what Janey would do with £500m, and the Bands Boycott Barclays campaign she helped organise. It ends on how the media reports suicide, and what that guidance could teach it about reporting violence against women.
Yakkie are on tour with Petrol Girls, with dates at Downstairs at The Dome in London on 12 November and Boom in Leeds on 13 November, and play The Union at Manchester Metropolitan University on 26 March 2027. Tickets and full details are at https://yakkie.bandcamp.com/
A content note: this conversation includes sexual assault, rape, domestic homicide and suicide, including a longer discussion towards the end about how suicide is reported. Please look after yourself while you listen, and skip or stop anywhere you need to. If any of it lands close to home, here are some places to start.
In the UK, Samaritans are there at any time on 116 123, free from any phone: https://www.samaritans.org If you work in music, Music Minds Matter offers free, round-the-clock support on 0808 802 8008: https://www.musicmindsmatter.org.uk
For sexual violence, Rape Crisis England and Wales runs a free support line, open 24 hours a day, on 0808 500 2222: https://rapecrisis.org.uk For domestic abuse, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge, is free and open every hour of every day on 0808 2000 247: https://nationaldahelpline.org.uk In an emergency, call 999.
The Drowned in Sound Patreon has behind the scenes extras and a place to recommend guests for the new series: https://www.patreon.com/cw/drownedinsound
The Drowned in Sound podcast is presented in partnership with Qobuz, the pioneering high-quality music streaming and download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles. Each week we curate playlists on Qobuz, featuring our favourite records, artists, and the themes we explore on the show.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
Produced and edited by Sean Adams.
Co-hosted by Helena Wadia, who also co-hosts the Media Storm podcast: https://mediastormpodcast.com/about-us/
Referenced In This Episode:
Yakkie's debut album, Kill the Cop Inside Your Head, and the rest of their music: Yakkie on Bandcamp
Level Up, the feminist community Janey co-directs: Level Up
Level Up's media guidelines on reporting domestic abuse deaths: UK Media Guidelines for Reporting Domestic Abuse Deaths
Janey on Media Storm, on what the media can do better when reporting on domestic abuse: S3E2 Safety or status? Migrant women and domestic abuse, with Janey Starling
Janey on Media Storm again, on Level Up's No Births Behind Bars campaign (content warning: baby loss): Pregnant in prison: the case to stop births behind bars
The guidance Sean mentions in the closing conversation on reporting suicide: Samaritans' Media Guidelines
Sean's piece for the New Statesman after Scott Hutchison's death, on how we write about suicide online: Scott Hutchison's fans shared their grief on social media, but did they realise the potential harm?
Good Night Out, which Janey mentions alongside Safe Gigs for Women: Good Night Out Campaign
Bands Boycott Barclays, as Stereogum reported it when Download, Latitude and Isle of Wight dropped Barclays as a sponsor: Download, Latitude, & Isle Of Wight Festivals Drop Barclays Sponsorship After Bands Boycott
And at The Great Escape, where artists first pulled out: The Great Escape Ends Barclays Partnership After 163 Artists Dropped Off This Year's Festival In Protest
Recorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.
Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
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How music plays a role in US elections | Emily White, #iVoted Concerts | HMCSTW Episode 2
Can a gig change who turns up to vote? In the second episode of How Music Can Save the World, a new podcast from Drowned in Sound, Shain Shapiro talks to Emily White, co-founder of the nonprofit #iVoted …
Notas del episodio
Can a gig change who turns up to vote? In the second episode of How Music Can Save the World, a new podcast from Drowned in Sound, Shain Shapiro talks to Emily White, co-founder of the nonprofit #iVoted Concerts, partner at Collective Entertainment and a fellow at the Johns Hopkins SNF Agora Institute.
Emily explains why she thinks that grounding in how a show really works is the only reason she was able to bring concert promoters on board when she launched #iVoted in 2018... with no money and an intern.
Fans get into an #iVoted show by showing a selfie from outside their polling place, or by checking their voter registration, and the artists are booked from data on who low-propensity voters are actually listening to, town by town.
The conversation gets into why this has to be local, whether it could work with any art form other than music, shows that fans enter for free by learning about clean energy jobs, whether it could create future candidates, and why the work itself keeps Emily hopeful.
Emily is also the author of How to Build a Sustainable Music Career and Collect All Revenue Streams, and of the podcast of the same name. We talk about how the book became a podcast, why season two was recorded in Milwaukee, and where she would take it next.
Afterwards, Sean Adams, who produced the episode, joins Shain to reflect on local listening, free gigs, why free is expensive, Bobi Wine, the Colombian concerts that Shain writes about in the book, and the risks of booking the wrong artist.
Emily White and #iVoted Concerts: https://www.ivotedconcerts.org
Emily's book, How to Build a Sustainable Music Career and Collect All Revenue Streams: https://www.collectiveentinc.com/book2
Emily's podcast of the same name: https://open.spotify.com/show/1fsLPVRMhI9EIMVH0PsNYt
Shain runs Sound Diplomacy and the Center for Music Ecosystems.
His book of the same name is out on 9 February 2027 from Duncan Baird Publishing, part of Penguin Random House. Pre-order it here: https://www.shainshapiro.com/how-music-can-save-the-world
The intro and outro were recorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.
How Music Can Save the World is part of the Drowned in Sound Podcast Network: https://thesounding.org
Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
Capítulos (10)
Enter Shikari exclusive: Rou Reynolds on why the band goes dormant on 31 December 2027. And what comes next.
In this week's episode, the first of season seven, Sean sits down with Rou Reynolds, the vocalist of Enter Shikari, for an exclusive conversation recorded weeks after the band announced that they will fall …
Notas del episodio
In this week's episode, the first of season seven, Sean sits down with Rou Reynolds, the vocalist of Enter Shikari, for an exclusive conversation recorded weeks after the band announced that they will fall dormant as a recording and performing entity on 31 December 2027.
Why is a band with a UK number one album, and a sold out night at Alexandra Palace, choosing to go quiet? And what do decades of touring do to your mental health? Those are the two questions Sean starts from.
The band's statement says the dormancy may end with an eruption back into activity, or with extinction, and that they have no idea which. It also floats the possibility that they might be like Fugazi and get together to rehearse for fun without feeling the need to make anyone else listen. Rou is clear that this tour is not a goodbye tour, and that they want to mark the anniversaries of Take To The Skies, A Flash Flood Of Colour and The Spark next year.
Rou is open about what the first half of 2026 was like, including anxiety, insomnia, panic attacks on stage and OCD, and about how he has found his footing again. This is not only a conversation about struggle. There are practical things in it, from the experiment Rou is running on stage with giving 50% instead of 100%, to what has helped him and Sean when the thinking mind takes over.
The conversation also gets into how Enter Shikari started at a local youth club, why Rou calls the band "a hobby that got out of hand", and how it felt to be on stage in Leicester at a recent warm up show and feel free again.
Enter Shikari were the first artist to give £1 from every UK ticket sold to Music Venue Trust, a scheme since taken up by artists including Ed Sheeran and Coldplay, and this tour does the same: https://www.musicvenuetrust.com/
As with every episode, Sean ends by asking Rou what he would do with £500m, roughly what Spotify has put into Joe Rogan. His answer is fantastic.
Enter Shikari's European and UK tour runs from 3 November to 4 December. Tickets and full details are at https://www.entershikari.com/shows
In Europe they play Sporthalle in Hamburg on 3 November, Zenith in Munich on 4 November, Haus Auensee in Leipzig on 5 November, Mitsubishi Electric Halle in Düsseldorf on 6 November, Columbiahalle in Berlin on 7 November, Ancienne Belgique in Brussels on 9 November, La Laiterie in Strasbourg on 10 November and 013 in Tilburg on 11 November.
The UK and Ireland dates are Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham on 13 November, Utilita Arena in Cardiff on 14 November, Connexin Live in Hull on 15 November, the Hydro in Glasgow on 18 November, Co-op Live in Manchester on 19 November, Alexandra Palace in London on 20 and 21 November (the 21st is sold out), The Telegraph Building in Belfast on 2 December and The Academy in Dublin on 3 and 4 December (the 4th is sold out).
This episode includes frank conversation about anxiety, panic attacks, OCD and insomnia. If any of it lands close to home, here are some places to start. Different things work for different people, which comes up more than once in the conversation, so treat this as a starting point rather than a full list. If there is something you think we have missed, email [email protected] and we will add it to these notes.
In the UK, Samaritans are there at any time on 116 123, free from any phone: https://www.samaritans.org If you would rather text, Shout is on 85258: https://giveusashout.org Mind's Infoline on 0300 123 3393 can help you find specialist services near you: https://www.mind.org.uk
If you work in music, Music Support is a charity founded by people from inside the industry. Its helpline on 0800 030 6789 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, bank holidays excluded) is staffed by trained peers who have worked in music and live events: https://musicsupport.org/helpline/
Help Musicians, which comes up in the conversation, BAPAM and CALM also offer support: https://www.helpmusicians.org.uk https://www.bapam.org.uk https://www.thecalmzone.net
For OCD, OCD Action runs a free and confidential helpline and email service for people affected by OCD and related conditions: https://ocdaction.org.uk OCD UK has an advice line and information too: https://www.ocduk.org Anxiety UK supports people living with anxiety conditions: https://www.anxietyuk.org.uk
Rou and Sean both talk about how the type of therapy matters, and that a standard approach does not suit everyone. In England you can refer yourself to NHS Talking Therapies without seeing a GP first: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/talking-therapies-medicine-treatments/talking-therapies-and-counselling/nhs-talking-therapies/
If you are listening in Ireland, Samaritans are on 116 123, Pieta is on 1800 247 247, Aware is on 1800 80 48 48 and you can text HELLO to 50808 for Text About It. The full list is here: https://www.hse.ie/mental-health/services-support/supports-services/ Elsewhere in the world, Find A Helpline lists services by country: https://findahelpline.com
Sean mentions Tamsin Embleton, whose book Touring and Mental Health: The Music Industry Manual is a guide for people working in live music. Her an earlier conversation om the pod here: https://drownedinsound.podbean.com/e/dis008-live-music-and-mental-health and the book is here: https://touringmanual.com
The Drowned in Sound Patreon has behind the scenes extras and a place to recommend guests for the new series: https://www.patreon.com/cw/drownedinsound
The Drowned in Sound podcast is presented in partnership with Qobuz, the pioneering high-quality music streaming and download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles. Each week we curate playlists on Qobuz, featuring our favourite records, artists, and the themes we explore on the show.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
Produced and edited by Sean Adams.
Enter Shikari: https://www.entershikari.com
The band's statement about the future: https://www.instagram.com/p/Dd83ELPDd4m/?img_index=1
Rou's mental health update: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ddg-K78sK-M/
Recorded, engineered and hosted by Sean Adams (seaninsound.com).
Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
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Maggie Baird on How Music Can Save The World | Episode 1
In the first episode of How Music Can Save the World, a new podcast from Drowned in Sound, Shain Shapiro meets Maggie Baird, the mother of Billie Eilish and Finneas and founder of Support + Feed. They start …
Notas del episodio
In the first episode of How Music Can Save the World, a new podcast from Drowned in Sound, Shain Shapiro meets Maggie Baird, the mother of Billie Eilish and Finneas and founder of Support + Feed.
They start with her musical childhood, from falling asleep to Guys and Dolls to Quadrophenia at Christmas, and how music, as an instrument for change, amplifies ideas.
Shain finds out how Support + Feed began during COVID as a way to feed people, plant-based of course, and how it has since gone on tour with Billie, Finneas and other artists such as Hayley Williams. They also discuss how it has changed how stadiums and arenas deal with waste, food and water.
The conversation gets into why a musician has a direct line to their fans that no actor or director has, the storm that cancelled and rescheduled a show in Mexico City, and a letter Maggie wrote when she was about eight asking a drive-in to keep Cat Ballou for one more week.
Maggie quotes Joan Baez, "Action is the antidote to despair", and that is where her hope starts.
Afterwards, DiS founder Sean Adams, who produced the episode, joins Shain to reflect on access, ticket prices and The Ticket Bank, a food bank for culture that has now given out more than a million tickets.
We spoke to Jack from Tickets for Good about how it works here: https://youtu.be/nHT-5nGNtok and you can find out more or sign up at https://www.ticketsforgood.com/uk/the-ticket-bank
Shain runs Sound Diplomacy and the Center for Music Ecosystems.
His book of the same name is out on 9 February 2027 from Duncan Baird Publishing, part of Penguin Random House. Pre-order it here: https://www.shainshapiro.com/how-music-can-save-the-world
Support + Feed: https://supportandfeed.org
The intro and outro were recorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.
How Music Can Save the World is part of the Drowned in Sound Podcast Network: https://thesounding.org
Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
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Introducing... How Music Can Save The World
Drowned in Sound is thrilled to introduce a new series which will be appearing in this feed. How Music Can Save the World is hosted by Shain Shapiro and produced by DiS founder Sean Adams, who pops up at the …
Notas del episodio
Drowned in Sound is thrilled to introduce a new series which will be appearing in this feed. How Music Can Save the World is hosted by Shain Shapiro and produced by DiS founder Sean Adams, who pops up at the end of each episode.
Before Shain found himself speaking at the UN, developing music policy for mayors like Sadiq Khan, and organising his own conference, he was a contributor to Drowned in Sound, so it feels like a wonderful full circle moment to be creating this podcast together.
The season is a companion to Shain's forthcoming second book by the same name. He explains:
"It's my case for using music to help tackle five big issues: economic and international development, healthcare, the climate emergency, crisis and recovery, and our collective morality.
It's the book I've wanted to write for years. Deliberately optimistic, grounded in data and evidence, it shows what music can do if we listen to it differently."
Shain introduces the series in this little 5min explainer trailer ahead of the first episode arriving later this week.
Meet The AI Rapper Beloved By The Far-Right - Part 2
In part two of our conversation with journalists Effie Webb and Harriet Williamson, we move beyond who created Danny Bones and ask what his existence means for music itself. We discuss the irony of a far-right …
Notas del episodio
In part two of our conversation with journalists Effie Webb and Harriet Williamson, we move beyond who created Danny Bones and ask what his existence means for music itself.
We discuss the irony of a far-right AI rapper borrowing from Black music, the response from musicians, and what happens when technology can imitate creative work at scale with little to no consequence.
We get into copyright, the devaluing of human creative labour, Spotify’s response to AI artists, whether Danny Bones is an outlier or an early sign of what’s coming, and finally, what music fans can do to help musicians, songwriters and artists to remain at the centre of music.
The Drowned in Sound podcast is presented in partnership with Qobuz, the pioneering high-quality music streaming and download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles.
Each week we curate playlists on Qobuz, featuring our favourite records, artists, and the themes we explore on the show.
Visit drownedinsound.org/playlists to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz.This week's playlist is songs that give you a bit of pride in where you are from. Amongst the picks, Harriet chose 'White Man in Hammersmith Palais' by The Clash and Effie chose 'LDN' by Lily Allen, two London songs, one of them about race and punk and reggae and the other about what the city actually looks like underneath, which is a fairly pointed answer to a record trading on national pride.
What would you add? You can email us on [email protected]
Referenced In This Episode:More than a third of new uploads to Apple Music are now AI-generated, reported by Music Ally:
More than a third of Apple Music uploads are now AI musicAustralia banning fully AI-generated songs from the ARIA charts, announced two days before we recorded:
AI-generated music to be banned from the ARIA chartsSpotify’s AI persona labelling, announced this month:
Spotify introduces an AI persona label and keeps AI-generated artists out of recommendations by default‘Harbu Darbu’ by Ness and Stilla, the track mentioned in the episode, which calls for the deaths of Bella Hadid, Dua Lipa and Mia Khalifa and topped the Israeli streaming charts:
Harbu Darbu
Effie Webb, Bureau of Investigative Journalism
Effie Webb’s profileHarriet Williamson, Novara Media
Novara Media
Recorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.
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Drowned in SoundProduced by Georgia Mooney.
Meet The AI Rapper Beloved By The Far-Right - Part 1
What does it take to rack up five million YouTube views in ten months? In this case: a rapper who doesn’t exist, a political party paying thousands for AI-generated videos, and algorithms remarkably good at …
Notas del episodio
What does it take to rack up five million YouTube views in ten months? In this case: a rapper who doesn’t exist, a political party paying thousands for AI-generated videos, and algorithms remarkably good at turning anger into attention.
This week, Sean is joined by Effie Webb of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Harriet Williamson of Novara Media, who have spent months investigating Danny Bones.So, who is Danny Bones? An AI-generated British rapper created by the Node Project, whose songs and videos mix nationalism, immigration politics and visions of a broken Britain. He’s amassed millions of views and streams and "performed" at a Tommy Robinson rally. This manufactured persona has begun bleeding into real-world politics.
In part one, Effie and Harriet explain how they uncovered the Node Project’s links to far-right party Advance UK, and ultimately discovered the real people behind it: a music producer and a video producer working in the arts. We discuss what far right actually means, why those described that way reject the term, and Harriet’s theory that the Danny Bones aesthetic looks like somebody watched This Is England, thought it looked cool and missed everything else about it.
We also get into Danny Bones’ extraordinary algorithmic growth, whether reporting on him risks boosting his platform, the economics of streams versus political commissions, and what happens when an entirely fictional "artist" starts intervening in real elections.
The Drowned in Sound podcast is presented in partnership with Qobuz, the pioneering high-quality music streaming and download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles.
Each week we curate playlists on Qobuz, featuring our favourite records, artists, and the themes we explore on the show.Visit drownedinsound.org/playlists to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz.
This week's playlist is songs that give you a bit of pride in where you are from. Amongst the picks, Harriet chose 'White Man in Hammersmith Palais' by The Clash and Effie chose 'LDN' by Lily Allen, two London songs, one of them about race and punk and reggae and the other about what the city actually looks like underneath, which is a fairly pointed answer to a record trading on national pride.
What would you add? You can email us on [email protected]
Referenced In This Episode:
The first investigation, the AI rapper funded by a far-right party, by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism:
Meet the AI rapper funded by a far-right partyAnd Novara Media's version of the same story:
Meet the AI Rapper Working for the Far-RightHow the project turned the coverage into membership tiers and a crypto wallet within days:
The hate economy in action: how an AI rapper tried to cash in on our coverageEffie's day at Tommy Robinson's rally, QR codes, crypto and an AI rapper:
A day at Tommy Robinson's rally: QR codes, crypto and an AI rapperThe story that named the two men behind it:
Revealed: the music producer and animator behind far-right AI rapper Danny BonesAnd at Novara Media:
Revealed: The Chart-Topping Music Producer and Animator Behind a Far-Right AI RapperThe Daily Mail's collaboration with the Bureau, which is where the platform responses live:
Read the archived articleBen Habib winding up Advance UK to clear the way for Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain:
Ben Habib winds up Advance UK to clear the way for Restore BritainThe Gorton and Denton by-election result in full:
UK Parliament election resultsEffie Webb, Bureau of Investigative Journalism
Effie Webb’s profileHarriet Williamson, Novara Media
Novara MediaRecorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.
Sign up to the DiS newsletter:
Drowned in SoundProduced by Georgia Mooney.
Blood Red Shoes on their 7th LP, Support Bands, Crisps and Two Decades As a Band
In this week's episode Sean sits down with Steven Ansell, the singing drummer of Blood Red Shoes. They have known each other for around twenty five years now, since Sean first saw Steven's old band Cat On Form …
Notas del episodio
In this week's episode Sean sits down with Steven Ansell, the singing drummer of Blood Red Shoes.
They have known each other for around twenty five years now, since Sean first saw Steven's old band Cat On Form playing to a room of skinny, topless Fugazi obsessives in Brighton.
Blood Red Shoes formed in Brighton in 2004, Steven on drums and vocals, Laura-Mary Carter on guitar and vocals, and released one of their first singles on the Drowned in Sound label. Twenty years on, they're still one of the more interesting duos working in guitar music, a band whose sound has been chased by plenty of others since (Royal Blood, for one, used to come and watch them). Their songs keep finding new listeners in places that have nothing to do with the traditional music industry, the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack years ago, more recently Directive 8020, the horror game that features their track 'Dead Air'.
However, delves into their seventh record. Stay Lonely, which is out 18th September on V2 Records. The record features the single 'Screams', and it's the first Blood Red Shoes album the two of them have made entirely on their own, no outside producer, no outside mixer, nobody else touching it.
The conversation gets into how a band that's been almost wordlessly instinctual for two decades actually functions day to day, who sings what and why.
Steven also produces for other artists, including Brighton duo Arxx and Circe, and co-runs the Jazz Life label with Laura-Mary, who records solo too (her debut album, Bye Bye Jackie, came out last year).
As with every episode, Sean asks Steven the question he now puts to every guest: how would you spend five hundred million pounds to improve music?
The Drowned in Sound podcast is presented in partnership with Qobuz, the high-quality music streaming and download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles. Each week we curate playlists on Qobuz, featuring our favourite records, artists, and the themes we explore on the show.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
Produced and edited by the team at Tell Studio.
Recorded, engineered and hosted by Sean Adams (seaninsound.com) at Polygon Portal, Soho. Polygon Portal's immersive listening room is back for Season Two from October, with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Pixies' Bossanova and De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising among the album playback sessions on their listings, well worth a look if you're in London.
Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
Gig Yap: Robyn, My Chemical Romance, Matt Berninger and Los Campesinos!, and Where to Stand
What's the best place to stand in the Electric Ballroom if you're under five foot five and don't fancy a six foot stranger appearing in front of you two minutes before stage time? Helena Wadia has worked this …
Notas del episodio
What's the best place to stand in the Electric Ballroom if you're under five foot five and don't fancy a six foot stranger appearing in front of you two minutes before stage time? Helena Wadia has worked this out for pretty much every venue in London, and this week's episode exists mostly so Drowned in Sound founder Sean Adams could catch up with his co-host to to yap about gigs.
This week's episode is a bit of a format experiment for us (we'd love you to send your feedback to [email protected]) because Sean's been buried in The Anchoress album campaign and Helena's been living her best gig life.
Helena co-hosts the Media Storm podcast, and normally you'll find her asking sharper questions than she gets asked here. She also, by her own admission, keeps a proper mental log of every National setlist, twenty two shows and counting, which is why she was drafted onto Gig Pigs, the podcast where comedians take a comedian to a gig, for their National episode with Stuart Laws. Worth a listen for the fuller history: S2 Ep7: The National with Stuart Laws and Helena Wadia.
The conversation also gets into Los Campesinos! twenty year celebration at the Electric Ballroom, Robyn selling out the O2 without being an obvious household name, My Chemical Romance's Black Parade in full at Wembley Stadium and the tears that came with it, and Matt Berninger's solo show with RonBoy in tow.
Along the way the pair discuss obstructed view seats that turn out to be the best seats in the house, the ethics of a no-view audio-only ticket, seeing Prince, and why nobody's worked out how to tell you your friends are stood four rows in front of you.
The Drowned in Sound podcast is presented in partnership with Qobuz, the pioneering high-quality music streaming and download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles. Each week we curate playlists on Qobuz, featuring our favourite records, artists, and the themes we explore on the show.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
Produced and edited by Sean Adams.
Co-hosted by Helena Wadia, who also co-hosts the Media Storm podcast: https://mediastormpodcast.com/about-us/
Recorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.
Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
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From Paris Hilton to Andy Burnham: Sean & Helena's Lord Brennan Interview Debrief
Did Sean ask a member of the House of Lords whether the House of Lords should even exist? No. Did he get into proportional representation? Also no... Helena Wadia returns to co-host, and rather than a straight …
Notas del episodio
Did Sean ask a member of the House of Lords whether the House of Lords should even exist? No. Did he get into proportional representation? Also no...
Helena Wadia returns to co-host, and rather than a straight interview this is proper yap of an episode, with Sean thinking out loud about everything that didn't make it into last week's conversation with Lord Kevin Brennan on the fan-led review of live music, and why, when you've got fifty recommendations and about an hour, you have to choose your battles.
They get into why Andy Burnham becoming Prime Minister changed the shape of the conversation, and what it means that he's a shareholder in Music Venue Properties. They compare how differently society treats football fandom versus music fandom, from workplace leniency during the World Cup to Germany's cultural vouchers, and ask why a nighttime economy built around music doesn't get the same institutional understanding.
Along the way: Bill Drummond's old campaign for a "no music day", Paris Hilton's unlikely transformation into a genuine political force, and a proper, honest conversation about how they each actually prep for an interview, what questions to ask first, how much to assume the listener already knows, and why every job now seems to come with the shadow of "but will it clip."
The Drowned in Sound podcast is presented in partnership with Qobuz, the pioneering high-quality music streaming and download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles. Each week we curate playlists on Qobuz, featuring our favourite records, artists, and the themes we explore on the show.
This week, Sean and Helena share their midyear playlists. Sean's has got Massive Attack and Tom Waits, Sofia Isella, PVA, and Art School Girlfriend on it. Helena's has Matt Berninger's strange, brilliant new solo single 'Martini Me Fatso', Naomi In Blue's debut, and Olivia Rodrigo's new record.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
Referenced In This Episode
Last week's conversation with Lord Kevin Brennan on the fan-led review: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-can-music-fans-expect-from-the-pm-andy-burnham/id1037405920?i=1000778324142, on YouTube: https://youtu.be/IFhUww0DTvs, or wherever you get your podcasts: http://drownedinsound.org/podcasts
Read Mark Davyd on Andy Burnham's stake in Music Venue Properties and a night out in Atherton: https://markdavyd.substack.com/p/a-night-out-in-atherton
Naomi In Blue's debut single 'Naive': https://naomiinblue.bandcamp.com/
Matt Berninger's new single 'Martini Me Fatso': https://stereogum.com/2505525/matt-berninger-martini-me-fatso/music
'Boots on the Ground', Massive Attack featuring Tom Waits: https://massiveattack.bandcamp.com/album/boots-on-the-ground
Bill Drummond's No Music Day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Music_Day
Galaxy Brain: How Short-Form Clips Took Over the Internet: https://podcasts.apple.com/am/podcast/galaxy-brain/id1378618386
John Graham, the world's first Minister for Music (and Transport), NSW Australia: https://www.nsw.gov.au/nsw-government/ministers/minister-for-transport-arts-music-and-night-time-economy
John Graham on the Sydney Opera House noise changes, "no longer will noise levels be dictated by the bedtimes of the residents": https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/dciths/ministerial-media-releases/changes-coming-to-sydney-opera
Hanna Kahlert on "every job is clips now": https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-your-favourite-bands-fans-might-not-be-real/id1037405920?i=1000775834659
Art School Girlfriend on the podcast earlier this year: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-does-electronic-music-sound-like-shoegaze-art-school/id1037405920?i=1000754413709
Ella from PVA on the podcast earlier this year: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-hope-over-fear-trumps-no-music-on-a-dead-planet/id1037405920?i=1000747892636
Helena Wadia also co-hosts the Media Storm podcast: https://mediastormpodcast.com/about-us/
This episode was recorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.
Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
Produced and edited by Sean Adams.
00:00:00 - Cold open: the things we never thought we'd cover 00:00:16 - Welcome back, Helena 00:00:41 - Recapping the Lord Brennan interview 00:09:17 - Qobuz and the midyear playlists 00:12:10 - Bill Drummond's No Music Day 00:16:33 - What if music was treated like football 00:19:39 - Andy Burnham's DJ sets and Paris Hilton 00:26:42 - How we actually prep for an interview 00:34:32 - Idea: politicians' favourite bands on election flyers 00:39:00 - Wrap up and thanks to Lord Brennan
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What can music fans expect from the PM Andy Burnham era? DiS meets Lord Brennan
Four thousand, one hundred and forty four music fans responded to a single Parliamentary survey, more than any committee inquiry has recorded before. What they said, over and over, is that going to a gig isn't …
Notas del episodio
Four thousand, one hundred and forty four music fans responded to a single Parliamentary survey, more than any committee inquiry has recorded before. What they said, over and over, is that going to a gig isn't a transaction like any other, it's closer to a communal, sometimes quasi-religious experience, and that's the starting point for this week's conversation.
In this week's episode, Sean talks to Lord Kevin Brennan about the fan-led review of live and electronic music, the report he was commissioned to lead by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. We discuss what's happened since it was published, get his reaction to the Starmer government's response, and what we can hope under new our music-loving prime minister Andy Burnham.
Kevin Brennan was the Labour MP for Cardiff West for twenty three years, from 2001 until he stood down at the last election, before being appointed to the House of Lords as Lord Brennan of Canton. While in the Commons he chaired the CMS committee's inquiry into the economics of music streaming and introduced what became known as the Brennan Bill, a private member's bill that never made it into law but helped push the government towards hosting streaming remuneration talks through the Intellectual Property Office.
However, Brennan is also a musician himself. He was a founding member of MP4, the cross-party band of sitting MPs that has raised over a million pounds for charity (Andy Burnham, now Prime Minister, has played live with them), and in 2021 he became the first sitting MP to release a solo album, The Clown and the Cigarette Girl, produced by Gerry Diver with Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols on bass. He's currently recording a follow up.
The conversation covers the origins of the fan-led review, which built on last year's Music Fans Voice Survey (8,108 respondents), and the resulting Fans' Charter, built around seven "essentials of live": celebration, ticketing, grassroots, safety, accessibility, transport and voice.
They also talk about Andy Burnham's own history as a shareholder in Music Venue Properties, which has taken venues including The Snug in Atherton into community ownership. And yes, we discuss where AI and copyright fit into all of this.
The Drowned in Sound podcast is presented in partnership with Qobuz, the pioneering high-quality music streaming and download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles. Each week we curate playlists on Qobuz, featuring our favourite records, artists, and the themes we explore on the show.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
Referenced In This Episode
The fan-led review of live and electronic music and the government's response: https://committees.parliament.uk/work/9161/fanled-review-of-music/publications
The government's "Turn It Up: Our Plan for Music": https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/turn-it-up-our-plan-for-music/turn-it-up-our-plan-for-music
Michael Dugher appointment as Music Champion: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/michael-dugher-appointed-as-music-champion
Find out more about the FanFair Alliance's campaign against ticket touting: http://fanfairalliance.org
Read Mark Davyd on Andy Burnham's stake in Music Venue Properties and a night out in Atherton: https://markdavyd.substack.com/p/a-night-out-in-atherton
Read more on Suzanne Ashman and the £500m Sovereign AI Fund: https://bmmagazine.co.uk/news/suzanne-ashman-sovereign-ai-fund-managing-partner/
Read Victoria Derbyshire's column on Oasis ticket prices: https://inews.co.uk/opinion/furious-oasis-tickets-dont-know-who-angry-3258086
Listen to Kevin Brennan's album, The Clown and the Cigarette Girl, on Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/album/v097ngg6ijjkc, or on Bandcamp: https://kevinbrennanmusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-clown-the-cigarette-girl
Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
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Why Your Favourite Band's Fans Might Not Be Real
There's a marketing agency that will build your band a small army of fan accounts for about a dollar per thousand views. They post the clips, they seed the captions, sometimes they write the comments underneath …
Notas del episodio
There's a marketing agency that will build your band a small army of fan accounts for about a dollar per thousand views. They post the clips, they seed the captions, sometimes they write the comments underneath too. Until a Substack essay by the musician Eliza McLamb and a run of stories in Wired, New York Magazine and The Verge this May, most of us assumed - unlike MAGA and Reform supporters - the people posting about our favourite artists actually liked them.
In this week's episode, recorded at the Shure Experience Centre in London, Sean is joined by returning guest Hanna Kahlert for a properly wide ranging mid-year check-in on where the music industry actually stands. It covers radio, playlists, spatial audio, AI, third spaces, and at some length, what's really behind the clipping campaigns turning fan accounts into an ad product.
Hanna Kahlert is a senior social analyst at MIDiA Research, where she heads up the company's coverage on social media, cross-entertainment audience behaviour, the creator economy, and the platforms all of it lives on. She was our guest before Christmas talking about the year in tech, which makes her one of a very short list of returning guests on this podcast.
However, MIDiA isn't her only hat. Hanna also mentors at Abbey Road Red, the studio's startup incubator, where she's currently working with founders building spatial audio for VR worlds and, more usefully for touring musicians, something like an Airbnb for recording studios.
The conversation moves through Apple's rumoured smart glasses, why an AR filter over a headline slot might one day save a band three trucks of touring production, and why last year's poolside advert for Meta's camera glasses, endorsed awkwardly by Peggy Gou, has aged badly.
This conversation also gets into how little has actually changed about the mechanics of a live show since Sean was a teenager, wireless guitars aside, and why a crowd full of phones sometimes means an artist is genuinely growing an audience and sometimes just means nobody real is in the room.
The bulk of the episode is about the clipping economy: the marketing model behind fan accounts that turn out not to be run by fans at all. Sean and Hanna work through the Billboard interview with Chaotic Good that started it, Eliza McLamb's essay Fake Fans, and what it meant when that essay led to a month of think pieces asking whether the band Geese were, in the discourse's own phrase, an industry plant psyop. Hanna's own MIDiA research covers the same ground, and it's linked below.
It also gets into third spaces, pubs, youth clubs, and Geoff Barrow's argument that five hundred million pounds would be better spent reopening youth clubs than almost anything else the industry could fund. It ends on why proper research, done slowly, might matter more to a working musician right now than any dashboard full of streaming data.
The Drowned in Sound podcast is presented in partnership with Qobuz, the pioneering high-quality music streaming and download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles. Each week we curate playlists on Qobuz, featuring our favourite records, artists, and the themes we explore on the show.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
Edited by: tell.studio (Phil, Louisa, Owen, Matt)
Hanna Kahlert / MIDiA Research
https://www.midiaresearch.com/analyst/hanna-kahlertFurther reading
MIDiA Research: Clipping campaigns, marketing's next move in a fragmented attention economy
Eliza McLamb: Fake Fans
Dazed: If Geese are a psy-op, so is everything else
Eliza Hatch: Cheer Up LuvRecorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.
Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
Gomez's Tom Gray: How to Fight Spotify in Parliament and Why One Difficult Conversation a Day Is Enough - Part 2
Spotify paid Joe Rogan over $200 million for his podcast. Then, in 2024, they did it again. Tom Gray has spent the last five years thinking about what that kind of money could do for songwriters instead and his …
Notas del episodio
Spotify paid Joe Rogan over $200 million for his podcast. Then, in 2024, they did it again. Tom Gray has spent the last five years thinking about what that kind of money could do for songwriters instead and his answer at the end of this episode is fascinating.
In this week's episode, DiS founder Sean Adams is back with Tom Gray for the second part of a two-part conversation. Part 1 was about the music and the person. This one is about the fight: where the #BrokenRecord campaign came from, how it works, what it has won, and where it keeps hitting walls.
Tom Gray is a Mercury Prize-winning songwriter and founding member of Gomez. Since 2020 he has been the founder of the Broken Record campaign, which began as a Twitter thread during the first lockdown and grew into one of the most significant efforts to change how songwriters and performing artists are paid in the streaming era. He has been Chair of The Ivors Academy since 2022 and stood as a Labour candidate for Brighton Pavilion in the 2024 general election.
The episode opens with the origin of Broken Record: a tweet, a discovery that UK music copyright law was last substantially reformed in 1988, and the realisation that performing artists have no right to the equitable remuneration that has applied to radio play since the 1930s, because streaming platforms treat a stream as a sale rather than a broadcast. Tom explains how the (Kevin) Brennan Bill came together, including the ten-minute phone call in which it was named, and why the word "remuneration" nearly derailed the whole thing.
From there it goes into Labour's relationship with tech, Daniel Ek's visit to Downing Street, the AI consultation process that Tom describes as a failure, and what it feels like to run for Parliament when you have spent four years arguing with the government about copyright law. The metadata problem gets a sharp section of its own: no regulation currently requires streaming platforms to record songwriter information at the point of upload, which creates conditions for fraud and erases the attribution chain entirely. And there is a significant exchange on Spotify's AI remixing feature, Nick Clegg's position at Meta, and what Tom calls "the copyright gang" and "the tech gang" operating in direct opposition inside Whitehall.
The episode also gets into the EU Copyright Directive and why the UK failed to implement it, the CMA's 2022 music streaming market study, and what Chicago School economics has to do with how governments think about music monopolies.
But the last twenty minutes are about hope. The per diem proposal for songwriters has gained real traction. Tom's belief that one difficult conversation a day, with whoever is in front of you, is more useful than waiting for systemic change. And the case for cautious optimism from someone who has been fighting this for five years and can see things starting to move.
The Drowned in Sound podcast is presented in partnership with Qobuz, the pioneering high-quality music streaming and download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles. Each week we curate playlists on Qobuz, featuring our favourite records, artists, and the themes we explore on the show.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
Edited by: tell.studio (Phil, Louisa, Owen, Matt)
Visit: The Ivors Academy
Read: Tom's original Broken Record Twitter thread (April 2020)
Read: The (Kevin) Brennan Bill (Parliament.uk)
Read: CMA Music and Streaming Market Study, November 2022
Recorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.
Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
How Gomez's Tom Gray Ended Up Taking On Spotify in Parliament - Part 1
How do you go from winning the Mercury Prize to writing music for a CBeebies series about a pig named Hector and a very glamorous chicken named Pru? The answer takes in a Tim Buckley obsession that lasted five …
Notas del episodio
How do you go from winning the Mercury Prize to writing music for a CBeebies series about a pig named Hector and a very glamorous chicken named Pru? The answer takes in a Tim Buckley obsession that lasted five years, years of touring America with bands like Frightened Rabbit, and a Brighton theatre company you've almost certainly never heard of.
In this week's episode, Sean finally sits down with Tom Gray, songwriter, founding member of Gomez, and the person behind the Broken Record campaign that took on Spotify. This is the first bit of a two-part conversation.
This episode stays close to the music and the person: what it meant to make Bring It On in 1997, before home recording was what everyone did, and what it felt like when it won.
Tom Gray is a songwriter and composer and a founding member of Gomez. The band's debut album Bring It On, recorded in bedrooms and back rooms when its members were 22 and 23, beat Massive Attack and Pulp to win the Mercury prize.
He went on to write music for theatre and film, including the CBeebies animated series Tilly and Friends, based on Polly Dunbar's books.
However, since 2020, Tom has been at the centre of one of the most significant debates in the British music industry. He founded the #BrokenRecord campaign, which started as a Twitter thread during the first lockdown and became a movement that put music creator rights onto the parliamentary agenda.
Alongside the campaign, Tom has been Chair of The Ivors Academy since 2022 and stood as a Labour candidate for Brighton Pavilion in the 2024 general election.
The conversation covers how Gomez happened: what making records at home without a budget or a studio actually does for the music, and the aesthetic of limitation that defined the band's early sound. Tom talks through the years he spent chasing down a slice of Tim Buckley's back catalogue, the anticipation of finally hearing the Starsailor album, the disappointment of actually listening to it, and the one track, 'Dolphins', that made the whole rabbit hole worth it.
The conversation also gets into what the other Gomez members have been up to, including an Empire of the Sun connection, and the first threads of the streaming frustration that becomes the whole of Part 2.
Part 2 is next week: more on the Broken Record campaign, the Kevin Brennan Bill, and AI.
The Drowned in Sound podcast is presented in partnership with Qobuz, the pioneering high-quality music streaming and download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles. Each week we curate playlists on Qobuz, featuring our favourite records, artists, and the themes we explore on the show.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
Edited by: tell.studio (Phil, Louisa, Owen, Matt)
Visit: The Ivors Academy
Listen to: Dolphins - Tim Buckley (Sefronia, 1973) - original by Fred Neil (Fred Neil, 1967)
Watch: Tilly and Friends on CBeebies
Recorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.
Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
Geoff Barrow (Portishead) Made a Film with a Sleaford Mod and Every Penny Invada Had
What do you do when everyone tells you that you can't make a film without the right connections, the right funding, the right people saying yes? If you're Geoff Barrow, you spend everything Invada Records has …
Notas del episodio
What do you do when everyone tells you that you can't make a film without the right connections, the right funding, the right people saying yes? If you're Geoff Barrow, you spend everything Invada Records has on proving them wrong. And the result is a fantastic watch.
In this week's episode, Sean Adams sat in the sun outside Geoff's home near Portishead to talk about GAME, the debut feature from Invada Films, a gripping rural thriller set against the backdrop of the 1993 British rave scene. It stars Marc Bessant and Jason Williamson from Sleaford Mods as a dealer and a poacher locked in a tense standoff deep in the Somerset woods.
It was shot for £150,000 (essentially all the money Invada had), and it was written, produced and distributed from Bristol, by people who actually lived in that world.
Geoff Barrow started out as a tape op for Massive Attack before co-founding Portishead. He runs Invada Records in Bristol, which has released soundtracks for Drive, Stranger Things and Red Dead Redemption alongside records by Gazelle Twin, Billy Nomates, Beak> and more.
Alongside Ben Salisbury, Barrow has scored Ex Machina, Annihilation, Civil War, Black Mirror and many more.
However, GAME is something different: his first credit as producer and co-writer of a feature film.
They talk about why making GAME felt like a reaction to being told no, and how a five-hour session with a friend who had been both a poacher and a countryside rave supplier in the early 90s shaped the script.
The conversation also gets into why casting Jason Williamson was an obvious call the moment it came up, why Geoff stripped the score back to almost nothing (he has spent enough years watching low-budget films drown themselves in music to know what it does), and how a football teammate called DJ Smudge ended up making the period-accurate 1993 bangers on the soundtrack.
From there the conversation goes wider: the inside story of how Invada came to release the Drive soundtrack, why Mica Levi's Under the Skin changed what Geoff thought a film score could be, why Kangding Ray's Sirāt gave him a similar jolt more recently, what it was like working with Alex Garland and Ben Wheatley, why Low's Double Negative is one of the most important records of the 21st century, how the people who went to those countryside raves in 1993 ended up voting Reform, what he'd do with £500 million if he had it, and what all of his records would taste like.
GAME has its live stream premiere on Thursday 18 June at 7:30pm BST. Tickets are £5 and available everywhere except North America. Geoff, director John Minton, Marc Bessant and screenwriter Rob Williams will all be in the live chat taking questions, hosted by Paul Weedon. Get your ticket at https://watch.eventive.org/invadafilms/play/69c69adff08307d6b404d921
🎧 The Drowned in Sound podcast is presented in partnership with Qobuz, the pioneering high-quality music streaming and download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles. Each week we curate playlists on Qobuz, featuring our favourite records, artists, and the themes we explore on the show.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to hear our podcast companion playlist and discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality. To start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz head to https://qobuz.com/dis.
Edited by: tell.studio (Phil, Louisa, Owen, Matt)
GAME (Invada Films)
https://www.invadafilms.co.uk/GAME tickets, Blu-ray, vinyl and more
https://linktr.ee/InvadaFilmsGameGAME Limited Edition Orange Vinyl (300 copies, signed) pre-order
https://www.invada.co.uk/collections/gameInvada Records
https://www.invada.co.uk/Recorded, engineered and hosted by Sean Adams (seaninsound.com) at Geoff's home near Portishead, Bristol.
Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
Sathnam Sanghera on George Michael: Iraq, Wham!, Empire, Fandom, and The Best Hit Rate in Chart History
George Michael had the highest hit rate in the history of the US Hot 100. Nineteen entries, eight number ones. 'Last Christmas' has been covered more than four hundred times. Ten years after his death, there's …
Notas del episodio
George Michael had the highest hit rate in the history of the US Hot 100. Nineteen entries, eight number ones. 'Last Christmas' has been covered more than four hundred times.
Ten years after his death, there's been no big tribute concert, no statue, and almost no serious book about his cultural legacy. Until now...
Sean Adams and Helena Wadia spoke to Sathnam Sanghera, historian, journalist, and lifelong George Michael fan, about his new book Tonight the Music Seems So Loud: The Meaning of George Michael.
Sathnam Sanghera is the author of Empireland (British Book Award for Narrative Non-Fiction, Channel 4 documentary), Marriage Material (shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, adapted for stage in 2025), and The Boy with the Topknot (Mind Book of the Year, BBC film). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical Society, and has been a George Michael fan since inheriting the bug from his sisters during Wham! mania in the mid-1980s.
Tonight the Music Seems So Loud is a portrait of George Michael that doubles as an account of a turbulent period in British history, and this conversation covers most of it. Sathnam explains why Wham! was essentially a solo act, why George's perfectionism mattered (twelve hours on the vocal for 'Kissing a Fool', six months producing 'Fastlove', gaps of up to five years between albums), and how 'Last Christmas' was written in an afternoon while Andrew Ridgeley watched Match of the Day downstairs.
The conversation goes well beyond standard fan-book territory. Sathnam makes the case that George Michael's activism has dated better than almost any British pop star of his era: he was publicly opposing the Iraq war before the marches, campaigning on AIDS while the tabloids used every appearance as an opportunity to out him, and he split up Wham! partly in protest at the management's involvement with an apartheid-era South African company. The Sony lawsuit, which cost him five years and millions of pounds, was fought on behalf of all artists, not just himself.
The immigrant angle runs throughout: both George's Greek-Cypriot father and Andrew Ridgeley's Egyptian father came to Britain as a direct consequence of the British Empire, the faith-era aesthetic owes as much to immigrant overdressing as anything else, and Sathnam traces surprising parallel lives between a Greek-Cypriot boy from Finchley and a Punjabi boy from Wolverhampton.
The episode also asks what George would do with £500 million extracted from the music industry, whether his 1998 outing was a turning point for press homophobia, and why a musician playing in every shopping mall on earth still has no statue.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to hear our podcast companion playlist and discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality. To start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz head to https://qobuz.com/dis.
Edited by: tell.studio (Phil, Louisa, Owen, Matt)
Co-hosted by Helena Wadia, who also co-hosts the Media Storm podcast: https://mediastormpodcast.com/about-us/
Sathnam Sanghera / Tonight the Music Seems So Loud
https://www.sathnam.com/
instagram.com/sathnamsangheraFurther reading
Sathnam Sanghera: Empireland and other booksRecorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.
Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
Los Campesinos! Part! Two! On Class, Privilege, And The Economics Of Bands vs Solo Artists
What happens when you can no longer subsidize creativity with a second job? Part 2 of our conversation with Gareth David digs into the real cost of being a musician in 2026: visa fees, tour buses, the collapse …
Notas del episodio
What happens when you can no longer subsidize creativity with a second job? Part 2 of our conversation with Gareth David digs into the real cost of being a musician in 2026: visa fees, tour buses, the collapse of sync deals, and the brutal math that's turning bedroom producers into solo acts instead of bands.
In Part 2, Gareth explains how the economics of live music are excluding new artists entirely, why class matters more than talent, what happens when a breakup tour costs 50 quid and a reunion costs 100, and whether music could ever work as a genuinely not-for-profit industry.
We also discuss Los Campesinos! 20-year evolution, why they won't do reunion theatrics, the uncomfortable politics of being an openly leftist band, why low-income tickets matter (and why more bands won't do them), and what he'd do with £500 million to fix the industry. Plus: his actual dream for the next 20 years.
Gareth is the lyricist and lead singer of Los Campesinos!, a band who've been walking the walk for twenty years: unconditional support for trans people, rejecting unaligned brand money, low-income tickets for fans, and now, brutal honesty about how much (or how little) the music industry actually pays. In Part 2, he gets into the systemic economics that are reshaping what kind of music gets made and who gets to make it.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to hear our podcast companion playlist and discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality. To start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz head to https://qobuz.com/dis.
Edited by: tell.studio (Phil, Louisa, Owen, Matt)
Co-hosted by Helena Wadia, who also co-hosts the Media Storm podcast: https://mediastormpodcast.com/about-us/
Los Campesinos!
https://loscampesinos.com/Further reading
How much Los Campesinos! made from Spotify
US tour budget breakdown
Explainer of Dublin show budgetRecorded remotely.
Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
You! Me! 10 Million Spotify Streams! How Much?!?!! Why Los Campesinos! Stopped Being Quiet - Part 1
What do bands actually make from ten million Spotify streams? About £32k... In Part 1 of this conversation, Gareth David from Los Campesinos! walks Helena Wadia and Sean Adams through the numbers and how he …
Notas del episodio
What do bands actually make from ten million Spotify streams? About £32k...
In Part 1 of this conversation, Gareth David from Los Campesinos! walks Helena Wadia and Sean Adams through the numbers and how he felt about Spotify's response.
This radical financial transparency about streaming also goes into the platform's payout structure that puts artists in direct competition with each other, and explains why "just support artists on Bandcamp" misses the complexity of who actually owns the rights.
Gareth is the lyricist and lead singer of Los Campesinos!, a band who've been walking the walk for twenty years: unconditional support for trans people, rejecting unaligned brand money, low-income tickets for fans, and now, brutal honesty about how much (or how little) the music industry actually pays.
In part 1, Gareth explains the economics of streaming, the difference between artists and rights holders, and what happens when you release an album the same month as Taylor Swift. Next week, Part 2 goes into their sold-out 2024 North American tour accounts, where nearly £50,000 went on a tour bus alone.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to hear our podcast companion playlist and discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality. To start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz head to https://qobuz.com/dis.
Edited by: tell.studio (Phil, Louisa, Owen, Matt)
Co-hosted by Helena Wadia, who also co-hosts the Media Storm podcast: https://mediastormpodcast.com/about-us/
Los Campesinos
https://loscampesinos.com/Further reading
How much Los Campesinos made from Spotify
US tour budget breakdown
Explainer of Dublin show budgetSign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
00:00:00 - Welcome, Los Campesinos, and radical transparency
00:02:13 - Starting the band on message boards
00:04:06 - Why Gareth decided to share specific numbers
00:06:39 - The shock of the real streaming numbers
00:09:21 - What's the most ethical way to support bands
00:11:52 - Rights holders vs. artists on Bandcamp
00:13:16 - Spotify's response to transparency criticism
00:17:22 - Taylor Swift and the algorithm's impact
00:18:44 - Keeping music on Spotify while critiquing the platform
00:22:11 - Newsletter break and topic switch
00:23:34 - Why tour transparency matters to Los Campesinos fans
00:24:30 - Come to Brazil, come to Australia (but why they can't)
00:27:30 - How touring with two children changes everything
00:28:55 - Making venue logistics work with kids on tour
00:31:44 - Qobuz sponsorship message
00:32:59 - Keeping ticket prices low as an ideological choice
00:35:35 - Low-income tickets and the ticket bank
00:39:47 - Part 2 announcement and tour income previewAI & Consent Special with Addison Rae, Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift featuring Dr Hayleigh Bosher
Helena Wadia and Sean Adams caught up with intellectual property expert Dr Hayleigh Bosher to discuss AI, Addison Rae, ICE, Taylor Swift, deep fakes, trademarks, consent, copyright, Samsung, and Dua Lipa. The …
Notas del episodio
Helena Wadia and Sean Adams caught up with intellectual property expert Dr Hayleigh Bosher to discuss AI, Addison Rae, ICE, Taylor Swift, deep fakes, trademarks, consent, copyright, Samsung, and Dua Lipa.
The episode begins with our reaction to this clip of Lambrini Girls on Channel 4, in which Phoebe says "AI is going to be the thing that kills art entirely."
Don't worry, this isn't just doom-spiralling about our descent into technofascism, this episode hopefully answers everything you wanted to know about the contractions of the tech revolution we're living through.
In this wide ranging chat about AI, consent, copyright, and double standards, we discuss whether Addison Rae might win her case against ICE for using her music without her consent (at the time of publishing, the video is still on Insatgram here). Explore why Taylor Swift is trademarking herself and whether it will it stop deep fakes. And we explore why Dua Lipa is suing Samsung for £15m?!
We also touch upon the UK government's AI consultation.
Dr. Hayleigh Bosher appeared on season 1 of the Drowned in Sound podcast. She's a goto for breaking news on BBC and Sky, because she's an expert in Intellectual Property Law at Brunel University London, specialising in copyright within the creative industries, particularly music, social media, and AI. She authored the book Copyright in the Music Industry (order the second edition), hosts the podcast Whose Song is it Anyway?
You'll find all of Hayleigh’s links here.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to hear our weekly podcast companion playlists and discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
Edited by: tell.studio (Phil, Louisa, Owen, Matt)
p.s. Helena's podcast Media Storm returns this week, make sure you're subscribed on Apple Podcasts.
Ticket Touts Rejoice! DiS & Which? React to The King's Speech
"Disappointing" is the word of the week in the UK music biz, after the UK government seem to have kicked the can down the road on tackling ticket touts aka "secondary ticketing". Why? The King's Speech happened …
Notas del episodio
"Disappointing" is the word of the week in the UK music biz, after the UK government seem to have kicked the can down the road on tackling ticket touts aka "secondary ticketing".
Why? The King's Speech happened yesterday. The Keir Starmer's Labour government promised to end ticket touting. And yet...
What we got was a draft bill. Buried on page 64 of a supplementary document. Not in the speech itself. Not legislation. Not a law. A draft, which means more consultations, an uncertain timeline, and the door left open for the secondary ticketing platforms to shape whatever comes next.
DiS podcast host Sean Adams revisits the full sixteen-year history of this fight, from Sharon Hodgson's Private Member's Bill in 2010, through the Channel 4 Dispatches investigation, the Waterson Review, the founding of the FanFair Alliance, the Digital Economy Act, the CMA's rejected recommendations, Labour's manifesto promise, the Oasis dynamic pricing scandal, and the November 2025 announcement that made everyone think change was finally coming.
Then he's rejoined by Kat Cereda, spokesperson for Which?, to dig into what a draft bill actually means, why secondary ticketing websites getting involved in shaping the legislation is exactly what campaigners feared, and what Which? does next.
And at the end of the episode, Adam Webb from the FanFair Alliance gives his reaction - he's someone who has been in the trenches of this campaign since 2016.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
Edited by: tell.studio (Phil, Louisa, Owen, Matt)
Recorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.
Sign up to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
Which?
Stop Fleecing Fans campaign: https://www.which.co.uk/campaigns/stop-fleecing-fansFanFair Alliance
https://fanfairalliance.org/Music Fans Voice
https://musicfansvoice.uk/CMS Committee Fan-Led Review of Live and Electronic Music
https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/378/culture-media-and-sport-committee/news/213147/Further reading
Everything you need to know about gig tickets: https://www.drownedinsound.org/gig-tickets/Previous episodes in this series
Kat Cereda (Which?) on the open letter to Keir Starmer: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-uk-government-promised-to-end-ticket-touting-so/id1037405920?i=1000764130066
Adam Webb (FanFair Alliance) on ticket resale and the FanFair campaign: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/uk-caps-ticket-resale-at-face-value-what-took-so-long/id1037405920?i=1000737461606Z18i9TJgd0qOHYOLDtzN
Two Music Fans. One Astonishing Fan-Led Review of Live & Electronic Music
Over 4,000 music fans responded to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s Fan-Led Review into Live Music and Electronic Music and in this week's episode DiS founder Sean Adams and co-host Helena Wadia reacted …
Notas del episodio
Over 4,000 music fans responded to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s Fan-Led Review into Live Music and Electronic Music and in this week's episode DiS founder Sean Adams and co-host Helena Wadia reacted to this important report that could revolutionise live music in the UK.
Alongside the in-depth analysis of the state of live music and what music fans want, there's also The Fans' Charter.
Much shorter than the 100-page report, the Fans' Charter has 50 recommendations that the government, the industry, and local authorities should implement, from ending ticket touting to improving late night transport and simple things like the live industry sharing timings so fans can plan their night out accordingly.
We would urge you to head over here to read the fan-led review and then pop your postcode into TheyWorkForYou and WhoCanIVoteFor to gently encourage your representatives to read the report.
The government have less than 2 months to respond and the more MPs, councillors, and mayors that read it, the better.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to hear Helena's playlist and to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality. Start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
This episode was edited by: http://tell.studio
Co-hosted by Helena Wadia, who also co-hosts the Media Storm podcast: https://mediastormpodcast.com/about-us/
Recorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.
Sign up to our newsletter at http://drownedinsound.org
The UK government promised to end ticket touting. So why hasn't it?
Before the UK's general election, Labour's 2024 manifesto promised to "put fans back at the heart of events" by ending ticket touting. Then, when in power, the Labour government made confirmed the plan in …
Notas del episodio
Before the UK's general election, Labour's 2024 manifesto promised to "put fans back at the heart of events" by ending ticket touting.
Then, when in power, the Labour government made confirmed the plan in November 2025. And yet here we are in April 2026, with no legislation, and reports that the Ticketing Bill may not even appear in the King's Speech on 13 May. But what we do have is the fan-led review of live music, urging the government to enact this change.
This is the first episode of a new series on power and double standards in music - who has it, how it works, and what fans can actually do both individually and collectively to change things.
To kick things off, DiS founder Sean Adams and co-host Helena Wadia are joined by Kat Cereda, spokesperson for Which?, to dig into the consumer rights organisation's open letter calling on Keir Starmer to include a Ticketing Bill in the King's Speech and cap ticket resales at face value.
The coalition of signatories is striking: AEG Presents, the Featured Artists Coalition, ATC Management (Nick Cave, Radiohead), Wildlife Entertainment (Arctic Monkeys, Fontaines DC), Grumpy Old Management (Ed Sheeran), the Music Venue Trust, Live Nation, Ticketmaster and more - united in calling on the government to deliver on its manifesto commitment before the window closes.
They cover:
- Why Which?, who are perhaps best known for testing washing machines, is exactly the right organisation to lead this fight
- How secondary ticketing has grown from "the old man in a trenchcoat outside the venue" to international criminal operations with links to Dubai and Delaware
- The numbers: resellers stand to make an estimated £24 million from fans this summer alone; a Harry Styles ticket at £200 face value listed at £3,622; an Ariana Grande ticket at £135 listed at £2,835; a BTS ticket at £450 listed at £4,872 that's a whopping 312% markup; and a Raye ticket at All Points East listed on Viagogo at £140,000
- Speculative selling: listing tickets touts don't even own yet
- How fans could save £112 million a year if a price cap were introduced. This is the government's own figure!
- Why the King's Speech on 13th May is the only real accountability test, and what it means if the bill isn't in it
- The CMS Committee's independent fan-led review, published just this month, which calls on the government to act "without delay" (more on that next week)
- What 91% of over 8,000 Music Fans Voice survey respondents agree on
- Platforms like Twickets and Dice that are already doing it right
- What you can do right now to keep the pressure on
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
This episode was edited by: http://tell.studio
Which? Stop Fleecing Fans campaign: https://www.which.co.uk/campaigns/stop-fleecing-fans Open letter to the Prime Minister (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/posts/which_open-letter-to-the-prime-minister-activity-7453362314151469056-LwME Which? on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DXgfoKVFrtA/
Co-hosted by Helena Wadia, who also co-hosts the Media Storm podcast: https://mediastormpodcast.com/about-us/
Further reading CMS Committee Fan-Led Review of Live and Electronic Music (April 2026): https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/378/culture-media-and-sport-committee/news/213147/calls-for-new-music-fan-association-to-boost-fan-involvement-as-review-publishes-charter-to-safeguard-live-music-sector/
Previous episode Adam Webb (FanFair Alliance) on ticket resale and the FanFair Alliance's campaign: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/uk-caps-ticket-resale-at-face-value-what-took-so-long/id1037405920?i=1000737461606
Recorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.
Sign up to our newsletter at http://drownedinsound.org
Movements & Music - Introducing Sounds Like Change
Drowned in Sound is thrilled to reveal the first series in our new podcast network, with more shows to be announced soon. Hosted by music and social change expert, start-up founder, and campaign organiser …
Notas del episodio
Drowned in Sound is thrilled to reveal the first series in our new podcast network, with more shows to be announced soon.
Hosted by music and social change expert, start-up founder, and campaign organiser Ariana Alexander-Sefre, Sounds Like Change brings together artists, thinkers, and changemakers to explore the profound role music plays in shaping our mental health, identities, and collective futures.
The podcast manages to merge a fresh perspective on activism with an len through which we clearly can see music as a cultural force with the power to shift how we feel, relate, and act in a society that has left so many of us feeling hopeless
Each episode starts with a song of hope chosen by the guest, then moves from personal stories to wider societal questions, and ultimately toward imagining better futures. Conversations are interwoven with moments of sound and reflection, creating space to feel and process.
In this edition of the Drowned in Sound podcast, we introduce you to Ariana and share a taste of the pilot episode, with Drowned in Sound founder and our podcast host, Sean Adams, talking about the role artists like Dead Prez and David Bowie played in his political awakening.
Ahead of the first episode, you can now subscribe to Sounds Like Change on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Give the show a follow on Instagram here. To contact the show or pitch ideas please email [email protected].
This week's playlist + Qobuz free trial.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to hear Sean's political awakenings playlist and discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality. Start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
Edited by: tell.studio (Phil, Louisa, Owen, Matt)
Nobody Consented to This: How AI Is Using Artists' Music, Voices and Likenesses Without Permission
Is AI a human rights issue for musicians? And why isn't the UK government treating it like one? In Part 2 of our conversation with David Martin, CEO of the Featured Artists Coalition, we turn to the question …
Notas del episodio
Is AI a human rights issue for musicians? And why isn't the UK government treating it like one?
In Part 2 of our conversation with David Martin, CEO of the Featured Artists Coalition, we turn to the question that kept us talking long after we'd wrapped the UK Artist Touring Fund discussion: what happens when AI platforms train on artists' recordings, voices, and likenesses without their consent?
David explains why the FAC and the Council of Music Makers see protecting human creativity as fundamentally important, why record contracts signed in 2020 couldn't possibly have granted consent for AI uses artists didn't understand, and why the deals major labels have struck with AI platforms are, in his words, a scandal. Sean connects this to the UK government's investment in AI data centres and tax breaks, while 125,000 music industry workers and the Music Export Growth Scheme's entire annual budget sits at just £1.6 million.
They also get into David's answer to the £500 million question, why he thinks music in 2050 will be better than ever, the difference between AI hype and the NFT bubble, and why venues with broken dressing room windows in minus-four weather tell you everything about where the money actually goes.
This is the final episode of our season loosely themed around resilience. Send your questions to [email protected] for an upcoming Ask Me Anything episode.
Links:
Featured Artists Coalition https://www.featuredartistscoalition.com
Council of Music Makers https://councilofmusicmakers.org
Musicians' Union https://themu.org
Music Managers Forum https://themmf.net
Music Export Growth Scheme https://www.bpi.co.uk/fund/music-export-growth-scheme/
This week's playlist: artists who speak up about AI + Qobuz free trial. Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.Edited by: tell.studio (Phil, Louisa, Owen, Matt)
For 25 years our publication and podcast has recommended music. We now also spark conversations and create resources to help music fans discover their collective power.
Can £125,000 Make a Difference to the Crisis in Live Music?
The UK music industry generated £7.6 billion last year. Taylor Swift became a billionaire off the back of a tour. So why are some artists still losing money every time they play a show? That's the question at …
Notas del episodio
The UK music industry generated £7.6 billion last year. Taylor Swift became a billionaire off the back of a tour. So why are some artists still losing money every time they play a show?
That's the question at the heart of this episode, as Sean sits down with David Martin, CEO of the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), and musician and former FAC board member Roxanne de Bastion to talk about the newly launched UK Artist Touring Fund (UKAT).
Applications are open now. If you are a touring artist, go to thefac.org/ukatfund before midnight on 20 March 2026. Or stay tuned for phase two.
The fund distributes money raised through a voluntary £1 levy on arena and stadium tickets - contributed by tours from artists including Harry Styles, Katy Perry, Coldplay, Radiohead and Enter Shikari - to help emerging and mid-tier artists cover genuine shortfalls on their UK headline tours. In Phase One, artists can receive up to £7,000, covering up to 40% of tour expenditure.
In this episode we cover:
- Why the music industry can be booming at the top while artists on the road are losing money every night - and how British artists' share of the global market has fallen from around 17% to 9% in the last nine years.
- The real costs of touring - from Travelodge bills and van hire to session fees, sound engineers and childcare - and how costs have risen sharply since 2022 while support fees have barely moved in decades.
- Why record labels stopped providing tour support, and what that has meant for the generation of artists trying to develop their careers on the road.
- How UKAT works: who qualifies, what it covers, why support tours are excluded from Phase One (and when that changes), and the separate access fund for artists with disabilities, caring responsibilities or other access needs.
- The Live Nation question - how the UK's biggest promoter reports losses in its UK entity while the wider group generates billions globally through Ticketmaster and venue operations - and what it would take to bring major players fully into the levy.
- Why funding touring is also a working-class issue: every genre the UK is globally known for - grime, drum and bass, early rock and pop - came from working-class underground movements, and rising costs are pricing those voices out.
- The safety argument: as David describes, sending artists out on the road without the resources to do it properly is not just a financial issue - it is a physical safety issue. The death of Viola Beach is a reference point nobody in the industry has forgotten.
- What Roxanne would spend £500 million on, and what both guests hope and fear music will be like in 2050.
Visit drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at qobuz.com/dis.
Links
UKAT Fund - apply by 20 March 2026: thefac.org/ukatfund
Featured Artists Coalition: thefac.org
Roxanne de Bastion: roxannedebastion.com/
Los Campesinos! touring economics breakdown: https://community.drownedinsound.com/t/how-los-campesinos-lost-over-1000-playing-a-sold-out-show-in-dublin/87034
Enter Shikari / Rou Reynolds episode: https://youtu.be/gTkSAokv6UU?si=vBeWvwp7y2l78I3AJoin the DiS community: community.drownedinsound.com
DiS newsletter signup: drownedinsound.org
Edited by: tell.studio (Phil, Louisa, Owen, Matt)
Why Does Electronic Music Sound Like Shoegaze? Art School Girlfriend on Lean In, positive nihilism, and making music for fun
What does it mean to lean in? Not to your career, not to the algorithm but to the act of making music itself? Polly Mackey, the artist, musician, songwriter and producer behind Art School Girlfriend, nearly …
Notas del episodio
What does it mean to lean in? Not to your career, not to the algorithm but to the act of making music itself?
Polly Mackey, the artist, musician, songwriter and producer behind Art School Girlfriend, nearly walked away from releasing music altogether. Instead, she built a studio in East London, completed a Master's thesis on how electronic music can feel human, and made Lean In, her third album, out now on Fiction Records. It might be the most emotionally honest thing she's made.
In this conversation, Polly and Sean talk about why she's drawn to the emotional geography between shoegaze and electronic music, the Ableton water-simulation plugins that shaped the record's sound, and what it felt like to study her own creative process while writing the songs. They also get into the bigger questions: Is the album format in crisis? Who actually benefits when music is "democratised"? And what happens to the music industry when the barrier to entry used to be £350 rent in Dalston?
Plus: Polly's memories of trying to buy a Slayer album at 10 years old, what her three records taste like (one of them tastes like tears), touring as a three-piece with her wife Marika Hackman, and a genuinely lovely answer about what she hopes music looks like in 2050.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
Links
Art School Girlfriend: artschoolgirlfriend.co.uk
Marika Hackman: marikahackman.com
Shy Radicals (film/book): Good Press
Foundation FM: Art School Girlfriend's Radio ShowJoin the DiS community: http://community.drownedinsound.com
Subscribe to the DiS newsletter: http://drownedinsound.org
Edited by: tell.studio (Phil, Louisa, Owen, Matt)
Chapters
00:00:00 - Introduction and Qobuz playlist
00:02:27 - Meet Polly Mackey
00:03:50 - Soft Landing vs Lean In
00:06:30 - Growing up on nu metal in North Wales
00:09:30 - What music would taste like
00:10:54 - Why electronic music sounds like shoegaze
00:13:50 - The Slink Devices water plugin
00:18:00 - Rewilding electronic music
00:19:15 - The MA thesis: sonic objects of intimacy
00:20:10 - Digital silence and The New Analog
00:24:00 - Positive nihilism
00:27:50 - Emma's newsletter ad
00:28:34 - Is the album format in crisis?
00:33:50 - Self-producing Lean In and mixing with Riley MacIntyre
00:34:10 - Sensory overwhelm and Doing Laps
00:36:00 - Translating the record to the live stage
00:38:57 - Qobuz ad
00:40:13 - Shy Radicals, Arlo Parks and the queer bookshop
00:43:40 - £500 million: geography vs class in the music industry
00:51:30 - How to ethically support artists you love
00:52:38 - What music should look like in 2050
00:54:35 - Outro
What If You Could Taste Music? kwes. on his "dreamy" new LP on Warp
What happens when a producer and musician working with Solange, Rosie Lowe, Loyle Carner, and Kelela burns out, and a spilled glass of water shows him the way back? Kwes. (Kwesi Sey) has spent fifteen years at …
Notas del episodio
What happens when a producer and musician working with Solange, Rosie Lowe, Loyle Carner, and Kelela burns out, and a spilled glass of water shows him the way back?
Kwes. (Kwesi Sey) has spent fifteen years at the centre of London's most boundary-pushing music, from working with Bobby Womack to the Rye Lane soundtrack. But after years of studio sessions and collaborations, he needed a reset. The catalyst came from his daughter: she knocked over a drink mid-drawing, shrugged it off, and carried on. That moment became the blueprint for his new album Kinds, made in six months of late-night flow states, half-asleep at the keyboard.
The result is a 29-minute meditation on colour, memory, and sound. Every track is named after the hues kwes. experiences through synesthesia / chromesthesia (hearing colours).
We talk about making music without overthinking, why ambient records aren't minimal, the discipline of producing for other artists versus creating your own work, and what Beach Boys albums taste like.
Sean and kwes. also discuss burnout and creative recovery, the London scene that connects Damon Albarn to Tirzah to Speech Debelle, and why London needs creative spaces with affordable accommodation. kwes. reflects on the Barbican and Tate Modern premieres for Kinds, working with visual artist Ryan Vautier, and his hope that one day we'll be able to smell sound.
If there's a thread running through it all, it's this: rest is political. And sometimes the most radical thing you can do is stop overthinking and just make.
Visit https://drownedinsound.org/playlists/ to discover new music in rich Hi-Res lossless quality and start your 30-day free trial of Qobuz at https://qobuz.com/dis.
Edited by: tell.studio (Phil, Louisa, Owen, Matt)
Continue the Conversation: Head to the Drowned in Sound community to chat about the topics in this episode.
Subscribe: Get weekly essays, interviews, and insights from the Drowned in Sound newsletter - exploring music, culture, and resistance.
Links & Resources:
kwes.:
- Official website: https://kwes.info
- Bandcamp: https://kwesmusic.bandcamp.com
- Warp Records: https://warp.net/artists/kwes/
Films & Soundtracks:
- Rye Lane (dir. Raine Allen-Miller): https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001k3tb/rye-lane
- Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story: https://www.londonsff.com/black-is-beautiful
Some of the artists mentioned:
- Coby Sey (kwes.'s brother): https://cobysey.bandcamp.com
- Elan Tamara (kwes.'s wife): https://elantamara.bandcamp.com
- Loyle Carner: https://loylecarner.com
- Kelela: https://www.kelela.com
- Tirzah: https://tirzah.co.uk
Recorded at The Shure Experience Centre in London
Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction
03:00:00 - What is minimalism?
06:15:00 - Working with Solange and Kelela
10:45:00 - The spilled drink catalyst
14:30:00 - Making the record after burnout
19:00:00 - Flow state and late-night writing
22:25:00 - Newsletter ad break
25:00:00 - Barbican and Tate Modern premieres
28:30:00 - Synesthesia and colour-coded tracks
32:00:00 - Qobuz ad break
35:00:00 - Brian Eno and ambient music
40:00:00 - Inspirations: Beach Boys, Pat Metheny
47:00:00 - What does music taste like?
50:30:00 - Creative spaces and accommodation
54:00:00 - Hope for music in 2050The Grassroots Pledge: Wrestling Instagram, Spotify, and the Arts Council with promoter David Littlefair
What does it actually mean to be a grassroots music promoter in 2026? David Littlefair joins the Drowned in Sound Podcast to discuss the grassroots pledge he's made with Marrapalooza, the DIY festival in …
Notas del episodio
What does it actually mean to be a grassroots music promoter in 2026?
David Littlefair joins the Drowned in Sound Podcast to discuss the grassroots pledge he's made with Marrapalooza, the DIY festival in Newcastle's Ouseburn Valley - redirecting ad spend away from Meta, refusing to book artists based on follower counts, and putting money back into the local scene instead of offshore platforms.We also get into the bigger picture: why 85% of Arts Council music funding goes to opera and classical music while brass bands and folk get 0.6% each, how Spotify has spent fifteen years extracting hundreds of millions from British artists, and why the grassroots levy risks being offshored by Instagram ads.
David speaks from twenty years of promoting in the North East - from £1-on-the-door pub nights in Sunderland to putting on Sam Fender's second ever gig, to building a festival with a clear political philosophy. He talks about "algorithm begging," the case for community-owned venues modelled on working men's clubs, nd what he'd do with Daniel Ek's £500 million.
The Drowned in Sound Podcast is presented in partnership with Qobuz - the ethical music streaming platform for music enthusiasts. Start your free trial at drownedinsound.org/playlists. This week's playlist (Jan/Feb 2026 favourites) + Qobuz free trial https://www.drownedinsound.org/playlists + Subscribe to the DiS Newsletter https://www.drownedinsound.org/newsletter
Links:
🎪 Marrapalooza 4: Wild and Fierce and Not Bothered — June 5–7 2026, Newcastle https://marrapalooza.co.uk
📄 Youth Music — "Just The Way It Is?" report https://www.youthmusic.org.uk
📄 IPPR — State of the North (arts and culture spending) https://www.ippr.org
📗 Liz Pelly — Mood Machine (Spotify book) https://lizpelly.info
🎵 Portions For Foxes (David's promoting name) — named after the Rilo Kiley songCredits: Hosted, engineered, edited, researched, and produced by Sean Adams.
Edited and mixed by Tell Studio.
Recorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London.
Guest: David Littlefair (Marrapalooza / Portions For Foxes).For 25 years our publication and podcast has recommended music. We now also spark conversations and create resources to help music fans discover their collective power.
Mentioned in this episode: Marrapalooza · Portions For Foxes · Los Campesinos! · Soak · Milkweed · Lande Hekt · Jim Ghedi · Gwennifer Raymond · The Chisel · Militarie Gun · Mandrake Handshake · Sam Fender · Field Music · The Futureheads · Rilo Kiley · Caribou · Hundred Reasons · Kelly Lee Owens · PVA · Ella Harris · Gruff Rhys · Benefits · Ex Vöid · Justin Hawkins / The Darkness · Liz Pelly · Music Venue Trust · Arts Council England · PRS for Music · Help Musicians · Featured Artists Coalition · Democratic Business Alliance · Brass Band England · Qobuz · Spotify / Daniel Ek · Youth Music · Music Declares Emergency
When Boycotts Work: Arms, Hope and Soundtracking Brexit with Gazelle Twin
This is a conversation about what happens when artists discover their collective power. In May 2025, electronic artist Gazelle Twin withdrew from her Kings Place residency over the venue's decision to host an …
Notas del episodio
This is a conversation about what happens when artists discover their collective power.
In May 2025, electronic artist Gazelle Twin withdrew from her Kings Place residency over the venue's decision to host an arms industry conference sponsored by Lockheed Martin. Eleven days later, after 1,200+ artists and fans signed an open letter, Kings Place cancelled the event.
Elizabeth Bernholz (Gazelle Twin) talks about that moment and so much more. The musician meets Drowned in Sound founder to discuss creating Pastoral - the Brexit-adjacent album that Drowned in Sound gave 10/10 - moving from liberal Brighton to conservative rural England, the Fever Ray performance that changed everything, and why she performed unmasked for the first time for the album Black Dog after fourteen years...
We discuss the practical tactics of organizing boycotts, how PRS Foundation funding enabled some of her most political work, balancing motherhood with touring and activism, film scoring (Nocturne, The Power) as financial stability, and why she believes Ireland's basic income for musicians could transform the industry.
From "jaded, frustrated and largely insulted" by the music industry in 2009 to successfully being part of a boycott of the arms industry in 2025 - this is a story about resilience, solidarity, and the power of saying no.
LINKS:
Gazelle Twin: Official website: https://www.gazelletwin.com
Bandcamp: https://gazelletwin.bandcamp.com
Instagram: @gazelletwinOrganizations Mentioned:
PRS Foundation: https://prsfoundation.com
Help Musicians: https://www.helpmusicians.org.uk
Music Venue Trust: https://www.musicvenuetrust.comDrowned in Sound: Newsletter signup: https://drownedinsound.org
This week's playlist (featuring Gazelle Twin, Björk, David Bowie + Nine Inch Nails, Halsey): https://drownedinsound.org/playlists
DiS review of Pastoral (10/10): https://drownedinsound.com/releases/20441/reviews/4152045Try Qobuz - Free 30-day trial of high-quality, artist-friendly streaming: https://drownedinsound.org/playlists (includes Qobuz free trial link)
CREDITS:
Host: Sean Adams (Drowned in Sound founder)
Guest: Gazelle Twin (Elizabeth Bernholz)
Recorded at: The Shure Experience Centre, London
Mixed & Edited by: TELL Studios
Presented in partnership with: Qobuz - the ethical music streaming platformFor 25 years, Drowned in Sound has recommended music. We now also spark conversations and create resources to help music fans discover their collective power.
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube Newsletter signup: https://drownedinsound.org Instagram: @drownedinsound Playlist: https://drownedinsound.org/playlists
CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Introduction: Do Boycotts Actually Work?
03:48 - Pastoral and Excavating English Identity After Brexit
07:27 - Soundtracking National Horror
11:15 - The Fever Ray Epiphany: Costume as Liberation
14:30 - PRS Foundation Funding and DIY Sustainability
19:00 - Kings Place Boycott: How It Worked
23:45 - Advice for Artists Taking Stands
27:30 - Somerset House Residency and Continuing the Work
32:15 - [QOBUZ AD]
35:20 - Black Dog: Performing Unmasked for the First Time
38:45 - Film Scoring as Financial Stability
42:00 - Music as Therapy and Processing
44:30 - Motherhood, Touring, and Sustainability
47:15 - Ireland's Basic Income for Musicians
49:40 - £500 Million Question: Fixing the Music Industry
53:00 - Outro: The Power of Collective ActionMENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Gazelle Twin (Elizabeth Bernholz), Fever Ray, MF DOOM, Nigel Farage, Daniel Ek, Scott Walker, Björk, Halsey, David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, PRS Foundation, Kings Place, Lockheed Martin, Somerset House, Drowned in Sound, The Quietus, Ireland, Brighton, East Midlands. Film Scores: Nocturne (2020) The Power (2021, with Max de Wardener)
GIRLI on Fighting Back: Activism, Safeguarding & Turning Rage Into a Rallying Cry
GIRLI joins the Drowned in Sound Podcast to discuss her powerful new single 'Slap on the Wrist, which is a collaboration with recent podcast guest Eliza Hatch of Cheer Up Luv, built on real anonymous survivor …
Notas del episodio
GIRLI joins the Drowned in Sound Podcast to discuss her powerful new single 'Slap on the Wrist, which is a collaboration with recent podcast guest Eliza Hatch of Cheer Up Luv, built on real anonymous survivor testimonies filmed in real locations.
We also discuss the new Youth Music report "Just The Way It Is?" exposing the scale of unsafe conditions, unfair pay, and discrimination facing young people in the music industry. The stats are stark: 72% of young music industry workers have felt unsafe. 90% have been paid unfairly. 75% have considered giving up entirely.
GIRLI speaks with total honesty about being signed to a major label as a teenager, being sent to LA alone at 18 with no safeguarding, and being dropped by phone call at 21 with zero support. She talks about why the music industry still hasn't had its Me Too moment and what she'd do with £500 million to fix it, as well as why the silence of the biggest artists is the loudest statement of all.
⚠️ Content note: This episode contains discussion of sexual harassment, assault, and industry exploitation.
Links:🎵 GIRLI — "Slap on the Wrist" https://girli.bfan.link/sotw
📄 Youth Music — "Just the Way It Is?" report https://www.youthmusic.org.uk/community/resource-hub/just-way-it-report
📄 Youth Music — Resources to promote safety and rights in music https://www.youthmusic.org.uk/resources/community/resource-hub/resources-promote-safety-and-rights-music-industries
📞 Rape Crisis England & Wales — 24/7 Support Line: 0808 500 2222 https://rapecrisis.org.uk
📞 WeAreMusic have compiled various campaigns and resources to help if you're dealing with harassment or abuse https://wearemusic.info/
💛 Cheer Up Luv https://www.cheerupluv.com
✊ Right to Be (GIRLI donated pre-save proceeds) https://righttobe.org
📰 DiS — "Why We Need to Talk About Speaking Out" (Nina Creswell feature) https://www.drownedinsound.org/why-we-need-to-talk-about-speaking-out/
🎧 DiS Podcast — Eliza Hatch / Cheer Up Luv episode https://www.drownedinsound.org/misogyny-in-music-the-numbers/
🏛️ CIISA — Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority https://ciisa.org.uk
🎤 Musicians' Union https://themu.org
🎤 Featured Artists Coalition https://www.featuredartistscoalition.com
💚 Help Musicians / Music Minds Matter https://www.helpmusicians.org.uk
🎵 "Believe Women" companion playlist + Qobuz free trial https://www.drownedinsound.org/playlists
📰 Subscribe to the DiS Newsletter https://www.drownedinsound.org/newsletter
Credits:Hosted, engineered, edited, researched, and produced by Sean Adams
Recorded at The Shure Experience Centre, London
Guest: GIRLI (Milly Toomey) accompanied by Heather Swaine (Youth Music)The Drowned in Sound Podcast is presented in partnership with Qobuz — the ethical music streaming platform for music enthusiasts. Start your free trial at drownedinsound.org/playlists
For 25 years our publication and podcast has recommended music. We now also spark conversations and create resources to help music fans discover their collective power.
Mentioned in this episode:
Cheer Up Luv / Eliza Hatch · Youth Music · Musicians' Union · Music Guardians · Rape Crisis England & Wales · CIISA (Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority) · Featured Artists Coalition · Help Musicians / Music Minds Matter · Kate Nash · Gazelle Twin · Sinéad O'Connor · MIA · Amy Winehouse · Lily Allen · Laura Mary Carter (Blood Red Shoes) · The Anchoress / 2% in Rising · Nina Creswell / Good Law Project · Patsy Stevenson · Raye · Right to Be
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