What's Next?

A personal note from Sean Adams seeking your thoughts and feedback.

Hello DiSsers,

Sorry for the radio silence. I took an unexpected break from the weekly(ish) newsletter and podcast over recent months, this was for a few reasons, the main one being that I was working flat out on a UK election campaign. The long days paid off with over 1.75 million people entering their postcode on the Carol Vorderman championed tactical voting tool StopTheTories.vote.

Alongside this, I still had my artist management commitments. I work with The Anchoress, who is currently on tour with Manic Street Preachers and Suede, and Charlotte Church whose new podcast has been getting an incredible response - including being named one of the podcasts of the year so far by The Guardian.

To keep things ticking over financially between their album campaigns, I also do a bit of consultancy work, and have just finished my first year lecturing and leading a course on the future of music at TheWRD, and have begun working with a pioneering new music sync company called Catalog who soft-launched at Primavera a few weeks ago.

Anyway, enough about me...

Feedback, Please!

We're halfway through the first year of this new format for Drowned in Sound and I would love to know what you'd like more of or less of.

I have had some helpful - if quite robust! - constructive feedback and lovely reactions to this new era of DiS (thank you kind thoughtful people who take the time to get in touch!), and I would welcome some more.

Like, have the monthly music recommendations been too long or too succinct and did you get obsessed with Mette, Circe, Lola Young, or any of the other acts I recommended? Have the digests of articles, podcasts and other forms of journalism been informative or overwhelmingly long? Do they arrive at a time of the day/week when you have time to explore the music? (Getting timing right for different types of newsletters seems like a proper artform!)

Would you like more insight into the future of the music industry? Has the content been "too political" or with the struggles of the independent music industry and rise of fascism and climate emergency, could/should DiS go much further? Or is the balance about right and just leave me to following my curiosity?

If you'd like a refresher, you can browse the newsletter archive at drownedinsound.org

How To Feedback

You can comment on this post on our website or it's probably much easier to send your feedback to sean@drownedinsound.org and I'll do my best to read and reply to everyone.

As an over-thinker, pondering how to use the legacy name of Drowned in Sound is an endless tangle of headphone cables for my brain to try to unknot and I have A LOT of ambitious ideas. The reality is I'm just one neurodivergent person with a small budget to fund commissioning a couple of editorial pieces a month (thank you to the 2% of our newsletter supporters who are contributing toward this!). Your feedback, support, suggestions and encouragement will be really helpful to ensuring the focus for the second half of the year is as helpful to you and as impactful for the musicians recommended and the campaigns platformed by DiS.

Look forward to hearing from you,

Sean

p.s. If you would like to support what we're doing, here's a discount link to become a supporter for a one off payment of just £8 for the next 12 months drownedinsound.org/summer-supporter (works out as a 15p contribution per week) or click "Subscribe" on the site for monthly options or if you can afford to offer more substantial support.