Drowned in Sound

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...

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 favourit...

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 ab...

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 memb...

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 thril...

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 h...

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 t...

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...

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 tech...

"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 ...

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-pag...

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 legislatio...

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...

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 Tourin...

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 (...

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 ...

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 workin...

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...

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 da...