Sean Adams

Learn more about Sean and his work via Drowned in Sound here and his Instagram here.

How's everything going for you at the moment?

Given world events, it’s going as well as can be expected. Slowly uphill with a lot of friction.

What are the main challenges you're facing?

Bandwidth is the main challenge. Running Drowned in Sound as a weekly newsletter and podcast on my own, alongside managing musicians (Charlotte Church and The Anchoress) and doing comms consultancy work as well as some lecturing is a A LOT. There’s tonnes I should be doing each week to promote my writing and monetise it and chase for new opportunities but it’s hard to do it all.

How about your music writer peers, do you have much insight from them and are they facing similar issues?

It got really hard for writers to get paid about 15 years ago and it seems to have become near impossible to make it as a writer any more. There are so few staff roles and so much music editorial has been cut. I recently started The Association of Music Editors so we can try to pull together people running publications, podcasts and zines - it’s been nice to find some solidarity.

What would say are some of the deeper issues/catalysts behind the challenges you/other writers are dealing with?

The music industry has rarely advertised with music media and that pretty much stopped when YouTube got massive around 2012 and the big money in the industry focussed on Spotify vanity metrics. Even music podcasts aren’t really backed by the industry that it serves but will happily spend £1000s on PR people who massively outnumber writers. With the new grassroots levy (£1 on millions of stadium & arena tickets) the industry has an opportunity to save music journalism and put some infrastructure in place that’s mutually beneficial to the ecosystem, rather than just ploughing money into adverts on Meta and Google, much of which ends up in the pockets of far right extremists.

What are some of the methods you've employed to navigate the current music writing landscape?

I’ve tried to find myself a unique niche of mapping the future of music, making a lot less recommendations and using my critical skills to analyse tech whilst helping uplift changemakers and campaigns. I’m not trying to create something for the music industry but work that informs and educates music fans about how they can be more ethical and supportive supporters of artists and independent labels and venues.

How much support do you have from others (writers, friends, family, organisations)?

Very little tbh, it’s one of the reasons for setting up the association of music editors. I really believe in collective power but the robot overlords want us all to compete like nodes in an attention economy.

How could music writers be supported more... especially within the arts/music?

Basic stuff like bringing back link pages, making little digests of work you enjoy, amplifying social posts of other music orgs, and also not being a race to the bottom dickhead that rips off others people’s work or does a bad job of writing about music. I hope lessons have been learnt about people rushing to be first rather than doing their best work (I felt like music journalism died when people rushed out Radiohead album reviews within 4 hours of release)

I'm curious about the positives. What's going well for you at the moment and what's exciting you about music writing?

I feel like I’ve really found my moral compass and sense of purpose over the past year. I’m really enjoying bringing a lot of my more resistance politics thinking into my work and seeing it resonate. I’m also glad to see people move to Bluesky to try to make it work as a platform. I’m reassured to see more and more people choosing platforms to host their sites like Ghost rather than Substack. I’m excited to see more people experimenting with podcast formats and video ideas like Sarah Gosling’s Instagram gig guides.

Big question, but, if you could wave a wand and magically solve the issues we're facing, what would be your targets for positive change?

Move 10% of the live music industry’s advertising & marketing budgets into independent music press and podcasts. Increase arts funding but ensure 50% of any advertising is spent with cultural titles rather than flung at billionaire broligarch platforms.

Any advice for emerging freelance writers?

Find some work that pays you well in another field whilst you develop your skills. Trust your passion. Experiment. Learn how to make short form social video to promote your work - for inspiration: see Sophia Galer Smith and Taylor Lorenz at the talking video’s end of the spectrum and Polyester Zine at the voice over b-roll end of things. If any title or org takes more than 30 days to pay, learn your rights, add interest, call them out to warn others. Value your work and collectivise if you need to.