Our 2026 predictions: New Acts, Big comebacks, Gig ticket laws, and more

0:00What will music be like in 2026? That's the big question and series of small questions we'll be answering in this episode of the Drowning Sound podcast brought to you in partnership with Cobuzz. In this episode, we'll be sharing the new artists that we're really excited about. We think you will be too. And we'll talk through some of our predictions, some of them obvious, some of them a little bit off piste. And you'll see what I mean towards the end of this episode. this episode was recorded just before Christmas this was recorded before Donald Trump decided to kidnap a world leader this was recorded before we knew that one of the artists that I predicted in this episode would have a new record this year announced a new album and I will return at the end and be slightly smug about that guess because I'm really excited they've got a new record coming so this is the Drowning Sound podcast if you head to drowningsound.org forward slash playlists you can find a playlist that accompanies this episode which you can listen to over on our partner's website, Cobuzz.

0:58And yeah, it's got tracks from all these acts. We talk about the levy and all sorts of other things in this episode. This is the Drowning Sound podcast. I am Sean Adams, and in this episode, I'm joined by Emma Wilkes.

1:21What will music be like in 2026? i'm joined today by joining us our newsletter writer emma wilkes hello music journalist of all sorts of other places too and we're just going to explore what we think might happen in 2026 some things we know will happen in 2026 and some completely wild speculation that we'll say for the end of things that i'm just going to randomly predict and then people can come back to this video and tell me how wrong i was or how right i was that's how conspiracy theorists work as well they like come up with random conspiracies and they're just like one of them is right out of like 20 that they drop um so emma start of next year january everyone will be talking about new bands who are the actual new bands everyone should be talking about okay right i'm all over this so um i think one of the names that actually first came to mind for me is actually a band that i interviewed if i'm allowed to do a cheeky little plug uh in the new issue of kerrang which is you You can always do a plug.

2:20Yes. Especially to get people to buy magazines. Exactly. Buy print magazines. Everybody. Like, I think I've even seen people suggest, like, magazine subscriptions to be, like, a good present for Christmas to get you offline a little bit, which is an idea that I love. But anyway, I'm in the new issue of Kerrang! that is just about to come out. At the time of recording. At the time of recording. And I had a great chat with a band called The Molotovs. They are a brother and sister duo, Matt and Izzy. and they basically make it's quite interesting actually because they make quite an old-fashioned style of rock music it's quite sort of a little bit like i think they get compared to the jam a bit they've been on tour with they played shows with the sex pistols and you can actually see you can actually sort of see how they would relate to each other um but the really cool thing about them is that they've got an amazing energy live that i love um but they also are so passionate about getting young people to engage with live music they've put on guerrilla gigs in all sorts of different venues I think they are both quite young I think they're like 18 and 19.

3:26How would you describe them in a sentence? Oh retro rock and roll from a time machine but with a new sheen on it. That was so quick. I did not know how I did that the caffeine is finally starting to hit now but I love what they stand for in terms of actually wanting to get young people engaged supporting grassroots venues they played the electric forum in london at the end of october and they made a point of mentioning to me when i spoke to them that their their tickets were the cheapest that were available on the electric forum website and the fact that they're playing a venue of a to a thousand people um having built up a following and built up live experience in a really sort of organic way through playing a lot of shows almost like quite an offline sort of rise even though i think they are like on tiktok and stuff like that because that's kind of part of the job but then i suppose that's that's that's another discussion for another day um but what i mean literally the discussion i just had on the podcast i recorded before this was all about musicians feeling like they're content creators but also having the the the extra job of actually making the music and touring the music and selling the merch they've yeah big big obviously offline aspect of it making making things affordable giving giving young people a third space with a sort of empowering message to sort of for young people to sort of feel okay in their skin even though like being coming of age now seems even more fraught than it was when even though I'm only 25 it seems even more fraught than when I was especially for like for a generation who missed out on a year or so of school due to COVID and stuff like that so that is an absolutely a band i think are going to go really really far that's the molotovs yes my really big tip for next year and i probably have said this on about five different podcast episodes so if someone's a regular listener this won't be a is this what i is are you going to say the band i think i'm sophia rizella oh i mean that was one of them that was one of them i would 100 % agree with you she is incredible it's the first time i think that taylor swift and i have definitely agreed on something because she opened for taylor and i just think the poetry of her it's almost like spoken word like creepy voice that's set to these just incredible breakbeats like not even breakbeats that's the wrong word basically she sounds a little bit like what trent resner did with halsey and she sounds a little bit like billy eilish and she's got this horror movie sensual kind of music i don't know how else to explain it there's something about it that feels like she could open for both deftones and billy eilish and both would make perfect sense and she has opened for taylor swift at wembley stadium i think it was um i think her lyrics are sublime and supreme and the fact that she's gone viral for like a few different moments of some of her songs has not really surprised me because they're like these brilliant nuggets she's also like i think her dad's a film director um of like art house films so she's got this like amazing visual landscape and reference points to a lot of her work um i would be shocked if she doesn't have one of the biggest albums of 2026 because she's put so many tracks out so far and they've all been great and if it's just a compilation of those it's going to be a fantastic record oh yeah no absolutely phenomenal like her live presence as well like we were absolutely blown away i think we've probably said this more than once at reading festival at reading festival the way she was going from one minute she was playing this violin next minute she's she's got electric guitar out and she's just shredding away and i was like like prince as well yeah so dramatic guitar playing i was just there thinking i love this girl i'm a convert and you know it really sort of felt like it really did feel like a storm was brewing and i really love the fact that actually she's doing something that really does really could be such a broad church i suppose maybe that's happening more and more often as sort of boundaries between scenes and genres break down but if she's going to epitomize it in the way that she is i think that's a really really thrilling thing for music in general i now need to interrupt you not because i don't want to hear what you've got to say but because it's really bugging me who was the band you thought i was about to say i thought you were going to say clifford's oh okay yeah definitely um they are like i adore them they're my favorite monster track so so good they're an irish um i don't even know like what the reference points i would suggest that they sound similar to like when you look them up online like people compare them to florence and the machine which just feels like a weird lazy they've got a female singer and they're a bit rocking a bit old you've been comparamored but indie edition um yeah i think they're extraordinary um i interviewed um i own her on or mirror at reading um they've just got that like rabble rousing like in a way like they could open for springsteen like in the same way like the killers or someone maybe could but they've also just got this like the national kind of like feeling to some of their songs a bit like broken social scene in places like all of my favorites and like and they've opened for like queens of the stone age like they replaced animal and the sniffers on a show in cork quite last minute recently and yeah i just think they're phenomenal and yeah their debut album hopefully is coming 2026 and i think that would be pretty special yeah i'm sure i'm sure it will be i mean i hadn't seen much of them hadn't really seen or heard much of them but then i then they were playing at reading and i went along because i knew that sean was going and i knew that sean was really enthusiastic about them and i was like yep i absolutely get it obviously like i obviously like trust your taste and you know you like good stuff but then i was like okay i can i can i see i see the vision here so anyone else do you want to give quick shout outs to you should look out for because january will be tipping season so yes we'll be dropping this podcast just from just in time for tipping season a hundred percent i do like tipping season and that's always a good that's always a good time um and a band i really hope more people know i feel like if you're in a certain if you feel like you're in a certain scene you might be quite familiar with them already but a band i really think more people should have a listen to is unpeople um so they've basically they've been doing amazing things they've been popping up all over the place on the festival circuit and i think they're making their debut album as we speak i think they've even opened they've even opened for metallica they've opened for coheed and cambria i think they just make like big straight up chunky rock songs about having a crap time but not in a sort of but not in the sort of everything is awful kind of way it's almost like really sort of everyday everyday angst about like having having an overthink or spiraling or just feeling a bit mid that sort of thing i definitely haven't come into this podcast with his ads good descriptions as you or the music but that is why you are the person that writes the genre they've just got massive hooks and you can just kind of basically there's a sort of band you could you could go and watch and like throw your arms around your friends and just sort of sing and sway like that about just having a rubbish time and it's you've got it you've got to experience it it's just such a joyous cathartic thing even though like they're not necessarily they're not a depressing band but they've also i think i I think their singer's jay because it's got like a sort of a real unique sensibility with writing.

10:57I think they actually opened for Smashing Pumpkins as well. That reminds me of another thing that they did. Yeah. Smashing Pumpkins at the Gunnersbury Park show in August. So they're a band that I think there's so much excitement around them. And it's so, so justified. And I look forward to seeing how much that can accelerate in 2026. So I'm just having a quick look. There's some albums due in January. um that people might want to be aware of there's a new cribs record on the way um cast and cooler shaker the most like 90s end of january ever um something quick look what else is coming there's an andrew bird record coming in february a rumored gorillas record um there's a few there's quite a lot of albums rumored for next year actually i think the dry cleaning record's been confirmed since i wrote this document yeah i think that i think that's correct i really like them they're like arty spoken wordy kind of like angular rock uh what else is in here rumors of alana del rey record i think that's been i think that's been in the works for quite a long time and then the title changed and it's one of these things you know you always have these records where you don't know what's going on with them and they get delayed and delayed and delayed we did a newsletter recently about albums that might come out before albums due before the end of the year um and i put in there the sky ferrera's record masochism might finally be released oh yes like 10 years that is the absolute epitome of what i just described so that might come in 2026 it better come in 2026 if it doesn't some someone's gonna get punished i don't know who i don't know who's sitting on it um yeah so there's that's that's like a quick shoot through january and some albums coming next year um in this episode i wanted to also talk about some of the big themes and topics that we might be covering on Drown and Sound next year and I've started penciling in some ideas you've sent me some notes of stuff you'd like to write about and cover yes I have um so I guess one idea that's on the table at the moment we're trying to finesse it'd be great to hear from listeners who they would like to hear us talk to um is music and mental health um I've been talking to the charity Music Minds Matter who are an amazing organization anyone who works in music whether you're a musician or manager or someone that works in a venue you can call them up to get mental health support but one of the big things that i think more people should be talking about is resilience and that's going to be the theme that maybe a season of the podcast is going to sit around of just like not what to do when you've had a panic attack like not what to do when you're completely burnt out but actually how to build in that everyday resilience because music is a great source of that for me like as an escape and as a kind of therapeutic tool but i think that there are some people that have got some good habits that we could all learn from there's also like venues that got different practices that maybe we should all take a little bit from and i think that it could be a really interesting season i feel like there's musicians we could be talking to in organizations so um it'd be great to know who people think about that one of your ideas was us to do a lot more around cities and you you want to shout out leads so we Yes, I do.

14:12Yes, I do. I think that's something I've been kind of thinking about lately is thinking about where the UK's current musical hotspots are. And I think I've sort of been around Leeds a little bit in the last couple of years. I think I was up for a few things earlier this year. And I think maybe it's obviously from slight bias as somebody who very much into their music, very much into the heavy music. but I think there's so much amazing like grassroots culture around Leeds especially in terms of hardcore and in terms of in terms of alternative music as well like the infrastructure they have and sort of the spirit I suppose maybe maybe it's maybe it's a bit maybe it's a bit of the Yorkshire spirit that actually sort of helps to drive it a little bit but I think it's a city that's I don't think it's probably got enough credit for how much music has come out of that Even on a slightly more mainstream-facing scale, like how well bands like Yard Act and English Teacher have done.

15:15So that's a city, I think, I think that's a city that deserves a lot more praise. Obviously, other things I can share. I think Liverpool's really interesting for music right now, especially from a slightly more Indy-ish perspective. And there's loads in Brighton as well. And there's a great piece in Kerrang! from my friend Rishi about punk in Hastings as well, which is a fascinating thing. But I think it's very much one of these things that I don't necessarily, I've always been one, I've always kind of had the curiosity about whether London produces as much music as it has done. And everyone's spread out and everyone's so busy.

15:52So it'd be great if listeners and readers could tell us which cities we should be looking at. I'd really like to expand it more internationally if we can find a local underground expert as well. um i've been spoken to a few people from beirut and like there seems to be a really cool music scene happening there and so i think that yeah i'd like the idea of treating a city as a scene and looking at all the tributaries and ways in which the history of a city kind of sets the tone and the types of venues and community spaces um that to me feels like a really big important topic um and the other big thing that i hope will make a big difference next year is the grassroots levy which at the moment arena and stadium tickets have a one pound fee but it's voluntary so there's been some really big tours which have not had the fee on and we were almost thinking do we just tell people these are the big acts you should go see because they're supporting grassroots music the idea being that a pound from each ticket will raise millions across a year across all the really big shows and that money will flow to grassroots venues and to artists and to the infrastructure that needs to be built and i think the thing that i've one it's voluntary and it's not being done at the scale it could be but i think two there feels like a lot of the big acts like might be doing it but then also not really telling people and not really like joining the dots and i feel like that's a whole other like it's weird that when katie perry did it it felt like there was a story about how she played the water rats and why it was important to her and when Coldplay supported Music Venues Trust they talked a lot about the grassroots venues and difference that made and I think as much as the money is going to be powerful I'm really hopeful that the stories because if someone doesn't know that on their doorstep there's a great venue that's putting on consistently great music all the time that you could just pop along to at random and you might see something really good if you're going to just rely on an algorithm you might as rely on the the kind of trusted local person in your local music scene to put music to the full anyway that was a bit of a ramble yeah and that sort of person is much cooler than an algorithm it's like it's like what i spoke not wrote about in the newsletter a little while ago um about spotify as our music recommendations and riffing on um a line in consequences news item about it about ai replacing your cool friend who knows a lot about music and like the way that had that sort of sell was written that was absolutely absolutely was a gut punch for me

18:27hi there it's emma here i'm gay crashing the podcast to quickly tell you about the drowned in sound newsletter every wednesday i invite myself into your inbox with permission of course to share opinion writing and resources tell you about cool things that you should be involved in within the world of music, activism, etc. I also bring track of the week and a little bit of hopeful news for you because we all know that the news cycle can be grim at the best of times. Drowned in Sound newsletter every Wednesday in your inbox. Sign up now.

19:07Shared with you the other day that one of the curators at Cobuzz where she was talking about how she puts the humanity into the recommendations and i'm quite excited that i think by the time this episode comes out we'll be able to tell people they're partnering with us on the podcast and that to me is going to be one is going to take a little bit of a load off of the some of the like how are we going to cover the costs of all these things we're doing but also like to know that an ethical company wants to partner with us um which is really great so it's like but i really like the fact that they really talk about the humanity behind the human to human connection of music recommendations and like they write stuff on all their records and stuff like that so yeah is there anything else you want to say about the grassroots levy before we tangent ourselves into our neurodivergent whole of course but no i think the thing with that i think i'm pretty sure from what i've heard it's definitely going to pick up steam but just to sort of build on what you were saying there it'd be really really helpful even on venue websites to be able to actually see and have that knowledge of which venues are actually going to be um which gigs are actually going to be participating in it i know that if you like if you like read enemy for example enemy do sort of having like done news shifts there like they will make a point of like mentioning if a venue if a tour for example is doing is doing the one pound grassroots levy and like that might even come into the headline because obviously that's been something that they back a lot shout out enemy but like i was thinking we think we were talking about it the other day i think for example wolf alice who are on tour right literally right now um they have they are participating in the scheme and i think they've definitely talked about the support they had from grassroots venues if you look on the o2's website say you don't see any information about that um but interestingly if you go to the royal festival sorry royal albert hall every ticket there now contributes to it if you go to the co-op live in manchester every ticket contributes to it some of the venues have just made it a default that's really positive i'd also like to shout out radar festival as well in manchester who i think i'm pretty sure they've become the first festival um they take which takes place in the victoria warehouse in manchester to um participate in the in the scheme and they're not even that big a festival as well so if radar can do it then even bigger festivals can do that as well i think that would be really really nice to see especially the bigger more corporate festivals so that there's been a few different changes to laws since we recorded the last episode um there's going to be secondary ticketing capped at the price of the ticket thank god and hopefully we might get some kind of ticket regulator to ensure that actually happens um i don't know whether that's even on the cards it's something that's been rumbling around but i don't know whether 2026 will see other countries follow the uk to put a cap on ticket outs basically to make it so that i mean the big thing that i found because i've been doing some research on this was action fraud revealed like the millions that is taken in scams and because a ticket can be charged like 800 pounds for like 100 pound ticket you don't know if that's a real ticket when you're being scammed you're just thinking well that's secretary ticketing it's expensive and i think if there's a cap at the face value like i know in ireland like and I this feels a little bit like think tanky kind of spin but they were talking about how when they bought the cap in on resale in Ireland that people went to the black market but surely a few people being scammed because they paid more than the asking price when you're not able to sell a ticket for more than the asking price surely it's not everyone doing that like surely it's a few people being scammed still but at the moment loads of people are being scammed because you can go on facebook and someone's like i've got four tickets for sale in the comments and if you're a trusting person like you might click through and bank transfer someone the money and never ever ever bank transfer someone the money always pay on a credit card because you can get some protection that's one of the action fraud bits of advice which i think was really important so i hope that putting that cap will be important but i also think it will help other countries if we've set the precedent in this country that hopefully will roll out globally that this like organized crime is involved in reselling tickets like that's pretty crazy right that is quite well to think about and funnily enough somebody somebody i know got scammed when trying to buy a taylor swift ticket through social media but i think the general advice i think people need to be more aware of this is to not buy tickets through social media go through a site like twickets or through say see tickets fantapan resale that's a much better way of doing it i've bought and sold tickets through those websites.

23:49And with Dice, you can join the wait list and someone can return their ticket and you might get an alert. Yeah. And to add to what you were saying as well, when you're sort of talking about the inflated price, I wonder if that's also kind of a consequence in a world where dynamic pricing has become so normalized. And I wonder if that's the next phase of making buying tickets fairer. A ticket regulator would be amazing and these developments at capping the price that you can sell a ticket on. so so needed massively overdue especially after what happened with the oasis ticket sale and things that the competition and markets authority have sort of looked into since i think that's probably going to be the next frontier and i'm very very happy to see that system burn especially because now that now especially now that ticket touting is obviously going to be far more it's been cracked down on a lot it's almost the funny thing with dynamic pricing with me it's almost like sinking to the level of scammers like the money that they would take they would take well yes we're going to bring it back to the artists but people still lose out anyway it's not fair on anyone and i think it's an absolutely barbaric practice and to see that be banned would be absolutely incredible and i'd hope it's not a a completely like foreign possibility so if anyone wants to know more about all of that i did a great interview with adam with from fanfare alliance i mean my interview was good his answers were great um the i guess the rest of next year is quite hard to map out there's no glastonbury but there's some really big festivals still oh yeah primavera's lineup's ridiculous oh that's really really stacked all points east as well i think i saw somebody i think i saw somebody say online that they thought like all points east was like filling the gap really well that glastonbury is leaving um and there's some huge things going on next year i think they've got lord they've got tyler the creator and they've got outbreak fest returning to london again they've got deftones deftones deftones idols owl and the sniffers it's literally like they made a playlist like they looked through one of my playlists and made a lineup out of it they've got 21 pilots as well i think that day looks really really exciting um so i think they're doing really well obviously we've got lido fest coming back again which is in the same sort of place but happened slightly earlier in this year i think they've got cmat so far i think that's one of the first things i think they've got that's in that's in june and that's obviously quite like a new thing as well so it's very gonna be very obviously a huge year for megagigs even if we don't have anything on the scale of back to the megagigs always back to the megagigs which uh we discuss on our review of 2025 if you want to hear a bit more of that this is not meant to be a shopping cart of other podcasts you can listen to carry on listening to this one before we finish um so i guess it's hard it's quite unknowable what next year is going to be like like there's big artists don't give you as much of a run-up to when they've got a record coming as they used to oh no there's the act of the art of surprise so i suspect we'll get a couple of big names with new records i think we're probably going to have some moments of ai being kind of like even more toxic than it currently is that's exactly what i was thinking um especially when you've got more artists who are ai generated like foisting their way into the charts but then i suppose it's kind of i think it's i suppose there's probably more questions to be answered as well about firstly the sort of the the legal side of it in terms of things like copyright but then also just in terms of public awareness and how you might be able to tell if music's ai generated or not so my last question because i feel like we could talk for a very long time but this question i will answer first you've got chance to think about it what's the most ridiculous unpredictable prediction you want to make that if you're saying it now it just sounds so out there mine is that kate bush will return with a new record it's long overdue and if kate bush doesn't return next year i will i don't know i'm not gonna say what was the the guy that at like the brexit deal or something um the there's that i think i'm hoping tom waits will have one more record like it's been so long since he's made a record and i don't know why he's not put anything out but i think he made a public appearance a little while ago so hopefully there's something new from tom waits to come um there's so many like i feel like hayley williams has probably got a whole nother record ready to go on the form that she's in at the moment oh my gosh that's incredible i'm very here for it and uh you know hayley when you come to the uk and you'd like to have a chat about whatever it is you're doing at the moment or any new music please give us a call i think i'm quite excited about what might happen with headphone technology it's going to sound like a bit of a nerdy one but like smart speakers have been around for a long time and we're seeing a lot more of like sunglasses that have got ai in them and all that kind of stuff but actually like headphones that have different modes for the different types of music different types of like more than just the eq i think could be quite interesting it feels like headphones are ripe for like a bit of a bit bit of a big change there's also like grand theft auto um that's finally coming towards the end of next year and my theory is the reason it's being delayed is because apple's like vision like whatever their ar glasses are that they're going to design um augmented reality rather than virtual reality which is where i think apple are headed of essentially you can look through the glasses and you've got a giant screen because at the moment their vision pro is really expensive really heavy and it's kind of a development tool to build things so my theory is that grand theft keeps getting put back because apple keep putting back their their new glasses and we're starting to see different devices where you can have like basically a small projector projecting onto the screen of your camera all sounds a bit robocop but my theory would be that when grand theft comes out that'll be the same time apple finally deliver their 300 pound replacement for the iphone where and my big hope and i wrote a piece about this in the newsletter about a year and a half ago would be that once you can have a layer you can project through your glasses that concerts can then rather than having a big production that you can see in the place you can overlay and there'll be a whole other dimension to what shows look like if also you're able to connect headphones to the main desk the idea of where you can have performances could really change because you don't have to worry about sound limits you don't have to worry about acoustics of venues so you could suddenly have like some really like opening up different things i know it's a silent disco and you could already technically do that um but i really like the idea that's like someone like bjork could decide that she wants to take people in and to work on a nature project while she performs or something and like be part of like preserving some part of our landscape whilst she performs and there's layers with guidance and all this stuff on it so i'm like spitballing but i would hope that being able to place a screen but and like the fact that we want to look at our phones anymore the fact that we could have ways in which we might be able to interact with music visually as well as sonically um that's the that's my like slightly hopeful techno kind of dystopian view because most people are going to think that sounds awful

31:26this episode of the drannin sound podcast is presented in partnership with kobus the platform that pays artists four times more than the industry standard, that has high quality audio, that has human curation, which as a human curator is something that I truly value over the kind of algo slop that you get on some platforms. You can really hear the difference. I know lots of places talk about the audio qualities and as soon as I moved across it sort of felt like I was rediscovering music, which is one of the platform slogans. If you're worried about your playlists, you can use sound is it's a really good tool that's part of the sign up process when you join cobuzz it just transfers everything across if you'd like a free trial of this platform that's independently owned and made for music enthusiasts head to drownedinsound.org forward slash playlists where you can hear not only our playlists but get a free trial you can also find these details in the show notes to this episode and now back to this episode of the drowndingsound podcast brought you in partnership with kobuzz i'm gonna go on a slightly similar route and talk about find something hopeful within the technological sphere like what if spotify just implodes completely in 2026 yes it's outlandish but when you've seen so many people leave for various reasons, whether that be artists or fans.

32:58I mean, I don't use Spotify anymore as a result of, well, everything. But as technology also kind of just starts to go through, it's rotting a bit, isn't it? There's almost like a sense of rot, like with Twitter, which I refuse to call by its actual name. Yeah, it's the only thing I'll ever dead name. Yeah, just the way that technological platforms just sort of I think, I mean, that sort of the inshittification of technological platforms might sort of continue pushing us all to get offline, get outside, embrace sort of analog forms of technology, whether that be, obviously, obviously vinyl's massive.

33:39But I mean, I think there's a piece in Dazed that I actually spoke to the writer about, about MP3 players and the embracing of MP3 players or print media and things like that. Sort of going back to sort of those sorts of things as the internet became more toxic. I wonder if compilation albums will come back. Oh, I was going to say a playlist is essentially a compilation album. But you can make it yourself. That's a good question. The other thing in amongst all of that is like, what if like Taylor Swift just bought Spotify and turned into a music social platform? Like there are a few people out there that are rich enough to just go out and buy the platform and like to do an inverse title.

34:26Like we're just going to save you from yourself kind of. Like Joe Rogan could buy it probably like from the money he's had. I was just going to say how benevolent can a billionaire who can buy Spotify really be? or go for it from a different angle because I feel like community is becoming an increasingly big focus in the music world and I'd love to see that continue. Imagine if Spotify did the John Lewis model and people bought shares in it and it was community owned. Which is what Subvert's kind of done, which is a new platform. I was just going to say, it's like a rival to Bandcamp, but labels and artists that are founding members can own a stake in the platform, um which is like from what from everything i've seen in austin who runs it's great i'd love to have him on the podcast next year i think what he's building is fascinating and he's a really nice guy we were part of a um some discord group called the lonely writers collective which was really sweet he realized there was so many people out there making stuff on their own and if you could share stuff in a group like basically a group chat on discord it'd be really powerful and useful so um is that all for your any any ridiculous you want to predict anyone coming back with a new record god i'm trying to think who's bit who it's had like what with the the next lou tallica type record lou reed and metallica made that ridiculous record is there some is there gonna be a moment of something like that maybe i mean it's i mean it's happened i mean i don't actually just think about like the fact that pink made a record with the front with one of the vocalists from alexis on fire you never know yeah moon make it made a with kylie at one point you know what you know what maybe i'm gonna maybe i'm just gonna go on the simple route and talk about artists that i've always sort of talked about you know deftones and deftones and hayley williams have like linked up a couple of times think that it's like how seven years and years ago when hayley williams came out for passenger and i was like this is like the two sides of my music taste colliding collaborative deftones and teftones and Hayley Williams album why not massively massively dominating the zeitgeist massively engaging all different sorts of audiences why not please that would make me so happy I think I think I would actually I think that's the idea of me dying and going to heaven that's a record like that I really like that idea I'm trying to think like what like Hayley Williams starts a hardcore band you never know I mean yeah like probably with the Linda Lindas is a band or something really quite fun like i'm trying to think like which artists like should start a podcast because i'm loving the kathleen hannah and hayley williams interview that kicked off the new podcast that kathleen's doing for i think it's for the rock and roll hall of fame yeah um i'm like thinking who's the artist that's not done their podcast like because henry rollins had one that was quite small but it was quite good there's like bjork did that series yeah they feel like there's probably some big like obviously Lily Allen did the one with Makita Oliver.

37:20I feel like there's probably some like quite interesting artists. No, I'm thinking of who I mentioned before. Shirley Manson. I think she'd have stuff. She had an amazing podcast. Oh, she did it already. Yeah, she had a series that was, she interviewed artists about one song. Oh. And it was really good. Why have I never heard of that? I'm going to have to get on this. I've got a mind blank of the name of it, but her interview with Alanis Morissette was incredible. She also interviewed Robin, Angel Olsen, it was so good why have I never heard about this? and it didn't get renewed for another series I'm going to look up the name of it why have I never heard of this?

37:57like Shirley Manson and Alanis Morissette that would be perfect I was very very excited about getting to see Alanis Morissette at Glastonbury it was called The Jump oh why? oh my god I'm kicking myself why have I never heard of that? that is on your way to see Hellstorm tonight yes I am going to see Hellstorm tonight that's going to be fun so anything else 2026 shaped that we should sign off with i guess for me i'm excited that quite a lot of big name artists that maybe did something after covid haven't come back with new records yet so i'm hoping there's going to be some good surprise albums and tracks and collaboration there always is there always will be to be fair i mean they'll always there's we've got we've got enough houses for that sort of thing to happen but i suppose in strange times in difficult times in perma crisis sort of times there will always be good music and we are spoiled in that regard we have been this year we will be next year that i'm fairly confident about so we the future is unwritten which i think was the name of a documentary about the clash that's also a natasha beddingfield star that was probably where i probably got it from um by the time we send this out um it's like loads of these things could have already changed oh yeah the news cycle is strange there are things that happen in news media that i've learned from working news media that you could have just never force you could have never foreseen you can't make it up it's stranger than fiction at the best of times my one hope my sign off line is please legally and please bjork can we have a new record?

39:54Well, I did not expect Bjork to confirm an album pretty much the day after we recorded that episode. And she's going to be premiering some tracks from it in May. So as I said at the start, I'm pretty excited and I guess it must be good news if one of the predictions in this episode has already come true. Because it might mean a few others. Some of the more hopeful things we are thinking about may happen in 2026. This is the second episode of season five of the podcast and I haven't really introduced the theme of this podcast. If you're the kind of person that sticks around to the end, hopefully you want to know what we've got coming up.

40:29because I decided to start the year rather than talking about resistance or rather than to talk about challenges, to talk about resilience and to talk about how people can take some time out and spend that in nature, as you heard in the episode on New Year's Day, and how people can get a sense of purpose because I know that people start the year with different projects they want to do and sometimes just hearing from people that have done stuff is pretty inspiring so I've got a chat coming up with Giles that started the 101 part-time jobs podcast and he's done over 500 episodes and met some of his favorite bands has so many bits of useful wisdom and insight if you're thinking of starting a project whether it's a podcast or not that I think would be really helpful in 2026.

41:22I also talked to Kelly Lee Owens. That episode's been recorded. She's one of my favourite electronic artists and we talk about working class resilience and about local cultures and about how artists kind of need to go back to them and go into them and go to places that don't have stuff happening all the time because it's in those smaller community centres and grassroots venues where change really happens. Kelly's like DJed with Charlie XCX in Ibiza at her boiler room and she's put out some amazing acclaimed records that have been up for all sorts of awards. She's signed to the drummer from the 1975's label and having a lot of success with her most recent EP which was one of our recent tracks of the week in the Drowning Sound newsletter picked by me because I love what Kelly's doing.

42:15She's got so many great stories. We both talked about working in record shops and we talked about kind of finding your people in a city as big as London and how that sense of community gives you a bit of resilience. I've got some other episodes planned that haven't recorded yet so I don't really want to jinx them by talking about them yet but yeah we've got a lot planned for 2026. This podcast is really starting to take off and that's down to you guys spreading the word sending it to that one friend that loves music that sometimes those whatsapp messages do get read and people do listen so thank you so much if you're one of those people that's been sharing the pod and thank you to the people that have been messaging in with kind of thoughts and feelings and yeah just the sense that we're doing something that's making sense to you and having the resonance we hope it would as i mentioned at the start of the podcast there's a playlist that goes with this episode over on our partners, Cobars' website.

43:12So if you go to drowndingsound.org forward slash playlists, you'll find that playlist and it's got loads of great tracks. Opens with some Sophia Rosella quite predictably. It's got some Robin in there. We've got a Bjork remix by The Knife, which I hadn't heard, just because Bjork's got new music coming. I thought I'd drop that in. There's some Daphne, there's some Cliffords, there's Molotovs who Emma recommended, Un People who she recommended, all sorts of things from artists that got new records coming out we've also got a guide on the website to albums due over the next few months so if you're looking to spend 2026 getting a bit more into music trying to know what's out is actually quite hard we've put little anchors next the ones that i recommend and our community recommends so um hopefully that's a helpful starting point so each friday you can kind of have one or two things to keep an eye on and have a listen to um i guess after all of that chat in this episode recorded at shore studios in london thank you to shore for hosting us to record this episode and quite a few more episodes that you've heard recently you'll be hearing over the next few weeks um it's been really great to go into somewhere professional with good microphones and nice coffee um all of which helps um rather than staying at my desk and doing all these on zoom as I had been doing in the past um yeah don't think I have too much else to say um apart from if you are feeling the weight of this year and it feels quite heavy know that it's not just you there is a lot going on and um think together as a nice warm huddle of human beings and humanity we can push back because there's only 3 000 billionaires in the world and uh there's very many more millions of us and i think that's something which i'm going to be thinking about a lot as we go into this year thinking about the size of some of the artists audiences and really thinking about how collectively we have power and influence and um yeah we've already got a new york mayor who's talking about collective power and kind of restricting what landlords can do and all those kinds of things i don't live in new york but it It gives me hope that New York might lead the way.

45:27Anyway, as ever, I've been Sean Adams, you've been you, this has been the Drowning Sam podcast in partnership with Kobuzz, and I will see you next time. Bye for now.