ABSOLUTEPUNK.NET

'AbsolutePunk.net' is a website, online community, and alternative music news source. The website mainly focuses on artists who are relatively unknown to mainstream audiences, but it has been known to feature artists who eventually cross over into the mainstream, including Fall Out Boy, Yellowcard, and My Chemical Romance. Its main genres of musical focus include punk, emo, hardcore, indie, and ska, but its content branches out into almost every genre. It has since become one of the most closely watched music websites out there for industry insiders when it comes to alternative and punk-related music.

Contents

The website

Accomplishments

Content

AbsolutExclusives

Forums

AbsolutePunk.net Tour

Staff

Controversy

References

External links

The website

Founded June 6 2000^[1] by Jason Tate, the website focuses on industry news, and includes album reviews, interviews, articles, journals and photo galleries. It also allows user interaction via a vBulletin Internet Forum where users can register their own personalized account, and post about their favorite or least favorite bands.

Accomplishments

On June 1, 2005 Andrew McMahon of Something Corporate/Jack's Mannequin was diagnosed with leukemia. Absolutepunk.net raised approximately $16,400 for the Leukemia Research Foundation by selling over 6,000 orange gel bracelets online. The wristbands read "I Will Fight," a line from the song "Watch The Sky" by Something Corporate.
In the July 2007 issue of Blender Magazine, owner Jason Tate was named #18 in their list of "Top 25 Most Influential People in Online Music."

'Dinosaur 2.0' A bulletin-board site for punk seems so 1998, and, indeed, that's when Tate, then a high school sophomore in Portland, Oregon, started Absolutepunk. But it survived the blink-182 era to become the essential Web echo chamber for all things punk and emo, with 150,000 users writing as many as 60,000 gushy, newsy, and polemical posts a day.
'School Daze' Early on, Tate had trouble getting ads - labels would call, but he'd be stuck in class. Ads are now handled by a third party, and Absolutepunk remains closely watched by the industry. Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy says the site was critical to the band's early success. "It blows my mind that no one has thrown Tate an A&R job," Wentz says."

Content

Even though it has lost some content because of numerous server switches over the years, AbsolutePunk.net still features over 40,000 news articles, 1000 reviews, 350 interviews, and 24,000 files in its multimedia gallery. The site also features one of the most comprehensive release calendars of any music website on the internet.

AbsolutExclusives

AbsolutExclusives are series of streaming media (audio and video) as well as exclusive tell-all interviews from popular bands, all of which are exclusive to AbsolutePunk. Bands who have been involved in these exclusives include Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, Less Than Jake, as well as many more bands.

Forums

AbsolutePunk.net's forums feature over 150,000 registered members. They are divided into a number of different sections, devoted to entertainment, sports, politics, education and more. The most popular of these forums, however, is the General Forum, in which almost any sort of discussion material can be posted. There are currently over 3.1 million posts in the General Forum.

AbsolutePunk.net Tour

During the summer of 2004, AbsolutePunk.net held a concert tour in the US. It made 15 stops along the way, and featured artists such as Say Anything, Audio Karate, and MC Lars.

Staff

★ 'Jason Tate': CEO/Founder

★ 'Jared Kaufman': Editor

★ 'Linda Ferreira': Mail-Room / Album Distributor

★ 'Paul Tao': Artist and Label Profiles / News

★ 'Garett Press': ABSOLUTExclusives / Contests

★ 'Nathan Lint': Release Calendar/ Reviewer/ Interviewer

★ 'Brandon Allin': News / Reviews / Interviews

★ 'Rohan Kohli': News Poster

★ 'Jon Foucart': News Poster

★ 'Drew Beringer': Album Reviewer

★ 'Greg Dona': Album Reviewer

★ 'Scott Irvine': Album Reviewer

★ 'Tony Pascarella': Album Reviewer

★ 'Steve Henderson': Album Reviewer

★ 'Russ Hockenbury': Album Reviewer

★ 'Tom Good': Album Reviewer

★ 'Julia Conny': Album Reviewer

★ 'Brandon Herbel': Interviewer

★ 'Jon Lally': Absolute Acoustic / Videographer

★ 'Lueda Alia': Indie Music Specialist

★ 'Anton Djamoos': Editor / News / Gallery Mod / Midtown Enthusiast

★ 'Jaime Durante': Editor / Interviews

★ 'Jamie Pham': News / Interviews

★ 'Brad Streeter': Video Interviews

★ 'Joe DeAndrea': News Poster

★ 'Blake Solomon': Reviewer / Good (awesome!) dude

★ 'Louise Heng': Interviewer / Photographer

★ 'Adrian Villagomez': Entertainment News Poster/ Nameless Hero

★ 'Scott Weber': Forum Moderator

★ 'Tristan Needler': Forum Moderator

Controversy

Over the years the website has received negative attention from parts of the music community who accuse Tate and the site of lacking journalistic integrity and being an overtly for-profit organization. In July 2004 a website called "FuckAbsolutePunk.net" was founded on these accusations, hosting articles asserting things such as that:

★ 'Tate downloads leaked audio via P2P and subsequently presents it as exclusive content

★ 'The website's journalistic integrity is compromised by its willingness to accept money in exchange for news and content posting (Note: While once true, evidence of this practice has been removed from the site)

★ 'Adspace on the page is overzealous and contradictory to the grassroots spirit of the web community
In addition, the website also mentioned an article published by a 3rd party stating that Tate was personally responsible for leaking a record by the band Boys Night Out, strongly backed by the presence of a source-specific watermark found on leaked copies of the record. While Tate admitted that the promotional copy had been issued to him, he claims it had been stolen and leaked subsequently.

References

1. Alexa.com Statistics

External links

★ Absolutepunk.net Official website

★ Absolutepunk on Myspace