Rock Sound is a British magazine that covers rock music. The magazine aims at being more "underground" and less commercial, while also giving coverage to better-known acts. It generally focuses on pop punk, post-hardcore, metalcore, punk, emo, hardcore, heavy metal and extreme metal genres of rock music, rarely covering indie rock music at all. The tag-line "For those who like their music loud, extreme and non-conformist" is sometimes used. Although primarily aimed at the British market, the magazine is also sold in Australia, Canada and the United States.
The British edition of Rock Sound was launched in March 1999 by the French publisher Editions Freeway. The magazine was bought out by its director, Patrick Napier, in December 2004. The magazines offices are in London. Separate titles with the same name have been published under the same umbrella company in France since 1993,[2][3][4] and in Spain since 1998.[5][6]
The first issue was published in April 1999. Issue 2 featured British band Reef on the front cover, and later issues 3 and 8 featured Terrorvision and Foo Fighters respectively. In July 2011 a host of "Through The Years" articles were written to celebrate the 150th issue of the magazine.[7] 2017 witnessed the first annual Rock Sound Awards where £1 from every magazine bundle sold was donated to the One More Light Fund in memory of Chester Bennington.[8]
The magazine was known for including a free CD in most issues, which had tracks from bands' new albums that have not been released as singles. These were called '100% Volume' or 'The Volumes', with other past compilations named 'Music With Attitude', 'Bugging Your Ears!', 'Sound Check' and 'Punk Rawk Explosion'.[9] Sometimes whole albums were included with the magazine, particularly from bands wanting to gain exposure, including Futures' debut album The Holiday in March 2010, and Burn The Fleet's debut album The Modern Shape in May 2012.[10]
In more recent years, exclusive artist merchandise including t-shirts have been sold alongside the magazine via the Rock Sound web store.
In 2023, Rock Sound became part of WhyNow media group and a special edition magazine was published in partnership with Slam Dunk Festival featuring headliners Enter Shikari and The Offspring on the cover. A weekly digital cover feature, The Album Story, was also launched on ROCKSOUND.TV.[11]
Rock Sound's 300th issue was published in September 2023 with Fall Out Boy, Corey Taylor and Motionless In White appearing on the cover. The magazine will celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2024.
The magazine had a circulation figure of 15,005 from January to December 2010 auditored by ABC. This includes 10,162 sales in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and 4,843 from Other Countries.[13] The same auditing body said the magazine had a slightly lower circulation figure of 14,227 from January to December 2011, with sales of 10,053 from the United Kingdom and Ireland, and 4,174 from Other Countries.[14] The majority of sales come from newstrade, with some coming from subscriptions.
The main rival to the magazine in Britain is Kerrang! because of the similar types of music both magazines cover.[citation needed]
At the end of every year the magazine lists their favourite 75 albums released in the previous twelve months.
Rock Sound inducted numerous albums into its Hall of Fame, as part of a long-running feature. The main criterion for inclusion was thought to be influence – even within a particular genre – and for that reason many of the albums have been commercially successful as well as critically successful because they have then gone on to influence large numbers of bands or the music scene. Thus this differs from the Yearly Top Albums lists which do not take influence into account. In each article there was normally an interview with band members, a commentary on the album's release, a look at its initial success, and reaction from other musicians or participants in the album's creation - such as producers, engineers, and music video directors. Towards the end of this section's run it was renamed to "Throwback".
In 2019, Rock Sound introduced a new venture titled Rock Sound Records, a sub-brand of Rock Sound offering and distributing music in limited physical formats, such as cassette tapes and vinyl records. Generally, this involves the exclusive physical release of a record released by a band that is signed to a different (major) record label. For instance, the first Rock Sound Records release was a cassette tape version of Simple Creatures′ debut EP Strange Love, while the band is currently signed to BMG.[77]