''AbsolutePunk'' was a

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wi ...

online community An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...

, and alternative music

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. N ...

source founded by Jason Tate (the most recent CEO). The website mainly focused on artists who are relatively unknown to mainstream audiences, but it was known to feature artists who have eventually achieved crossover success, including

Blink-182 Blink-182 (stylized as blink-182) is an American rock band formed in Poway, California in 1992. Their current lineup consists of bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus, guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge, and drummer Travis Barker. Though their sound has ...

Fall Out Boy Fall Out Boy is an American rock band formed in Wilmette, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, in 2001. The band consists of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Patrick Stump, bassist Pete Wentz, lead guitarist Joe Trohman, and drummer Andy Hurle ...

My Chemical Romance My Chemical Romance (commonly abbreviated to MCR or My Chem) is an American rock band from Newark, New Jersey. The band's current lineup consists of lead vocalist Gerard Way, lead guitarist Ray Toro, rhythm guitarist Frank Iero, and bassist ...

New Found Glory New Found Glory (formerly A New Found Glory) is an American rock band from Coral Springs, Florida, formed in 1997. The band currently consists of Jordan Pundik (lead vocals), Ian Grushka (bass guitar), Chad Gilbert (lead guitar, backing voc ...

, Brand New,

Taking Back Sunday Taking Back Sunday is an American rock band from Long Island, New York. The band was formed by guitarist Eddie Reyes and bassist Jesse Lacey in 1999. The band's members currently are Adam Lazzara (lead vocals), John Nolan (lead guitar, keybo ...

The Gaslight Anthem The Gaslight Anthem is an American rock band from New Brunswick, New Jersey, formed in 2006. The band consists of Brian Fallon (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Alex Rosamilia (lead guitar, backing vocals), Alex Levine (bass guitar, backing vocals), ...

Anberlin Anberlin is an American alternative rock band formed in Winter Haven, Florida in 2002. Since the beginning of 2007, the band consists of lead vocalist Stephen Christian, guitarists Joseph Milligan and Christian McAlhaney, bassist Deon Rexroat, a ...

Thrice Thrice is an American rock band from Irvine, California, formed in 1998. The group was founded by guitarist/vocalist Dustin Kensrue and lead guitarist Teppei Teranishi while they were in high school. Early in their career, the band was known ...

All Time Low All Time Low is an American rock band from Towson, Maryland, formed in 2003. Consisting of lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist Alex Gaskarth, lead guitarist Jack Barakat, bassist/backing vocalist Zack Merrick, and drummer Rian Dawson, the band to ...

Jack's Mannequin Jack's Mannequin was an American rock band formed in 2004, hailing from Orange County, California. The band originally began as a solo project for Andrew McMahon, the frontman of Something Corporate. The band was signed to Maverick Records and ...

Yellowcard Yellowcard is an American rock band that formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1997 and was based in Los Angeles beginning in 2000. The band is recognized for having a distinct sound in their genre, primarily due to the prominent use of a violin ...

, Paramore, Relient K, and A Day to Remember. The primary musical genres of focus were

emo Emo is a rock music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of and hardcore punk from the Washington D.C. hardcore punk scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore and pioneered b ...

and

pop punk Pop punk (or punk pop) is a rock music genre that combines elements of punk rock with power pop or pop. It is defined for its emphasis on classic pop songcraft, as well as adolescent and anti- suburbia themes, and is distinguished from other p ...

, but other genres were included. On March 31, 2016, it was announced that founder Jason Tate would be re-acquiring ''AbsolutePunk'' from SpinMedia (the parent company of

Buzznet BuzzNet is a photo, journal, and video-sharing social media network, currently owned by Hive Media. The network was owned by SpinMedia (formerly Buzz Media) from its inception until September 2016. Like other social networking services, Buzznet i ...

) and the website would be shuttered and folded into Tate's new music and social platform, Chorus.fm. The very next day on April 1, all of the domain names and social media accounts associated with ''AbsolutePunk'' were being redirected to Chorus.fm.

Website

Founded June 6, 2000 by Jason Tate, the website focused on music industry news, and included album reviews, interviews, articles, journals and photo galleries. The site also allowed user interaction via a

vBulletin vBulletin is a proprietary Internet forum software package sold by MH Sub I, LLC doing business as vBulletin (formerly Jelsoft Enterprises and vBulletin Solutions). It is written in PHP and uses a MariaDB or MySQL database server. Similar pro ...

Internet Forum An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...

system; users could register their own personalized account, create a profile, and comment on nearly every portion of the site. Special accounts were afforded to industry figures (such as record label representatives) and band members denoting them as such, with threads often created specifically to allow users to interact with them. The website originally started as a

MxPx MxPx () is an American pop punk band from Bremerton, Washington, founded in 1992 as Magnified Plaid. As of 2016, current members include Mike Herrera on lead vocals and bass guitar, Yuri Ruley on drums and percussion, Tom Wisniewski on lead gu ...

fan site. In 2005, the site was drawing six million hits daily. By 2006, the website was noted for engaging teenagers, and was beginning to chip away at the dominance of MySpace, according to OMMA online media magazine. The social media network

purchased ''AbsolutePunk'' in May 2008. ''AbsolutePunk''s community included over 500,000 music fans, making it one of the largest alternative music zines on the Internet. The site was essentially run by contributor-turned-moderators who worked for the site but were not paid. They added news posts, wrote reviews and conducted interviews all in their free time.

Content

Even though it lost some content because of numerous server switches over the years, ''AbsolutePunk'' still featured over 55,000 news articles, 2500 reviews, 500 interviews, and 52,000 files in its multimedia gallery. ABSOLUTExclusives (content exclusive to the website) and recent album reviews were often displayed prominently at the top of the site's news feed, while other stories were simply listed in descending chronological order. The staff conducted frequent interviews with bands and often asked the ''AbsolutePunk'' community to contribute questions in advance. They also ran numerous contests via both an opt-in lottery system and through news items, with the latter usually awarding prizes to the users who replied the fastest while meeting certain criteria uch as being able to provide their own transportation to a concert venue

Forums

One of ''AbsolutePunk''s main purposes was to connect music fans with one another through its extensive online forums. The forums featured over 318,500 registered members. They were divided into a number of different sections, split into categories such as

entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

, and

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...

. Users were encouraged to contribute their own media to the site, such as album reviews and news submissions. As most of the site functioned on the same bulletin board system, forum activity would often spill out into album reviews and news stories as well.

Accomplishments

The website gained a strong following in the alternative music scene over the years, allowing it to sponsor various tours and host or premiere exclusive content from many bands. In the August 2007 issue of ''

Blender A blender (sometimes called a mixer or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsify food and other substances. A stationary blender consists of a blender container with a rotating me ...

'', owner Jason Tate was named #18 in their list of Top 25 "Most Influential People in Online Music". On June 1, 2005 vocalist and pianist

Andrew McMahon Andrew Ross McMahon (born September 3, 1982) is an American singer-songwriter. He was the vocalist, pianist and primary lyricist for the bands Something Corporate and main songwriter for Jack's Mannequin and performs solo both under his own na ...

of the bands

Something Corporate Something Corporate (also known as ''SoCo'') was an American rock band from Orange County, California, formed in 1998. Their last line-up included vocalist and pianist Andrew McMahon, guitarists Josh Partington and Bobby Anderson, bassist Kev ...

and

was diagnosed with leukemia. ''AbsolutePunk'' raised approximately $16,400 for the Leukemia Research Foundation by selling over 6,000 orange

gel bracelet Gel bracelets (or jelly bracelets) are a type of wristband often made from silicone. Gel bracelets Gel bracelets usually have a rectangular or circular cross-section. They are stretchy and come in a variety of colors. They have been popular i ...

s online. The wristbands read "I Will Fight" in reference to a well-known song ("Watch the Sky") by

References

External links

''AbsolutePunk''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Absolutepunk.Net American music websites Internet properties established in 2000 Internet properties disestablished in 2016 Defunct American websites