Insound was an

online music store A digital music store is a business that sells digital audio files of music recordings over the Internet. Customers gain ownership of a license to use the files, in contrast to a music streaming service, where they listen to recordings withou ...

. Insound carried CD,

vinyl Vinyl may refer to: Chemistry * Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer * Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation * Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry * Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl ...

, hard to find items, music accessories and merchandise. The company was located in

New York, New York New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on New York Harbor, one of the world's largest natural harb ...

History

Insound was founded in 1998 by Christian Anthony, Matt Wishnow and Ari Sass. Wishnow and Sass had worked together at

Elektra Electra, also spelt Elektra, was a daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in Greek mythology. Electra or Elektra may also refer to: Animals * ''Electra'' (bryozoan), a genus of aquatic invertebrates * ''Elektra'' (bug), a genus of insects in the ...

. The site took six months to build and first launched on March 1, 1999. The company gradually gained notoriety through its reviews, online

zine A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is, as noted on Merriam-Webster’s official website, a magazine that is a “noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject ...

s and promotion of then-small bands such as

Death Cab for Cutie Death Cab for Cutie (commonly abbreviated to DCFC or Death Cab) is an American rock music, rock band formed in Bellingham, Washington, in 1997. Death Cab for Cutie's music has been classified as indie rock, indie pop, and alternative rock. The ...

. Insound also gained visibility through hosting events at

CMJ CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events, online media company and a distributor of up and coming music CDs, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music ...

and

South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

(SXSW). Insound became profitable in 2003. In 2008, more than half of the company's sales come from selling vinyl records, which had made a resurgence in the past decade. In January 2008, the retailer was acquired by

Alternative Distribution Alliance Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA) is a music distribution company owned by Warner Music Group, which represents the rights to various independent record labels. ADA provides "independent artist and label partners with access to the resource ...

, an independent distributor owned by the

Warner Music Group Warner Music Group Corp., commonly abbreviated as WMG, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational entertainment and record label Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the "Record label#M ...

. On March 19, 2015, ADA disbanded Insound but in October of the same year, the online music retailer was revived by the

and was selling a broad-range of music related products at a discounted price. By April 2020, Insound redirected to the Warner Music Group official store.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Insound.com (redirects)
Warner Music Group American companies established in 1998 1998 establishments in New York City Online music stores of the United States