No Clean Singing
No Clean Singing is an American heavy metal news and media website based in Seattle. The website primarily covers extreme music, and "bands with vocalists who exclusively scream, growl, or otherwise avoid melodic, 'traditional' singing". Islander is the site's owner.
No Clean Singing features news, album reviews, interviews, and event calendars. Unlike most heavy metal websites, it does not publish negative reviews. Islander has said that when he launched the website, he vowed that he would "write about music I liked and wanted to recommend, rather than pretend to be some kind of critic to support music I enjoyed rather than tell people what they shouldn't listen to or make fun of bands."
History
No Clean Singing was founded in November 2009 by Islander, Alexis, and IntoTheDarkness. The site was named in reference to Islander's dislike of Myke Terry, then-vocalist of Bury Your Dead, feeling his use of clean vocals was part of "an awful trend". By 2012, the site had regular writers based in three US cities, and some based in Japan and the United Kingdom.In a May 2016 interview, Islander reported that No Clean Singing had received 1.1 million page views and about 260,000 users in the previous six months, with 40% of its internet traffic coming from the United States. At that point, the site's most popular post was their 2014 review of Babymetal's 2014 debut album, followed by a post about Gojira and a review of Devin Townsend's Deconstruction by writer Andy Synn. Although the site itself does not feature any advertising, Islander has had to pay to promote the site on Facebook; he has publicly criticized the platform's EdgeRank algorithm for limiting the site's reach unless they paid for promotion.
In 2017, No Clean Singing collaborated with Invisible Oranges and Southwest Terrorfest to launch the Northwest Terrorfest. The website continues to sponsor the festival.