No Clean Singing is an American heavy metal news and media website based in Seattle. The website primarily covers extreme music,[1] and "bands with vocalists who exclusively scream, growl, or otherwise avoid melodic, 'traditional' singing".[2][3] Islander is the site's owner.[4]
No Clean Singing features news, album reviews, interviews, and event calendars.[2] Unlike most heavy metal websites, it does not publish negative reviews.[5] 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 [...] [and] to support music I enjoyed rather than tell people what they shouldn't listen to or make fun of bands."[4]
History
No Clean Singing was founded in November 2009 by Islander, Alexis, and IntoTheDarkness.[1][6] 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 (in contrast to previous vocalist Mat Bruso) was part of "an awful trend".[4] By 2012, the site had regular writers based in three US cities, and some based in Japan and the United Kingdom.[1]
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.[4] At that point, the site's most popular post was their 2014 review of Babymetal's 2014 debut album (21,000+ views), followed by a post about Gojira (20,000) and a review of Devin Townsend's Deconstruction (2011) by writer Andy Synn (16,000+).[4] Although the site itself does not feature any advertising, Islander has had to pay to promote the site on Facebook;[4] he has publicly criticized the platform's EdgeRank algorithm for limiting the site's (and other blogs) reach unless they paid for promotion.[7][8]
In 2017, No Clean Singing collaborated with Invisible Oranges and Southwest Terrorfest to launch the Northwest Terrorfest.[9][10] The website continues to sponsor the festival.[11][12][13]
