Wall of Sound was an American music website that provided news, reviews and information on musical artists. The site was launched and developed in the mid-1990s by

Paul Allen Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American business magnate, computer programmer, researcher, investor, and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation with childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which h ...

's software and website company,

Starwave Starwave was a Seattle, Washington-based software and website company, founded in 1993 by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and led by CEO Mike Slade. The company produced original CD-ROM titles, including ''Muppets Inside'', and titles for ...

, in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

. In April 1997, Starwave entered into a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

partnership with

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

, which expanded the coverage of the company's internet services into the ABC domain. A year later, Wall of Sound – along with Starwave sites such as Mr. Showbiz,

NBA.com The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

and NASCAR Online – was part of a joint

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...

initiative between ABC and

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

. The Wall of Sound offices were located in

Smith Tower Smith Tower is a skyscraper in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. Completed in 1914, the 38- story, tower is the oldest skyscraper in the city and was among the tallest skyscrapers outside New York City at t ...

in central Seattle. The website was named after American producer

Phil Spector Harvey Phillip Spector (born Harvey Philip Spector; December 26, 1939January 16, 2021) was an American record producer and songwriter, best known for his innovative recording practices and entrepreneurship in the 1960s, followed decades later by ...

Wall of Sound The Wall of Sound (also called the Spector Sound) is a music production formula developed by American record producer Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios, in the 1960s, with assistance from engineer Larry Levine and the conglomerate of session m ...

production technique. Its editor was Erik Flannigan, who had previously written for '' The Rocket'' and co-authored a 1991 biography of

Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. With a heavy, guitar-driven sound, they are ci ...

. The site's music reviews were often included in

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

's aggregate scores. A co-founder of Wall of Sound, Anders Wright served as news editor; over the same period, he also wrote for Mr. Showbiz and

ESPN.com ESPN.com is the official website of ESPN. It is owned by ESPN Internet Ventures, a division of ESPN Inc. History Since launching in April 1995 as ESPNET.SportsZone.com (ESPNET SportsZone), the website has developed numerous sections including ...

. Representing Wall of Sound in February 2000, Wright spoke out against the

National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences The Recording Academy (formally the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences; abbreviated NARAS) is an American Learned society, learned academy of musicians, producers, recording engineers, and other musical professionals. It is famous f ...

(NARAS), protesting its exclusion of online music journalists from the

Grammy Awards The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

ceremony after the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' had published a series of articles alleging corruption within NARAS. In reaction to NARAS' apparent failure to recognize the growing importance of the internet, Alders said: "all they're doing is making it harder for people to get information about the Grammys." Other regular contributors to the site included music critics

Gary Graff Gary Graff (born 1960) is an American music journalist and author. Biography Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Graff attended Taylor Allderdice High School where he wrote for school newspaper ''The Taylor Allderdice Foreword''. He receiv ...

and Daniel Durchholz, who together edited titles in the

MusicHound MusicHound (sometimes stylized as musicHound) was a compiler of genre-specific music guides published in the United States by Visible Ink Press between 1996 and 2002. After publishing eleven album guides, the MusicHound series was sold to London-ba ...

album guide series. By 2004, Wall of Sound was majority-owned by the

Disney Corporation The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

. The website's URL currently redirects to ABC's

Go.com Go.com (also known as The Go Network) is a portal for Disney content that was created after The Walt Disney Company acquired the search engine Infoseek. Go.com is operated by Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, one of four divisions of the ...

portal.

References

{{reflist American music websites Defunct American websites