The Loud Neighbours

Written by Patricia Manlucu for Urban Outfitters Space15Twenty (2015)

Dreamers and doers play a big role in the Urban Outfitters community. Whether it’s starting a new business, creating art, or simply trying to beat the status quo, our community thrives for creative innovation. In a world where blogging is part of the societal norm, it’s hard to find authenticity and originality when everyone is writing about the same thing. The Loud Neighbours plans to change all that.

This upcoming music blog is dedicated to bringing life back to the artists that make up the industry. Today Kristi, one of the editors, tells us a little bit more about the story behind The Loud Neighbours and what to look forward to for their launch.

What inspired the start of The Loud Neighbours? How did you guys form a solid team/site?

 I've known Isabel, Rasheed, Isaiah, and Adam for quite a while, and we'd all been involved with music and the music industry in some capacity... most of us had written for music sites as well, and it was a combination of not seeing the things we wanted to see on other sites (or vice versa, seeing too much of stuff we had no interest in), and not wanting to let our ideas go to websites owned by other people as... well, I'm not sure if people know this, but blogging isn't always super lucrative haha, and if we're going to be poor, we might as well be poor with our intellectual ideas held under the umbrella of our own website. 

What is your main role as part of The Loud Neighbours?

Isabel, Rasheed, Isaiah and I have been doing a little bit of everything, but I guess my unofficial title right now is editor in chief and site designer and some merch. Isabel and Isaiah and Rasheed have been writing a lot as well, and working on things like events (which is coming down the line), and a bunch of other things I've forgotten about because I'm mostly freaking about some kind of coding mishap 80% of the time!

I'd also love to give a quick shoutout to Zac Colquitt, who designed our logo and is just the best! 

Do you have any goals as a team? 

I think the largest, overarching goal comes back to our name. We're the loud neighbours. In a house party, or home gathering, there isn't anyone better than the other, it's just about the good feeling of being surrounded by great music, maybe a drink, and fantastic people. A lot of times with music and the people in it, it can get really uppity in its own, very weird way. At a house party, everyone is equal, and we want to even out the playing field and sort of humanize everyone. It's weird because when I first got into music, it was insane how human everyone is IRL versus their online persona, and the media perpetuates that hardcore. We're sort of trying to bring that back down, but also still celebrate their successes. Your casual music listener, your artists, your industry people... we're all out here because we love music, and we want to celebrate how amazing it is that people are creating these out of these world pieces of art.

The music industry can be really backbreaking and I think to answer this question we have to get to the root of your average music website. A lot of these websites have writers with a lot of publicist friends, myself included, and if you're not careful, it can easily become about whatever a publicist friend wants the writer to write about, so for us, it was a place where we can truly do what we wanted without the pressure of pleasing others. There's a reason why we got into it in the first place, and returning to that is a huge priority for us. 

When will the site be launched? What can our readers look forward to until then?

The site is set for a January 11th launch date! Until then, you can definitely follow us on Twitter, Soundcloud, or Facebook, or sign up for our newsletter through our website (Theloudneighbours.com).