[5] Founded June 6, 2000 by Jason Tate, the website focused on music industry news, and included album reviews,[6] interviews, articles, journals and photo galleries.

Special accounts were afforded to industry figures (such as record label representatives) and band members denoting them as such, with threads often created specifically to allow users to interact with them.

[12] Even though it lost some content because of numerous server switches over the years, AbsolutePunk still featured over 55,000 news articles, 2500 reviews, 500 interviews, and 52,000 files in its multimedia gallery.

[14] The website gained a strong following in the alternative music scene over the years, allowing it to sponsor various tours and host or premiere exclusive content from many bands.

In the August 2007 issue of Blender, owner Jason Tate was named #18 in their list of Top 25 "Most Influential People in Online Music".