“Welcome to Friday Mixtape 378. I might wind this down soon. It’s getting progressively more difficult to find quality freely downloadable music. Arists just aren’t sharing free mp3s anymore. You can thank Spotify for that.”

With 13.3 thousand twitter followers, Friday Mixtape was one of the most prolific promoters of great music on the internet. So many artists made their debut on Hype Machine through this little side project of photographer Duncan Rawlinson, now I can’t even find Friday Mixtape’s listing on the blog aggregator.

Friday Mixtape was one of the few old-school blogs that posted high-quality mixtapes of under-represented music with no other frills attached. Just hour-long mixes to look forward to every Friday through which you’d discover your new favorite artists of the week. And all the mixes were free! and downloadable! and in mp3!

no subscriptions, no new accounts, no ads, no option for removing ads, just good-hearted music discovery.

Rawlinson, however, has said goodbye to his blog, that had been posting mixes since 2009. Citing other commitments and the Spotify phenomenon, this is truly a sad goodbye. His disappearance is just another symptom of the repercussions of algorithm-defined music in the music industry; a decline in personal curation, serendipitous discovery or song-finding due to your specific cultural and social context.

Though there are plenty of advantages to streaming music, including lower starting costs, easy marketing and avenues for self-promotion, these services has removed all the middle-men in the way music is delivered to people. No longer are your friends as involved, or that guy from that one TV show, the bored gas station employee or an airport cafe with particular good taste. Blogs and radio shows are falling into the same chasm.

I might be painting things a little darker than necessary, but that just seems to be the right mood. But for the sake of ending on an optimistic note, I think finding good music that means to you and the people you care about is a matter of personal effort. Note down those fleeting lyrics you heard in the shopping mall, hunt for sources of music that resonate with you and make your own blog! Those monthly $5 dollars you spend on Spotify can never measure in value to any kind of music you unearth yourself.

In honor of Friday Mixtape, his first and last post:

https://fridaymixtape.com/page/379/

featuring Cut Copy, Justice and Miami Horror

https://fridaymixtape.com/page/2/

featuring artists I’ve never heard of, but should have heard of.

Thanks for everything, Duncan

Ami