As of today: Monday, July 7th, 2008… RetroLowFi is officially dead.

We started this site as a way to break ourselves out of the average pandering mold that is all too evident in today’s style of speaking publicly about pop culture. So many opinions were “right up the middle” without actually taking a stance on the topic at hand. Too many record reviewing sites were relying on numbered rating systems, making it easy for you to breeze by and figure out what the site wanted you to think about the records sent to them by advertisers. Our writers knew they could do better, and in our two-year lifespan, I’d like to think that we did. We got the attention of the coolest indie labels without even trying, and even major labels started taking notice of what we were up to. Don’t even get me started on the copycat blogs that sprung up along the way (all of which are very good, mind you).

We always intended to be more of an online zine than a “blog”, per se. We weren’t scared of letting our readers talk back to us - imagine if you could talk back to Pitchfork! - and we didn’t think twice about slaughtering sacred cows. Actually, most of our writers like The Monkees better than The Beatles and have irrefutable evidence to prove that they were vastly more important. If you want to see said sacred cows getting blown on a pedestal, there were a million other places to do so.

Hell, Chris even stood up to those ravenous My Chemical Romance fans. Never let it be said that RetroLowFi didn’t have some serious balls.

So why would we end things now? Mostly because we didn’t want to get formulaic and boring, and we also just don’t have time to maintain a site that grew beyond our wildest expectations. I can only imagine what kind of crisis Splendid must have gone through near the end of their run.

Speaking of which, when many zines come to a close, they’ll tell you to please refrain from sending them records. We aren’t going to do that. Please, send us anything you’d like. While we won’t be posting reviews of your slice of art, we’re rabid music lovers, and we’ll gladly soak up anything you throw our way. If we like it, we’ll tell our friends. Word of mouth, just like we all used to do.

To say farewell, all of the RLF writers have helped put together a sort of “farewell” mix tape for you. Many of the songs are pretty poignant, while others are just by artists that we think you should drop everything and listen to immediately. We hope you’ll enjoy it

Disc One: Click here to download it in full!
Fishboy - Albatross
Immortal Technique - Freedom Of Speech
Mumpsy - 64 Colors
My Teenage Stride - Happy Mondays
Pixies - Gouge Away
Alice Cooper - Don’t Talk Old To Me
Pete Townshend - There’s a Heartache Following Me
Thurston Moore - Honest James
Zombies Organize! - Zombie Manifesto
Kool Keith - I Don’t Believe You
Imperial Teen - Shim Sham
Thomas Dolby - Airwaves
Darren Hanlon - Elbows
1000 Violins - Locked Out Of The Love In
Low - When I Go Deaf

Disc Two: Click here to download it in full!
James - Sometimes
Guided By Voices - If We Wait
Man From Delmonte - Like A Millionaire
Joanna Newsom - Peach, Plum, Pear
Kind Of Like Spitting - Middle
Neko Case - I Wish i Was The Moon
Kirsty MacColl - Treachery
Mountain Goats - Rockin’ Rockin’ Pet Store
The Kinks - Young Conservatives
Precious - Frozen Han Solo
Hello Saferide - My Best Friend
Ben Folds - Radio Jingle For Tokyo’s Inter-FM
Aphrodite’s Child - End Of The World
The Monkees - Shorty Blackwell
Tom Waits - Lucky Day

So long… and thanks for all the records,
RetroLowFi