Fluxblog 1980s Survey Mixes

August 2, 2016 1:05 PM

Matthew Perpetua​​ ​of the mp3 blog Fluxblog has curated a "series of survey mixes designed to give more context to the music of the 1980s. The frustrating thing about [how] we typically deal with cultural history is to focus on specific niches and canons, but in doing that, we lose track of parallel and overlapping cultural trends. I hope to create a set of collections that will give you – and me! – a better understanding of chronology for the music of this era, and to highlight a lot of music that for whatever reason usually gets cut out of retrospectives today."

​​​1989 Survey Mix

​​​1988 Survey Mix

​​​1987 Survey Mix

​​​1986 Survey Mix

​​​1985 Survey Mix

​​​1984 Survey Mix

​​​1983 Survey Mix

​​​1982 Survey Mix

​​​1981 Survey Mix

​​​1980 Survey Mix

posted by danabanana (15 comments total)

This looks great! Many thanks!

BTW...The 1981-1989 links loop back here to MeFi. 1980 is the only one that links to the correct page.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:16 PM on August 2, 2016

All the other survey playlists are here
posted by blucevalo at 1:23 PM on August 2, 2016

Very cool, this looks fun to dive in to. (Although it never ceases to amaze me that it's 2016 and music blogs still haven't come up with a sensible way to actually host their files for download.)
posted by Jimbob at 1:42 PM on August 2, 2016

Mod note: Few comments deleted; fixed the links, thanks for your patience.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 1:49 PM on August 2, 2016

This just made my day a lot more fun! Thanks for the post danabanana!
posted by S'Tella Fabula at 2:06 PM on August 2, 2016

It's probably always going to be hard to find easy, reliable hosting for sharing copyrighted music. Any service that gets too popular becomes a target. Services like Soundcloud, for example, have algorithmic rights enforcement.

These mixes aren't "official"; they're technically being shared illegally. If you try to download some of the later discs you'll find that some have been taken down because there has been a DMCA complaint.

I think music blogs are a good thing and that Fluxblog is great (I've been following it for years). I'm honestly surprised it's still around though.

/former music blogger
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 2:07 PM on August 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

thanks for posting these!
posted by bigendian at 2:19 PM on August 2, 2016

It's probably always going to be hard to find easy, reliable hosting for sharing copyrighted music. Any service that gets too popular becomes a target.
...
I think music blogs are a good thing and that Fluxblog is great (I've been following it for years). I'm honestly surprised it's still around though.

I think Fluxblog's policy that "MP3s are only offered for a limited time and are changed frequently" helps keep the site up.

The sites that have staying power either get involved with active promotions (artists, labels and promoters send the site files to share), or focus on more obscure music (music from countries without such active copyright enforcement agencies, and older music that is pretty far outside the scope of modern "popular music," often from little labels that have long folded and haven't been picked up from someone else for re-distribution).
posted by filthy light thief at 2:52 PM on August 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

*wibble*

*sniffle*

I love you, Fluxblog! And I love you, too, danabanana!
posted by wenestvedt at 4:21 PM on August 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Me and my partner and our best friend are all turning 50 this week, and all of these are the Sounds of Our Youth. So now I know what we'll be playing when we throw the big party this fall...
posted by rtha at 6:05 PM on August 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oops, "this week" s/b "this year." (Inability to proofread apparently happens when you enter Old territory.)
posted by rtha at 6:43 PM on August 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

C.f. that 1981 Box Set from a few years ago, which covers a narrower slice of the same era in greater depth (previously).
posted by Gerald Bostock at 9:25 PM on August 2, 2016

> If you try to download some of the later discs you'll find that some have been taken down because there has been a DMCA complaint.

For what it's worth, I was able to download all of the discs from the survey this morning; none of the links were broken. It came to 80 discs, just under 11 GB, and 116 hours (nearly 5 days) of music. I don't know how to even begin digesting this.

Also, 1981 Disc 5 and 1987 Disc 4 have all of their files in a subdirectory, instead of the root of the archive. And most archives have unnecessary macOS metadata in a __MACOSX/ folder. If you follow in my footsteps, you may want to clean those up.
posted by SemiSophos at 7:49 AM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh no. Fluxblog also has survey mixes for 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. A total of 113 additional discs, summing to 17 GB and over 6 days of music. Why must you do this to me, danabanana?

2002-2011 are hosted on Mediafire, which is a pain in the butt, but the links eventually work if you try enough times. 2012 is self-hosted and all of the links are broken. I've emailed the blog's author about the broken links.
posted by SemiSophos at 10:36 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Thanks, SemiSophos, for the info! Enjoy!
posted by danabanana at 10:38 AM on August 3, 2016