As you may have noticed, this site hasn’t been updated in a long time. I hesitated to write a final coda, I thought I’d just let the archive lie here in the amber of the internet, but then I remembered that the point was to share our stories.

Ruined Music began as an offhand idea over a plate of Thai noodles one afternoon in Brooklyn; somehow this became an MTV News crew telling me to “look like you’re really posting something to the site” as they filmed over my shoulder. (For those of you who saw the clip and asked, yes, Buckley the cat is still available for commercial work.) Now we — and by ‘we’ I mean those of us responsible for running, updating, and otherwise steering the site — have moved on to other projects, other agendas. Ruined Music didn’t get dumped; it just ran its course.

Co-founder Bryan Bruchman and I were always amazed, though in retrospect we should have stopped being so, by the emails we received. We couldn’t post everything that came in, but we read every message you wrote, the funny ones and the sad ones, the profanity-laced ones, the ones that still believed in love, the ones that didn’t want to give up. I think, looking back on it, that the ones I will remember longest were those we received from young girls in faraway countries – places where a relationship can be ruined by parental decree, social mores, and customs that mean nothing to teenagers in love to the sound of the radio. I hope everything worked out for them. I hope everything worked out for everyone.

There’s a long list of people who deserve thanks, but I’ll keep this as concise as I can. MC Rob Holmes wrote the very first Ruined Music story on request so the site could go live. Fun fact: Rob is about to celebrate his first wedding anniversary, and yes, he played Superdrag at the reception. The nice folks at WNYC had me on the air soon after the launch, and I’m convinced that brought the site to an audience it wouldn’t have reached otherwise. Several friends contributed stories, advice, and encouragement, including Liz, Emily, Brendan, Annie, Annette, Mike, Carrie, Felicia, Eric, the entire Serious Business family, and many more. Very special thanks to the Shondes, Beat Radio, the Unsacred Hearts, Nichelle Stephens, Mick Stingley, and Brandy Barber for making the site anniversary party at the Delancey such a success.

Most of all, thanks to the people who sent stories, read the stories, linked to RM on their blogs, contacted us for interviews, and helped spread the word in whatever way they could. This little project is over but it isn’t: next time someone or something leaves us with a gaping hole in our record collections, we’ll know that it will hurt but we will live to tell the tale. And that’s exactly what we’ll do, all of us.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for writing.

For RM HQ,

Mary

ps. If you’d like to stay in touch, and I hope you do, I can be found here and here and here. Bryan is here and here and here.