Several months ago I wrote a rather nice fluff piece about a music discovery site called TheSixtyOne.com that I had fallen head over heels for. I am writing today to completely withdraw that reccomendation. Some incredibly bad design decisions have taken the site from a rough and ready but perfectly functional hunt and fetch tool for new music to a revolting new media abortion of poor usability and broken features.

The previous site (until they take it down) can be viewed here.

The new site can be seen here.

While the original site had its problems, it was largely simple, usable and a good way to find new music, connect with artists and listeners and to listen to the tracks I had marked as interesting to me while I worked. It was visually discrete and worksafe, and something I looked forward to watching develop as it grew and changed. It has now become a horrible, flash based abomination completely inaccessible to screen readers and other accessibility tools - and not that much better for ordinary users too.

I've included some links below covering the userbase reaction:

I used to like the sixtyone - a central round-up site for the fan response.

The t61 official facebook group is here. and the comments are not exactly positive.

This unofficial group is serving as a gathering point for dissapointed fans of the site.

This article from thenextweb is one of many positive spin articles (all very similar) which appeared within hours of the redesign, leading many people to suspect there's some SEO and astroturfing going on - the comments tell a different story.

These two open letters, one from an artist and one from a user, are some of the best written objections to the changes I've seen so far.

And last but not least, this feature from Reddit webdesign features the professionals telling t61 very clearly what they've done wrong.

Beautiful Small Machines making some noises that make me feel like Kim Deal went electro. I found them on thesixtyone here. I'd link to their website, but it gives a big screaming Trojan error when I try and visit atm so I've left it off. Enjoy .