This is Rare Originals

music recommendations and musings the industry, with a focus on underrepresented artists.

Hi, I'm Mandy. Welcome to my Newsletter/Substack, born out of my incurable need to curate and a relentless compulsion to share every musical obsession I have.

First and foremost, Rare Originals is supposed to be a space for music discovery. I’m not a fan of music recommendations driven by algorithms that fail to recognize niche and emerging artists. Sharing music is something so personal. If you don’t want robots telling you what to listen to, you’ve come to the right place. I strive to give you hand-picked music recommendations, focusing on amplifying small and independent voices, especially those of underrepresented artists.

Once in a while, you’ll also find insights from my past and current work experience and thoughts about topics that I believe deserve more attention.

What qualifies me to talk about all this in the first place, you may ask?

Let me introduce myself–

Growing up in a tiny village in Northeast Germany, literally in the middle of nowhere, there was not much to do. So you can imagine my excitement when we first got access to the Internet in 1998. I taught myself how to code and built a few websites around pop cultural topics that I was interested in at that time (though, as a teenager, the content wasn’t really of much substance). But I was very proud of the music blog I started at the end of high school. Me, the self-proclaimed journalist–I couldn't believe that my little blog landed me interviews with Dawes and The Avett Brothers, hoping one day I’ll write for a big music magazine.

But my journey would take me away from writing and toward curation. It was still editorial but … different. In the early 2010s, after a short stint in college, I started my career at a radio station in Hamburg, where I learned what it takes to be a Musikredakteur—a music editor. A few years later, I moved to Berlin, and I was in the right place at the right time: Shortly after launching in the German-speaking markets, Spotify hired me for their newly launched Editorial team.

And I mean, Spotify in 2015? You had to be there. It was the golden start-up days. Limewire is dead; long live Spotify. It was the beginning of a new era. As part of a tight-knit team, we would become the “Spotify Editors,” a myth-enshrouded elite of industry gatekeepers—or stewardship, depending on how you’d like to view it.

For years, I grew with the company, and in 2020, Spotify eventually relocated me from Berlin to Los Angeles to take on a global role. But as it turns out, the seven-year itch is true for employment as it is for a long-term relationship. And leaving Spotify in 2022 was truly like leaving a partner of many years. Sometimes, breakups are hard but necessary, and I’ll forever be nostalgic and grateful for my time at the company, the people I met, and the doors opened for me.

The upside about breakups, though? You learn how to be on your own again. That's exactly where I find myself now: I started my own business and enjoy the fulfilling, albeit occasionally daunting, freelance life as a consultant and project manager.

These past few years have been a journey of constant evolution for me, involving as much un-learning as learning. During my many years at Spotify, I have seen the industry change from a unique and almost exclusive point of view. Now, on “the other side”, my work and approach are reshaped and influenced by the struggles and triumphs of the artists I am working with.

Thanks for being here, supporting independent artists, and following along on my journey.