URI Graduate releases 45s and 40s music website

“It sounds super cliché, but everyone can do whatever they want to do, and as long as you start doing it, other people will support you doing it,” Hensley Carrasco, founder of “45s and 40s” music news website, said.

University of Rhode Island graduate and former Good 5 Cent Cigar Editor-in-Chief, Carrasco, officially released his new website, 45s and 40s, on Thursday, March 24. “45s and 40s” is a website organized to keep people up to date on topics related to all kinds of music genres such as rock, rap, blues and many others.

Carrasco was a journalism major at URI, and has always really enjoyed writing. He says he loves to listen and research music, so he wanted to create an outlet to be able to express what he likes most, which is more in the music aspect. This was not the first time Carrasco had thought about creating a music news website. In fact, Carrasco thought about doing it last year, but decided against it.

“I was intimidated by the fact that if I did it and I did it wrong, it would not be successful,” Carrasco said. In addition to not knowing where to approach the project, he did not know much about HTMLs. When thinking about it again this year, he realized that if he tried to do as much work as possible and ask for people’s help, he could manage to pull off his ideal music website.

The logo of the website was created by Rhode Island College graduate and graphic designer, Maria Maidana. As for the title of the website, it was inspired by 45 RPM records and 40 ounce beers.

“It comes from the idea that any single form of music can be put onto a vinyl, and anyone can hear it at any given time,” Carrasco said. “I want the website to be a 45.”

Carrasco said he wants 45s and 40s to be the place where any kind of music can be found, along with finding out information and discovering new music.

The 40 oz beers refer to their correlation with hip hop, and how Carrasco believes the genre has had an immense impact for music today. The website features a mixture of different topics such as reviews, new releases, top ten playlists, albums, music videos and general news regarding all music scenes. Ryan Gibbs, who also attended URI, composes opinion-based columns based on top songs from the alternative billboard charts. Each post focuses on a certain year for all alternative music and includes top ten playlists for that year created by the writers themselves.

Hensley is currently editing and writing for the website. He also specializes in concert photography. The writing staff is short for the moment, but Hensley hopes to bring together more writers. He currently helps and guides his writers on basic journalism rules, since most of them do not have a journalism background. He wishes for writers to incorporate accuracy, originality and distinction into their work.

For the future, Carrasco not only hopes for 45s and 40s to become a nationally and daily source, but he anticipates it will become a career as well.

Since people support Carrasco’s movement, he has been able to slowly improve his website more and more everyday.

“I did not really ask people to help me,” Carrasco said. “I just did it, and then a lot of people were like, ‘Oh you’re working on a website, that’s really cool! I wanna help.’ The support comes very fast, when you start doing things.”

Check out Carrasco’s website at 45sand40s.com