This article was originally published in the December 1991 issue of SPIN. Smashing Pumpkins were one of our Artist of the Year runner-ups. In honor of Gish turning 30, we’re republishing this article. With its simultaneously childlike and ferocious debut album, gish (Caroline Records), the Chicago-based hard-soft psychedelia foursome Smashing Pumpkins exploded onto the 1991 indie-rock landscape with all […]
A version of this story originally appeared in the December 1991 issue of SPIN. We’ve republished it on what would have been Miles Davis’ 95th birthday. I loved watching Harry Reasoner’s expression on 60 Minutes when Miles told him he felt there was nothing wrong with being a pimp: “Women liked me,” rasped the controversial, iconoclastic, […]
A version of this article originally appeared in the January 1997 issue of SPIN. On the 25th anniversary of Bradley Nowell’s death, we’re republishing the story here. The smog blows east from the coast and there’s nothing to obscure this rooftop Long Beach vantage. You can see the endless strip of sandy shoreline—which established Long […]
A version of this article originally appeared in the March 1994 issue of SPIN. In honor of Juliana Hatfield’s latest album, Blood, being released on May 14, 2021, we’re republishing this story. It takes a lot of hard work to keep an enigma in motion. Juliana Hatfield has never been afraid of the fierce work […]
A lot of what’s been written about Olympia, Washington’s finest-ever rock trio, Beat Happening, refers to its purported immaturity. The band has been pegged as “wide-eyed,” “naive,” and “childlike,” which would, I guess, be charming If it weren’t so wrongheaded. “I don’t mind when we get called childlike, but I don’t understand it,” says Beat […]
This article originally appeared in the November 1989 issue of SPIN. On De La Soul’s million-selling debut Three Feet High And Rising is one minute and 11 seconds of bugging out entitled “Transmitting Live From Mars.” Album filler (the Long Island hip hop trio doesn’t even rap on the cut), the song is basically nothing […]
This article originally appeared in the November 1989 issue of SPIN. In light of Shock G’s death, we’re republishing it here. “Say it loud, I’m arty and I’m proud,” because 1989 is the year of the boho homeboy. Back in the “who’s bigger and deffer” days, hip hop was fiercely competitive, more akin to sport than art; […]
This article originally appeared in the March 2000 issue of SPIN. In light of DMX’s death, we’re republishing it here. It’s nearly midnight, and Manhattan’s Hit Factory recording studio is teeming with nervous life as DMX races to complete …And Then There Was X, which his label wants in just three weeks. The environment is […]
This article originally appeared in the June 1985 issue of SPIN. Hey you. Yeah, you—come here a second, I wanna talk to you. Look, I don’t know you, you don’t know me, we don’t go to the same parties, never tubbed together. I know you think I’m some kind of weirdo, but listen… I bet, just […]
This article was originally published in the December 1988 issue of SPIN. We’re republishing this on the 15th anniversary of Owens’ death. Buck Owens has spent the last few years looking after business in Bakersfield, California, back again where his career began. When country music went slick in the ’70s, Buck let it alone—and for the last decade […]