Last year, when helping assemble SPIN‘s 50 Best Albums of 1971, I wondered if that year could have been popular music’s absolute peak. Now I’m asking myself that same question all over again. As I built a spreadsheet for 1972, gathering our writers’ votes alongside my own weird choices, I was once again struck by […]
As the stockings get hung by the chiminea with care in hopes that Papa Noel soon will be there, you might be hard-pressed to find gifts that will bring true joy to the music-obsessive in your life. Especially if they seem to have every new album or box set that comes out. But fear not, […]
Three of the 100 are in this picture! The Rolling Stones, in 1964, from left to right: Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Brian Jones. The problem with lists like this is they are invariably bullshit. So our prime objective was to make sure we didn’t do a bullshit list. I’m not saying we did a scientific one […]
The concert industry exploded in the 1970s, and the live album, a stopgap project once reserved for only the biggest artists, became a compulsory ritual and a pivotal moment for many artists. Live albums captured legendarily loud bands like The Who and The Ramones in their natural element. Once obscure regional acts like Bob Seger, […]
In 2016, Alex Winter launched the grueling quest of his latest documentary with one clear question: “Who the fuck is Frank Zappa?” After four years, a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign, numerous interviews and a mind-boggling “deep dive” into the late musician’s archives, he’s still no closer to an answer. And he’s satisfied with that result. “I’m […]