Rock is obvs not dead but it’s not hard to see why people always say it is, almost wishfully. For decades, the most commercially viable (and even critically bolstered) rock was dominated by white dudes, which is troublesome considering how many of its pioneers, including the dearly departed, radically queer genius Little Richard, were not. […]
Ennio Morricone, the celebrated Italian film composer who died on Monday at the age of 91, could elevate any film with his remarkably bold and expressive scores. Spaghetti westerns, Hollywood dramas, Giallo films — they were all his domain throughout an astonishingly prolific career. But when you compose more than 500 scores, your work is […]
Foo Fighters started out as a one-man-band, with D.C. hardcore-raised ex-Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl playing and singing nearly everything on the surprisingly polished self-titled debut, released on the 4th of July in 1995. But over the years, Grohl has filled out the full band lineup, while bringing in a dizzying array of guest musicians and […]
Why now? Because — and there’s no reason to ignore the elephant in the room: SPIN stewardship has changed hands many, many times since we made the online jump — we got our chance. Because plenty of our favorite albums of the last 10 years could still use a boost. Because some of the already unanimously […]
Bob Dylan is one of the most widely covered artists in popular music – hit versions of his songs by the Byrds and Peter, Paul and Mary helped make him famous, and Dylan covers by Jimi Hendrix and Guns N’ Roses permanently remain in rock radio rotation. And even artists from the punk and alternative […]
The record shops might have been closed up for the last 10 weeks (and plenty are reopening as I write, for better or worse). But that hasn’t stopped the flow of archival releases from keeping quarantined music collectors occupied during lockdown. And for those rare moments when music fans who still collect physical media can […]
The world knew what Mariah Carey was capable of from the very first vocal run, during her national television debut on the Arsenio Hall Show back in 1990. Once the 20-year-old vocalist came out the gate with the words “Treated me kind…” and enough hand-waving to make a traffic director retire on the spot, her […]
Every decade takes a couple of years to feel like itself, but the 1990s, in particular, had a soft launch. While 1991 would bring a bumper crop of era-defining albums from the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, U2, and Red Hot Chili Peppers that would set the tone for alternative rock for the rest of […]
Great songs have a freedom that albums don’t because great songs only have to pull off their trick once. It’s like how a great SNL sketch can be a terrible movie or why Vine was an underrated miracle of online comedy. Sometimes an artist can get a lot more done in miniature. When people say […]
On one hand, who can think about stuff as trivial as this? On the other, what else is there to do? If art was made to fill a cultural vacuum, well… now’s the fucking time, buddy. Hopefully, you’ve been binging every show, reading every book, repainting every bathroom you’ve been putting off. Hopefully, when (and […]