As part of our 35th anniversary, we’re naming the most influential artists of the past 35 years. Today, we’re at #8. From Athens, Georgia, here is R.E.M. CREDIT: Paul Natkin/Getty Images It started not with an earthquake, but a conversation. Michael Stipe and Peter Buck first met in 1980, at a record shop just off […]
SPIN launched in the peak MTV era, when an innovative — or even just salacious — music video could make or break an artist. Thirty five years later, YouTube is an obligatory part of any promotional push, but no one’s counting on a mind-blowing clip to sell a record. (The views do often matter — just […]
Since 2014, Hrishikesh Hirway has been sitting down with musicians to talk about how they imagined and created their biggest hits on the Song Exploder podcast. Now, Hirway and Oscar-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville have turned the podcast into a docuseries that will premiere on Netflix next month. In the trailer released today (Sept. 17), Alicia Keys will […]
Lyrics to a new song by R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe are part of an art installation that opens at New York City gallery Participation Inc. on Sept. 9. The song, “My Name is Ray,” is about the life and fraught love of married designers Charles and wife Ray Eames. The lyrics are part of a […]
R.E.M., Hayley Williams, Jamila Woods, Phoebe Bridgers, Angel Olsen and more contributed previously unreleased covers of artists including the Cure and Joni Mitchell to the Good Music To Avert The Collapse Of American Democracy compilation, out this Friday (Sept. 4) and only on Friday. All net proceeds from the set of unheard songs will benefit Fair […]
In the 1980s, music and film collided for cross-promotional blockbusters both transcendent (Purple Rain) and transcendently cheesy (Footloose). In the ‘90s, soundtracks continued to sell in the millions, capturing cultural moments like the Seattle grunge of Singles or the Britpop and electronica of Trainspotting. Auteurs like Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson reached deep into their […]
Pearl Jam, R.E.M. Sia, Lorde and more have joined forces with the Artists Rights Alliance to demand that the political parties “establish clear policies requiring campaigns to seek the consent of featured recording artists, songwriters, and copyright owners before publicly using their music in a political or campaign setting,” the Artist Rights Alliance announce in […]
Rock ‘n roll and politics have a long, intertwined history — and it’s hard to find a better example than the Tibetan Freedom Concert. Beginning in 1996 at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, the festival brought together many of the biggest artists of that time for one reason: liberating Tibet from decades of crippling control at […]