As part of our 35th anniversary, we’re naming the most influential artists of the past 35 years. Today, we’re at #16. From Virginia Beach, Virginia, here are the Neptunes. CREDIT: Johnny Nunez / Contributor Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams have been popular music’s phone-a-friend since the turn of the century. Ever since they first linked […]
When the U.S. went into an economic shutdown to slow the spread of COVID-19 earlier this year, Shawna Shawnté — an Oakland musician and community organizer now based in Avondale, Arizona — didn’t take it seriously or believe it would affect the underground DIY music scene. “I — like everyone at the beginning — was […]
Most celebrity interviews I’ve conducted usually included the runaround from publicists of their client’s ultra-small window of availability. When it came to interviewing Common, he quickly was on board to speak with me, but then the scheduling conflicts arose. For weeks, I went back and forth with his publicist over scheduling a telephonic, and every […]
This article originally appeared in the October 1990 issue of SPIN. In the five years I’ve known Eddie Murphy, this interview was our first opportunity to site down and talk for any real length of time. Whose fault is it? Both of ours—we were too busy, too far apart, and too, too different (so we […]
“When I’m in the room with another artist, I’m only there because I’m an admirer of their work, so I’m just trying to help them make something good,” Finneas O’Connell tells SPIN. “When I’m in a room alone, it’s about expressing myself and making sure that I am honest and exacting when I finish stuff. […]
As part of our 35th anniversary, we’re naming the most influential artists of the past 35 years. Today, we’re at #18. From Washington, D.C., here is Tori Amos. CREDIT: Niels van Iperen/Getty Images In the ‘90s, Tori Amos brought something different to pop music: eccentricity. With her breakthrough albums Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink, […]
In 1989, Chinese students and workers rose up against political repression and occupied Tiananmen Square in downtown Beijing. After a few weeks of hopefulness, Premier Deng Xaoping resorted to extreme measures to quell any potential nationwide workers’ revolution. He ordered Chinese soldiers to turn their guns on their own people, causing a bloody massacre. SPIN […]
There is so much to learn about Lenny Kravitz in his revelatory new memoir, Let Love Rule. One fascinating tidbit is how, with youthful wisdom, he purchased property in the very location where his beloved mom, late stage and screen actress Roxie Roker, grew up in the Bahamas. “It’s where my grandfather and mother are from,” […]
This article originally appeared in the September 1989 issue of SPIN. I turned on the radio at 7:40 p.m. on June 27th and a DJ was announcing, in that near hysterical delivery DJs have, that they would be broadcasting the “WHO’S ONE AND ONLY LIVE PERFORMANCE OF TOMMY SINCE 1969 AT RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL.” […]
If history has taught us anything, it’s that there’s too much of it. These past 35 years have given us too many “Where were you when” moments that shook us to our core. The advent of 24-hour news and now social media has given us instant, around-the-clock information overload. From space shuttles exploding to skyscrapers […]