SPIN: Greatest Hits

Description

The official book celebrating the 25th anniversary of SPIN magazine

From its first issue in 1985, SPIN has cultivated a reputation for brilliant writing and broad musical coverage, including genres and artists long abandoned by its competitors. From punk to electronica, goth to gangsta rap, emo to garage rock, and hip-hop to indie rock, SPIN has covered it all and featured interviews with leading artists through every musical wave of the last 25 years.

SPIN: Greatest Hits brings together some of the classic stories that have appeared in the magazine, each with a new introduction by the author offering historical perspective on the article.

• Compiles the best articles from well-known writers such as Chuck Klosterman, Jonathan Ames, Elizabeth Gilbert, and David Hajdu
• Features the best SPIN interviews with Lou Reed, Noel Gallagher, Chuck D, and other influential musicians
• Includes hilarious sidebars such as "Six Extreme Metal Bands That Could Be Mistaken for Flavors of Herbal Tea," "Six Misguided Attempts to Falsify Rock History," and more

Packed with great writing and information spanning a quarter-century of iconic music and musicians, SPIN: Greatest Hits is an essential keepsake for music fans and lovers of pop culture.
Foreword by Tom Morello.

Introduction by Doug Brod.

SIDE 1 A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH.

1. 6,557 Miles to Nowhere (CHUCK KLOSTERMAN).

Revisiting the sites of rock'n'roll departures.

2. Hands on a Hardbody (DAVID HAJDU).

Fetishizing one's first guitar.

3. Summer of '69 (MIKE RUBIN).

Exploring the cultural battle between Charles Manson and Woodstock.

4. My Bloody Valentine (DANA ADAM SHAPIRO).

Breaking up with a letter composed of lyrics from 69 breakup songs.

REVIEW: Rob Sheffi eld on Morrissey's Vauxhall and I.

SIDE 2 REBEL YELL.

5. Chinese Water Torture (ELIZABETH GILBERT).

Visiting the Yangtze River's controversial Three Gorges Dam.

6. War Is Loud (DAVID PEISNER).

Investigating the U.S. military's use of music as an instrument of torture.

7. Fearless Bouncers, Critical Beat-Downs, and Insane Posses at America's Craziest Club (CHRIS NORRIS).

Enjoying Detroit's alarming nightlife'

8. Red, Hot, and Bothered (RJ SMITH).

Moshing with Rage Against the Machine in Moscow.

REVIEW: Ann Powers on Sleater-Kinney's Dig Me Out.

SIDE 3 THE OUTSIDERS.

9. Middle-American Gothic (JONATHAN AMES).

Being odd man out at a Midwest goth festival.

10. School's Out (TOM SINCLAIR).

Remembering New York City's real rock'n'roll high school.

11. The Art of the Hustle (CHARLES AARON).

Pounding the pavement with rock's hungriest band.

REVIEW: Sasha Frere-Jones on Run-D.M.C.'s

Crown Royal.

SIDE 4 THE RIGHT PROFILE.

12. Let Us Now Praise Women Uncaged (DAVE EGGERS).

Extolling the virtues of Joanna Newsom and Karen O.

13. Lady Sings the Blues (STEVE KANDELL).

Avoiding rehab with Amy Winehouse.

14. The Rebirth of Cool (MARC SPITZ).

Introducing the Strokes.

15. Bruce's Transparent Dogshit (RICHARD MELTZER).

Dissecting the Boss.

REVIEW: Terri Sutton on Foo Fighters' debut.

SIDE 5 VOICES CARRY.

16. Don't Look Back in Anger (DOUG BROD).

Chatting with Oasis' Noel Gallagher'

17. Street Hassle (DAVID MARCHESE).

Surviving Lou Reed.

18. Armageddon in Effect (JOHN LELAND).

Confronting Chuck D.

19. Dearly Beloved (BRIAN RAFTERY).

Presenting an oral history of Prince's Purple Rain.

REVIEW: Sia Michel on DJ Shadow's.

Endtroducing. . . . .

Acknowledgments.

Credits.

Sujets

• Styles
• Genres
• Spin magazine
• David Hajdu
• Elizabeth Gilbert
• Jonathan Ames
• Chuck D
• Chuck Klosterman
• Noel Gallagher
• Rock
• Music
• Lou Reed

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780470891094
• Langue: English

Extrait

Table of Contents
 
Title Page
Copyright Page
Foreword
Introduction
 
SIDE 1 - A MATTER OF Life and Death
 
Chapter 1 - 6,557 Miles to NOWHERE
 
Nancy Spungen, Stabbed to Death, 1978
100 Great White Fans, Club Fire, 2003
Three Members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Plane Crash, 1977
Elvis Presley, Drug Overdose, 1977 Jeff Buckley, Drowned, 1997
Robert Johnson, Sold Soul to Devil, 1930
Bob Stinson, Chronic Substance Abuse, 1995
Kurt Cobain, Suicide, 1994
 
Chapter 2 - HANDS on a HARDBODY
Chapter 3 - Summer of ’69
Chapter 4 - My Bloody VALENTINE
 
Song Index
 
SIDE 2 - REBEL YELL
Chapter 5 - Chinese WATER TORTURE
Chapter 6 - WAR is LOUD
Chapter 7 - FEARLESS BOUNCERS, CRITICAL BEAT-DOWNS, and INSANE POSSES at ...
Chapter 8 - RED, HOT , and Bothered
 
SIDE 3 - THE OUTSIDERS
Chapter 9 - Middle-American Gothic
 
Saturday, September 17, 2005 The Odeum Sports & Expo Center
 
Chapter 10 - SCHOOL’S OUT
Chapter 11 - The Art of the HUSTLE
 
SIDE 4 - THE RIGHT PROFILE
Chapter 12 - Let Us Now PRAISE Women UNCAGED
Chapter 13 - LADY Sings the BLUES
Chapter 14 - The Rebirth of COOL
Chapter 15 - BRUCE’S Transparent DOGSHIT
 
SIDE 5 - VOICES CARRY
Chapter 16 - Don’t Look Back in ANGER
Chapter 17 - Street HASSLE
Chapter 18 - Armageddon in EFFECT
Chapter 19 - Dearly BELOVED
 
Acknowledgments
Credits

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

  Copyright © 2010 by SPIN magazine. All rights reserved
 
All articles reprinted with permission of SPIN magazine, with the exception of “Let Us Now Praise Women Uncaged” by Dave Eggers. Copyright © 2004 by Dave Eggers. All rights reserved. First published in SPIN magazine as “And Now a Less Informed Opinion.”
 
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada
 

 
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com . Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions .
 
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Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com .
 
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
 
Spin greatest hits: 25 years of heretics, heroes, and the new rock‘n’roll / edited by Doug Brod.
 
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-470-63996-2 (pbk.:alk. paper); ISBN 978-0-470-89094-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-0-470-89108-7 (ebk); ISBN 978-0-470-89109-4 (ebk) 1. Rock music—History and criticism. I. Brod, Doug. II. Spin (New York, N.Y.)
ML3534.S649 2010
781.66—dc22
 
2010028344
 
Foreword
When SPIN first appeared on newsstands in 1985, it was a revelation. While Lollapalooza’s genre-blending was still years away, SPIN boldly put black artists and women on its covers when it was considered commercial suicide for a mainstream “rock” magazine to do so. SPIN was like a mischievous little flashlight illuminating the shadowy edges of the music world. It championed the fledgling art form of hip-hop while giving a national platform to experimental music, outlaw country, and hardcore punk. And the international scene reports! I mean WTF, look how they party in Glasgow! Who knew? Okay, I’ll admit that each year when the magazine’s Top 40 albums list comes out it’s sometimes a little over my head. This year I had only heard of about half the artists named . . . but I got turned on to St. Vincent, Drake, and Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, all of whom have been rocking me since. Next year, who knows? Looking forward to finding out.
Oh, and the Rage in Russia article included here is one I wasn’t so sure about at the time. I thought it totally missed what was going on in the band/music/Russia—but in retrospect it actually is pretty darn interesting. This book is a collection of unexpected discoveries, trials, and tribulations from the edges. Enjoy.
Tom Morello Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, the Nightwatchman, Street Sweeper Social Club
INTRODUCTION
by DOUG BROD
 
 
 
 
 
IN HIS INTRODUCTORY COLUMN in SPIN’s premiere issue, founding editor and publisher Bob Guccione Jr. neatly articulated his vision for the magazine. “From the beginning . . . we were determined to fill every issue with the real excitement of music, wherever it was from and whatever form, from top to muddy bottom,” he wrote, adding, “We wanted to say something worth saying, not just add to the unilateral chorus.” Yet another objective was to “discover, not just witness (and therefore look, not just wait to be shown).” And that’s just what SPIN has done for the past quarter-century, as the authoritative voice of—I’ll say it—alternative youth culture.
I’ve always been a magazine guy. From the early years of my musical education—taping songs off New York area FM stations WPIX, WLIR, and WNYU—I was a voracious reader of Creem , Trouser Press , Flipside , The Big Takeover , and the NME , among other publications too numerous or obscure to list here. Which is why SPIN’s May 1985 debut was such a revelation. Okay, punk and new-wave snob that I was, I didn’t much care for the cover subject, some rising pop starlet named Madonna. But inside I devoured pieces on the Replacements, U2, Jason and the Scorchers (whom I had recently interviewed as a college intern at the now-defunct International Musician and Recording World ), reviews of Lloyd Cole and Hüsker Dü albums, and a blurb about the immortal Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel. I’ve never been precious or possessive about the underground or otherwise outré musicians I admired, so the idea of my bands getting written up in a large-circulation mainstream magazine was a game-changer. I had—and maybe still have—this naïve notion that the more people who got turned on to this music, the more successful (read: happy) the artists would become, so the longer they’d stay around to make records for me, a true fan. Since taking the editorial reins of SPIN in 2006, I’ve tried to ensure that this passion comes through on every page.
Some of today’s most brilliant cultural critics and music writers honed their skills and shaped their voices in SPIN. And such lit legends as Norman Mailer, William S. Burroughs, William T. Vollman, Nick Tosches, Elizabeth Gilbert, and David Rakoff have all been a part of our legacy, contributing groundbreaking investigations, true-crime narratives, essays, humor, and the uncategorizable stuff no one else would print.
Of course, I wouldn’t pretend that this book is the definitive collection of the best writing ever to have graced the magazine’s pages. Any anthology is subject to the whims and prejudices of its compiler, and I’m nothing if not whimsically prejudiced and prejudicially whimsical. The stories within are not only personal favorites and acknowledged classics among our staffers (and feature brand-new introductions by their authors), but also ones that illuminate larger cultural moments: the commercialization of Charles Manson, the imminent crash and burn of Amy Winehouse. Some are just eye-opening: David Peisner’s investigation into the U.S. military’s use of music to torture, Tom Sinclair’s unearthing of Manhattan’s real-life rock‘n’roll high school. I’ve included one non-music-related entry, Elizabeth Gilbert’s account of her trip along the Yangtze River during the construction of China’s Three Gorges Dam—a rollicking and heartrending travelogue that does what all great magazine writing should: provoke and entertain. You’ll also notice the relative absence of straightforward artist profiles. That’s because no matter how well reported and beautifully written, these pieces—usually pegged to some contemporaneous product or other—are often curlicues on a larger career arc, and by design have short shelf lives. But you will find a few pieces of outstanding music criticism, which has long been a hallmark of the magazine, as well as selections from our Ultimate List issues (May 2004 and 2005) sprinkled throughout.
It’s my hope that with this book, the excitement of the music shines through from top to muddy bottom as we give voice to things worth saying. At the very least, these Greatest Hits are all Great Reads.
SIDE 1
A MATTER OF Life and Death
1
6,557 Miles to NOWHERE
Revisiting the sites of rock’n’roll depart