Is SPIN really circling the drain?

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Well, they still have non-music features, like... "Friendster more addictive than crack!!!"

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Thursday, 26 February 2004 15:35 (9 years ago) Permalink

Celia Farber's AIDS coverage was overall pretty impressive, especially considering the venue.

I agree with you Jeanne that the staff thing is getting annoying; Sia Michel's Letter From the Editor has been completely cloying from minute one (complete with all the "Look at me, I'm at the cool places with the cool people pictures") and the endless pimping of staff tomes is a chore. Spitz' gossip column is unbearable. But I still like the reviews quite a bit.

― don weiner, Thursday, 26 February 2004 15:35 (9 years ago) Permalink

SPIN needs to be put out of its misery. It hasn't mattered since about 1988.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 26 February 2004 15:38 (9 years ago) Permalink

I think it's been even longer than that...

― Jasper Patches (Dating Ikea), Thursday, 26 February 2004 15:41 (9 years ago) Permalink

what did Sia Michel do before Spin? I had never heard of her until i saw her picture in Spin.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 February 2004 15:55 (9 years ago) Permalink

She was a receptionist somewhere.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 26 February 2004 15:56 (9 years ago) Permalink

Once SPIN lost Legs McNeil and John Leland it was all over (though I still like Klosterman).

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 26 February 2004 15:57 (9 years ago) Permalink

man, Spin hasn't mattered since 1972 when I was reading it

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 26 February 2004 15:58 (9 years ago) Permalink

Don, all "letter from the editor" pieces in any given magazine are like that. It's sort of the purpose. But I know what you mean. The mag feels like a big Friendster publication or something.

― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Thursday, 26 February 2004 15:58 (9 years ago) Permalink

really? and then she became the editor in chief of Spin? cool.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 February 2004 15:58 (9 years ago) Permalink

Jeanne otm there. "Letter from the Editor" pages are almost universally cringe-worthy (really wanna vomit? Read Alan Light's one from the debut issue of TRACKS).

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 26 February 2004 15:59 (9 years ago) Permalink

i still miss the old details. when it was just pictures of stephen saban on a couch with diane brill.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 February 2004 16:00 (9 years ago) Permalink

and i still miss rock scene when it was just pictures of lisa robinson on the couch with joey ramone.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 February 2004 16:01 (9 years ago) Permalink

How great would it be if Letter from the Editor *actually* portrayed what went on: "Motherfuckers in the mail room misplaced the press kit for the new Dinkie Bubble album so that fucked shit up royally. And don't get me started on motherfuckin' Hack McInkspot handing his review A WEEK LATE. Thanks, assmonger, it's not like we're on DEADLINE or anything..."

That would rule.

― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Thursday, 26 February 2004 16:03 (9 years ago) Permalink

the offensiveness of "Letter to the Editor" is nothing compared to the "Making Out with UltraGrrl". i just want to rip that page out every month and forcibly shove it down the throat ofd the next pseudo-hipster i see.

SPIN was a godsend for me in high school (1990-1994), living out on a farm in the middle of central Illinois. sure it wasn't all that subversive or underground, but to someone raised on country and Top 40 it was a whole new world. i still pick up an issue from time to time, mostly because it's more affordable than the import prices on the decent British mags. but i'm always wondering why.

― jonviachicago, Thursday, 26 February 2004 16:05 (9 years ago) Permalink

Hack McInkspot!! Ha Ha, i've got a new nom de plume. thanks, Jeanne!

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 February 2004 16:05 (9 years ago) Permalink

It's true that most Letters From the Editor are unbearable, but I don't remember as many celebs-with-editor pictures as the Michel years have produced...maybe the Bobby Jr. years had the same thing but I can't remember anymore.

While we're on the subject of Tracks, I can't believe how lifeless and personality-free it is.

The UltraGrrl thing is awful. I'd forgotten about that.

Gawker calls Details "The gay magazine for straight men" or something like that. Classic.

― don weiner, Thursday, 26 February 2004 16:24 (9 years ago) Permalink

Sia does seem especially intent on telegraphing her celeb-compatibility. Still, Guccionne Jr. wasn't that different.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 26 February 2004 16:26 (9 years ago) Permalink

Did Tracks just steal their whole idea for a magazine from Harp?

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 February 2004 16:52 (9 years ago) Permalink

i agree about R.S. Rollong Stone's non-music reporting/coverage has always been its strong suit.

What? You mean the non-music journalism about the NYC guy with the biggest penis in the world or people who make living room speed and eat it until their teeth fall out?

I'd call it the white-trash beat for voyeurs but not hard-hitting or strong.

― George Smith, Thursday, 26 February 2004 16:53 (9 years ago) Permalink

Remember when Spin had like 10 features about how HIV and AIDS were not causally related?

Yes, SPIN, supporter of whackos and rubbish science.

― George Smith, Thursday, 26 February 2004 16:58 (9 years ago) Permalink

Killer email ady...CompuServe is still going?

― Mark (MarkR), Thursday, 26 February 2004 17:10 (9 years ago) Permalink

>>> Remember when Spin had like 10 features about how HIV and AIDS were not causally related?

Remember when Foo Fighters and Dave Grohl were pushing this agenda, playing benefit shows for that wacko group "Alive and Well." That was insane... I wonder if they still support that cause.

That said, I think Spin is perfect. I expect nothing more. Each issue lasts me exactly one lunch break, once a month, where I look at the pretty pictures as I eat some soup.

― Ben Boyer (Ben Boyer), Thursday, 26 February 2004 17:40 (9 years ago) Permalink

it really ws better two or three years ago but its still ok

― $$, Thursday, 26 February 2004 17:42 (9 years ago) Permalink

is anything in your world as good as it was in 1988, alex? anything? if you love 1988 so much why don't you go live there

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 26 February 2004 17:54 (9 years ago) Permalink

What's up your ass?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 26 February 2004 18:32 (9 years ago) Permalink

George, they've had better stuff than the dude with the big penis in Rolling Stone! Now, come on. I mean all those killer white trash kids! Don't forget about them. They were great. when i was 16 i had a picture of ricky kasso on my bedroom wall right next to a huge piece of paper with the chemical formula for LSD on it.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 February 2004 18:45 (9 years ago) Permalink

that sounded harsher than i meant it to, alex, but seriously you go on about how everything's gone downhill since 1988 so often!

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 26 February 2004 18:48 (9 years ago) Permalink

I was speaking strictly in terms of SPIN magazine, Fritz, and it wasn't one of my usual tirades about how stuff was much better then (which isn't categorically true, by the way). SPIN, however, used to be ahead of the curve. Now it struggles to keep up with the curve, panting like an exhausted walrus.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 26 February 2004 18:51 (9 years ago) Permalink

Alex is right Fritz. Except I guess I'd put it a bit later, maybe '90? I dunno, whenever Leland and Kogan and Sheffield and Eddy and Coley and McNiel and so forth stopped writing. I mean, no offense to any ILXors who contribute but the current writing just can't compete with that lineup, no fucking way.

― Broheems (diamond), Thursday, 26 February 2004 18:52 (9 years ago) Permalink

i drank a lot of Meister Brau in 1988.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 February 2004 18:53 (9 years ago) Permalink

My favorite "letter from the editor" ever was in a Details magazine from its latter "phase one" days. The editor wrote a column talking about this wonderful $3500 leather jacket he purchased, and then weeped about how he was too frightened to wear it out anywhere, lest it get damaged by rain/wind/etc. I hope it's keeping him warm in Central Park at night, haha.

― Gear! (Gear!), Thursday, 26 February 2004 18:53 (9 years ago) Permalink

a lot of Blatz and Iron City too.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 February 2004 18:54 (9 years ago) Permalink

I drank Miller that I would steal from the convenience store I worked at as a stock-boy (16, 1st ever job!) I would go carry some garbage out to the dumpster in back, except I'd carry a six pack out with me and then hide it behind the dumpster. Then after my shift was over I'd drive around back and grab the beer.

― Broheems (diamond), Thursday, 26 February 2004 18:58 (9 years ago) Permalink

Meister Brau--back when a microbrew was a microbrew. Now there's a thread--microbrews circa the 1980s (or even more fun, the 1970s when I was collecting beer cans as a kid.)

Either way, Alex is right that SPIN was way better back then. Anyone remember the Michael O'Donohue columns? That guy was a scream, the best back page they've ever had. I've got a few of those columns on my hard drive if anyone wants a repost (SPIN used to keep them at their website, back when they first came online.)

Rolling Stone used to have better non-music writers, too. William Grieder I liked even though I never agreed with much of his stuff. PJ O'Rourke is better than anyone they've had in at least five years on staff there.

The more I think about it, the more I think I've been harsh on Sia for putting her mug all over her page. Bobby Jr. was more of a publicity whore, and she's better looking. But the direction of the magazine is still shit.

― don weiner, Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:07 (9 years ago) Permalink

i need rolling stone and spin to stick around though cuz i have too much fun complaining about them. what would i have left?

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:15 (9 years ago) Permalink

fair enough. i haven't read spin in ages myself. when i do, i'm always hoping for one of those great sleazy smalltown teen crime or killer drug craze stories but i don't think they do them so much anymore.

I moved recently and actually came across some of the fabled golden age pre'88 issues in a forgotten milk crate at the back of my closet. some of it was pretty great indeed - especially an article on cookie-puss era beastie boys, but a lot of it was pretty thin. there was really LESS in it - huge empty spaces on the pages, big fonts disguising 3 paragraph long stories, fan-ziney articles about nothing and only a couple of pages of record reviews. and legs mcneil was way past his prime by that point too - if you want to get all golden age-y about stuff. he mostly wrote about how shit everything was compared to 1978!

i was into spin more later because - before vibe & the source & rappages, maybe even before Word Up! - they were the only magazine I could find covering hip hop - albeit with a pretty big NYC Def Jam Beasties-PE-Run DMC slant to it but that was fine by me at that point.

I read it pretty much every issue up until the end of the grunge and the beginning of Electronica Fever in the summer of Trainspotting. I have no idea if it's good or bad anymore. Pretty much all music magazines bore me to tears now - but I think that might have as much to do with me as it does with it not being 1988 anymore ;)

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:17 (9 years ago) Permalink

I'd be sad to see SPIN go. I've been reading that magazine since I was 14 or so. It's lame often enough, but every issue has at least a couple things that are either interesting or funny, so I feel like my money's worth. It's a cheap subscription too, which is nice.

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:21 (9 years ago) Permalink

I used to read Spin almost every month, but it's just so dull now I won't even pick it up to browse it at the store. It doesn't even piss me off like Rolling Stone does, it's just sitting there, boring me silly, telling me that the Strokes are really good.

― Gear! (Gear!), Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:30 (9 years ago) Permalink

I find the idea that it's "gotten" insular in the last two years sort of mystifying, if only because the typical non-music-geek complaing about Spin is that it's ALWAYS been insular. I mean, five years ago they were writing about turntablism and sound-boys, stuff that, for better or worse, is WAY more insular than rock bands with hooks and attractive frontpeople.

that big sound-boy article in the year end round-up in 97 or 98 was a really great article though, and it made me feel like i wasn't the only one like that in the universe ;-)

lets not forget that they used to also have some great stories about electronic music. There was that one issue with Rage on the cover (ugh) in the mid-90s that had articles on Orbital/Underworld/Chem Brothers, a guide to underground electronic music (mentioning Spooky, Mouse on Mars, Jacob's Optical Stairway) and a list of some of america's best producers (everyone from RZA to Wink) and their best productions. Reynolds also used to write for them, and I would wager that his little sidebar on BC/CR/Maurizio is probably the only account of that music to appear in a major american magazine.

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:30 (9 years ago) Permalink

I remember that issue. I think they were positioning themselves to be there when electronic music broke big in the USA and they kind of lost their way after that failed to happen.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:43 (9 years ago) Permalink

yeah, leland/mcneil/coley/sheffield/eddy/kogan years best obv. - nick cave, sa-fire covers when rs was still 100% boomer alert, etc. i think the last gasp was 97-98 (?), hirschhorn years, tad friend, reynolds (wasn't he reviews editor briefly?), charles aaron still in, um, fine form, josh clover still hungry enough for work to not let his smugness eat him alive. i think they fucked themselves when they decided to be anti-new pop, and to cater to alt-rock resentments and prerogatives - ol skool spin loved debbie gibson, new skool dissed britney with the same lame jokes you'd hear from a sixthgrade jeanjacket. 100% alan light's fault, who then jumped ship cuz he realized he was never gonna be able to make spin as lame a mag as he wanted. ol spin has cartoon making fun of sting, new spin has editor's departing to start magazines devoted to sting.

― cinniblount (James Blount), Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:43 (9 years ago) Permalink

probably true fritz, and it shows how much has changed that a) they were somewhat ahead of the trend and b) they had writers that actually knew enough about the music to mention underground artists.

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:48 (9 years ago) Permalink

i went on rockcritics.com today and they had a link to jane dark's blog and this is what i saw:

I had zine called sugarhigh! It came out twice, in the mid-Nineties. It also caused me to become employed (note passive
construction; it sure felt that way) by The Village Voice, which caused me to become employed by Spin, which caused me
to become a very predictable kind of boring writer and feel like a whore. Eventually I stopped; quitting is actually a
perturbing story which involves, in more and less obvious ways, a review of The Coup, backstage passes to a U2 concert,
September 11th, being threatened with a lawsuit by Sia Michel, and a shady helicopter rental in Rio. Anyway, I hope to
write some about music on this site, in a way that might be predictable and boring but not whoresque.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:49 (9 years ago) Permalink

he also has a long entry on Nate's Outkast thread. does he post here under another name? Hmmmm...

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:51 (9 years ago) Permalink

more credit to him than, though i recall him having more hustle than neil strauss when he was there so his deciding 'i'm not a ho (no mo)' reeks of american beauty (and hence reeks).

― cinniblount (James Blount), Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:54 (9 years ago) Permalink

that jcjd post on nate's outkast thread was 10% good point 90% bs.

― cinniblount (James Blount), Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:54 (9 years ago) Permalink

shockah!

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:56 (9 years ago) Permalink

Is this guy related to ILX's resident dialectical materialist?

― Broheems (diamond), Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:57 (9 years ago) Permalink

they were seperated at birth. ha ha, i kid sterling.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 February 2004 19:58 (9 years ago) Permalink

Skipping 1968 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

"Spin Magazine, which shuttered its print edition in December 2012, is coming back to print. Hansen believes there’s a four-issue-per-year model that he thinks he can make work."

http://www.digiday.com/publishers/spin-medias-moving-forward/

― maura, Monday, 17 June 2013 20:20 (2 days ago) Permalink

Can I send these fucking Car & Drivers back and get the rest of my SPIN sub?

― shohreh aja/danteloo (Stevie D(eux)), Monday, 17 June 2013 20:24 (2 days ago) Permalink

hahaha

― markers, Monday, 17 June 2013 20:24 (2 days ago) Permalink

Hansen said Lucid is setting up the company to get into the craze that’s sweeping the industry: advertising content. But unlike most other media properties, Spin Media’s version of advertising content will have editorial doing the heavy lifting for brands.
“We’ll never win a Pulitzer Prize,” Hansen said. “Celebrity content is a commodity. The key is what you do with it. You have to delineate between what’s edit content and sponsored content, but do that in a way with a distinction that does not decrease the editorial experience.”
This service, called “Spin Productions,” is a dedicated creative team that’s integrated with editorial. When it comes to advertising, the company believes if a publisher can contextually integrate advertising with content, higher levels of performance, and, yes, higher CPMs will follow.

ugh god gross

― shohreh aja/danteloo (Stevie D(eux)), Monday, 17 June 2013 20:26 (2 days ago) Permalink

Q: Is SPIN really circling the drain?
A: Yes.

― shohreh aja/danteloo (Stevie D(eux)), Monday, 17 June 2013 20:26 (2 days ago) Permalink

SPIN is the drain

― temporarily embarassed millionaire (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 17 June 2013 20:31 (2 days ago) Permalink

"We'll never win a Pulitzer Prize" -- truer words have never been spoken

― geeta, Monday, 17 June 2013 20:36 (2 days ago) Permalink

maybe they'll start a pulitzer for best sponsored content

― iatee, Monday, 17 June 2013 20:38 (2 days ago) Permalink

"Celebrity content is a commodity. The key is what you do with it" = "We devalue real writing. We are talentless advertising-hungry hacks who will run this publication into the ground as fast as possible and then cash out"

― geeta, Monday, 17 June 2013 20:44 (2 days ago) Permalink

Doing print issues again after they tossed the editor and announced their intent to "contextually integrate advertising with content"...No thanks Mr. TruCar/Geo-Cities guy

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 13:54 (Yesterday) Permalink

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