SPIN on Google Books

actually I find the classic rock picks on that list kinda fascinating, like they share some conceptual core if you know what I mean: "Purple Haze", "White Room", "Kashmir", "Comfortably Numb"...like they're all songs it would have made sense for the Cure to cover in 1992 (whatever kind of classic rock that means).

JESUS GOD STOP MAKING ME RELIVE MY PAST

Wait I've been talking about all the shows I saw in 1992 on my blog, never mind. So much of this stuff just makes my head spin now. (Pun not intended.) And I did remember that Mervyn Cadell single...

OK, I did it myself: http://apparentlyepochal.tumblr.com/

Hahahaha

Hero.

Fucking Porno for Pyros though. Who I saw, WILLINGLY, in 1992 (if as part of a festival benefit lineup). So glad I never actually bought that first album.

Matos, in the same vein, you could add this gem from Spin's Top 100 Alternative Albums Of All Time from the 1995 guide:

82. Barbara Manning - Lately I Keep Scissors

haha that's a really good album! sorry, it's not crit-obscure enough.

of course now that I say that I start wondering if I'm wrong

i dunno, i haven't heard that name mentioned in any capacity BUT the Spin Alternative Record Guide, but who knows

Barbara rules! Put on a great show at Terrastock 5, last time I saw her.

Oh holy hell!!! This is research HEAVEN! Thanx billions Matos!! xoxoxoxo

I suppose this can double as a John Leland thread too.

This John Leland singles column is my vote for the greatest piece of music criticism ever written.

Here's Frank Owen's top ten singles of the 1980s with Touch: "Without You" at #1!!

And you can search all issues!!!

And then right on the very next page, you get Byron Coley's 80 Excellent Records of the 1980s,a list I've been DYING to talk about on here.

Think of the polling opportunities!!

Here's another absolutely genius John Leland Singles column, prolly my fave after "Temporary Music." Damn these years were so heady!!!!

And here's the issue that changed my life: It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, Spin's list of the greatest albums, books, movies, fetishes (who wrote the New Order entry?!?!?) and, of course, singles with Rob Base and D.J. E-Z Rock's 'It Takes Two' notoriously at number one.

Brilliant entries on Fresh, Low Life, and Faith.

Here's Leland's 100 favorite funk singles.

Two fantastic arguments for why Pussy Galore were the greatest rock band of the 1980s (or at least the most 1980s rock band of the 1980s):

Don Howland's 'The Pussy Identity', so goddamn compelling that I built an entire student film around it

Rob O'Connor's devastating review of Historia De La Musica Rock

I'm obviously biased but John Leland's profile of Debbie Gibson, in which a string on her sweater plays a main character, is the best of its kind.

Leland was so good that he even found something useful to say about the freakin' New Kids on the Block Christmas album!

And then, by contrast, check out the godawful review of Nevermind

Oh and an early (American) Simon Reynolds fave: The Ten Most Underrated Albums Of All Time

xpost Although it's fascinating how Lauren Spencer (?) situates Nevermind not with SST or The Pixies or whoever but with contemporary albums by Rush and Guns N' Roses.

Biafra first comments on the amazing house, and asks who did the decorating.
"I did," Ice-T growls. "I broke into enough houses to know how people decorate."

http://books.google.com/books?id=tAU7_ejzzoYC&lpg=PA1&lr=&rview=1&pg=PT74#v=onepage&q=&f=false

I know you could say this about any number of people, but it's really weird seeing someone talk about Eazy-E in the present tense.

A profile on James Brown after prison called "Free At Last."

My eyes nearly bled after spending hours reading these on Thursday morning and afternoon. Luckily my boss was outta town.

Here's where I interview Flaming Lips before anybody else did:

http://books.google.com/books?id=FL-rqqrDxb8C&pg=PA16&dq=flaming+lips+chuck+eddy&rview=1&cd=2#v=onepage&q=flaming%20lips%20chuck%20eddy&f=false

Ha ha, now Scratch Acid:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ym2SY9Ha5AIC&pg=PA23&dq=chuck+eddy+scratch+acid&rview=1&cd=1#v=onepage&q=chuck%20eddy%20scratch%20acid&f=false

This is too fun.

I found the Disco 2 you've alluded to many times, xhuxk.

It's fun to see what albums were being reviewed at the same time. In the first issue there were The Velvet Underground- VU, John Fogerty- Centerfield, Sade- Diamond Life, 'til Tuesday- Voices Carry, Husker Du- New Day Rising--as well as Mick Jagger, Fela Kuti, Bronski Beat, Lloyd Cole (and in the Underground column Butthole Surfers and Scraping Foetus.)

The prose in some of those early reviews is worrisome.

And those record ads: "If You Don't Like the AC/DC Album "Fly On the Wall...Buzz Off!!"

the Disco 2 you've alluded to many times, xhuxk.

I have??? I am drawing a blank on what this is! (Though I'm sure it'll be obvious if you post a link.)

Oh man, thanks Matos for posting this!

This was one of the articles that got me into Wilco: http://books.google.com/books?id=9IgWp27kuBIC&lpg=PP1&lr=&rview=1&pg=PA84#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Real good summing up of John Prine's career, care of a review of the anthology: http://books.google.com/books?id=1XjH458f108C&printsec=frontcover&lr=&rview=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Oh, chuck, here ya go:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ZURL7ud3IwsC&lpg=PP1&lr=&rview=1&pg=PA96#v=onepage&q=&f=false

xp Oh wait, Pet Shop Boys, right? No idea what I would've said in that one. (I figured I allude to my Introspective review from the Voice and Behavior interview from Request more, but who knows?)

xxp thanks Alfred!

Reading that link (especially given a lot of pages are out of order) and seeing all the ads is making me even woozier than I was. The Drum Club I ask you.

Something an editor told me they wanted who was then dismissed so it was killed by some replacement and I forgot about for a couple until someone at a party told me they're read my Stryper thing in their latest subscription copy.

http://books.google.com/books?id=5oyYjDeNc_AC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=George+Smith+stryper+spin&source=bl&ots=3p7L6VUQrU&sig=xocMXmddcRPnr3zkpkKhONjGY-o&hl=en&ei=tnySS7zcCYSEswPUo5n7CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false

good lord ... feeling like I'm 14 again here. it feels funny.

Best albums of 2003!

http://books.google.com/books?id=dJ7nHM_LvUUC&lpg=PP1&lr=&rview=1&pg=PA40#v=onepage&q=&f=false

er, 1993

In a gaffe they continue to apologize profusely for at every oppportunity, Spin names Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque Album of the Year over Nirvana's Nevermind:

http://books.google.com/books?id=5zrzfgLFgUYC&lpg=PP1&rview=1&pg=RA1-PA56#v=onepage&q=&f=false

This is AMAZING, btw.

And here they actually reviewed my record, a year earlier. They they fired that guy, too.

http://books.google.com/books?id=VVODZz_egcEC&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=Dick+Destiny+spin&source=bl&ots=B6Xa9RLZGG&sig=STd6LAXys8L4Jg83DcO2loPwUo4&hl=en&ei=X4CSS9FGmLq2A9ikocsI&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CA8Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=&f=false

A subscription to Spin is $9.99. That's insane. Is it still worth it?

Actually, Amazon says $9.95.

Jayzus. I have to leave the house to run errands. Instead I'm reading Jim Greer on why Robyn Hitchcock's "She Doesn't Exist" is the greatest song Hitch ever wrote.

byron and chuck were the only two people i trusted in old spin days. i would actually go out and buy things that they liked. i got a lot of good records that way. thanks guys! i talk to chuck via the internet every day and i had a nice chat with byron a couple weeks ago in my record store. so, i still think of them. i don't think about john leland much. he should stop in my store! but, you know, i dug his column.

Leland wrote that History of Hip book a few years ago (which was the first time I'd ever heard of him).

xpost Thanks, Matos, I had no idea Coley wrote there, and I now remember seeing something in Arthur too. But Leland is a news reporter, right? I did pick up Newsweek for a while just for Leland, and remember that story--was it the Sister Souljah cover? Loved Hip: The History too. But I miss having these guys comment on albums I actually hear and buy.

Scott Poulson-Bryant brings the pain in '91:

In the immortal words of the Details cover star, Ice-T, I think Leyland played himself.

http://books.google.com/books?id=b4qmcLhXEsYC&pg=PA80&dq=%22dreaming+america%22&lr=&as_pt=MAGAZINES&cd=26#v=onepage&q=%22dreaming%20america%22&f=false

I miss Four on the Floor.

Haha LELAND.

Leyland plays himself on a daily basis, March-September.

Poulson-Bryant was always a big favorite of mine in Spin, I recall reading this but didn't know anything about Leland at that point.

Did y'all happen to notice that they have a bunch of old CMJs up, too? Like from when it didn't totally suck?

No!

I remember Leland's Details column and this response, two guys in the dark with the same elephant. Hard to imagine this kind of exchange happening now.

I don't know, there's bound to be a website about that very thing.

Yeah, but not with the same "fine, white boy, go home" tone, just because the sentiment that hip hop used to be more fun and less self-conscious isn't confined to white folks, if it ever was, and the question of cultural ownership has gotten more complicated, if it ever wasn't.

I did a search on Leland, and came up with this Jay Smooth description of a 2005 Public Enemy conference panel at NYU. Really cool to discover that Chuck D was in the audience at one of the Clash's Bonds shows:
http://www.hiphopmusic.com/archives/000829.html

Looking at this makes me wish I had an iPad.

― Mark, Sunday, March 7, 2010 12:23 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is pretty genius:
http://andrewhearst.com/blog/2012/03/spy_magazine_ipad_archive

"Our Readers Picks The Top 100 Songs Of Our Time"
Does anyone have input on what's going on with this thing? There's no way that's an accurately tallied list based on actual votes from readers with zero input from promotion companies and record labels who were trying to push shit onto consumers. No one actually listened to "The Sweater" by Meryn Cadell in 1993.. SPIN was paid to include that song at #100. I can't think of any other reasonable explanation why that song would've been included here because there's no way anyone actually included that in their votes for "The top songs of our time."

I love this...it really stands the test of time of relevence!!!!

I would've been too young at the time to care if I had actually seen this but looking at it now the whole thing just looks strange.

first time i've ever seen the thing. pretty entertaining tho. the smell of goat boys...