The Night Porto Out-Partied Lou Reed (and the Infamous 1980 Concert That Never Happened)
Saint John’s Eve is a big deal in my hometown of Porto, in Portugal. The night of June 23rd into the 24th marks the peak…
Category: SPIN
Festival of the Year: Ultra Music Festival
This year’s Ultra Music Festival, set against the stunning backdrop of Biscayne Bay and Downtown Miami’s skyline, was a sold-out triumph, drawing 165,000 people over…
DECONSTRUCTION: Portrait of a Quiet Masterpiece
In late-1992, not long after Jane’s Addiction broke up, Jane’s bassist Eric Avery and guitarist Dave Navarro formed the one-off musical project Deconstruction. In 1994,…
The Year in Fictional Music
Every year, pop culture gets a new class of pop stars, and also a new class of fake pop stars. We’re talking about fictional musicians…
U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Music Enthusiast And Multiple Grammy Winner, Dies At 100
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who long championed popular music and was a multiple Grammy winner for a series of audio books, died today (Dec.…
5 Albums I Can’t Live Without: Corey Feldman
Name Corey Feldman Best known for Truth. Current city Los Angeles. Really want to be in Egypt and Israel. Excited about The Birthday [film released…
Outtakes: 2Pac
I photographed Tupac in 1993, at Smashbox Studios in Culver City, in L.A. It was for a magazine, I forget which now, tied to the…
Beyoncé Debuts ‘Cowboy Carter’ Cuts At NFL Halftime Show
It was a night of firsts at Houston’s NRG Stadium on Christmas (Dec. 25), as Beyoncé performed songs from her hit country album Cowboy Carter…
Every Bob Dylan Album, Ranked
In 1961, 19-year-old Robert Allen Zimmerman dropped out of college in his native Minnesota, made a pilgrimage to New York City to meet his folk…
The 5 Best Overlooked Films of 2024
In her effortless pithy way, Mae West phrased it best: “It’s better to be looked over than overlooked.” Of the hundreds of films released during…
Album of the Year: The Cure’s ‘Songs of a Lost World’
How does The Cure always know what we’re feeling, even before we do? It would be euphemistic to say that 2024 was transformative: war, death,…
Honey, I Think I Shrunk Gen X
In the January 1991 issue of SPIN, interviewing Perry Farrell, who we had crowned Artist of the Year for 1990 because he created Lollapalooza and…
The Best EPs of 2024
The extended play occupies a strange middle ground in the music world. An EP can feel like a glorified single with an A-side and some…
Jewel Wants You to Know That You’re Not Alone
Jewel’s newly-cut bangs peep out from underneath her cowboy hat, her braided pigtails fall over the brown-and-white animal-print blouse she’s wearing as we greet each…
The Philly Specials Combines Football with Music to Make Holiday Magic
Jordan Mailata had never even played football. Growing up in Australia, he only ever watched the Super Bowl—a secular football fan rather than practicing and…
Urban Development
In August 2024—just a month prior to the release of his new album, High—Keith Urban took the stage in Athens, Alabama, and played a two-hour…
‘Lipps Service’ Spotlights Des Rocs, Pan Arcadia, Cab Ellis
New York musicians Des Rocs, Eamon Rush and Brian Duke of Pan Arcadia and Connor Abeles of Cab Ellis are the latest guests on the SPIN Presents…
Independent Artists You May Have Missed in 2024
2024 has been an exciting year for new music, and acts like Michigander and Jelly Roll who began as indie artists self-releasing music on TuneCore…
Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr Team For Beatles Hits In London
Combined, they’re 166 years old. But together, 82-year-old Paul McCartney and 84-year-old Ringo Starr turned the clock way back last night (Dec. 19) at the…
10 Rising Artists Making Some Real Noise
While it’s easy to fall back on timeless classics, there’s a new generation of artists redefining what great music can be, catering to every taste…