Spin Magazine

Spin is a music magazine that reports on "Music for Life". Founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione, Jr., it is the main competitor to industry stalwart Rolling Stone. Madonna was the artist on the cover of the first issue.

In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on "college rock" and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard. It pointedly provided a national alternative in the Rolling Stone's more "establishment" style, which was by then far less focused on music than it had ever been. Spin prominently placed newer artists like R.E.M., Prince, Run DMC, The Eurythmics, The Beastie Boys, and Talking Heads, on its covers, and did lengthy features on established figures like Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Miles Davis, Aerosmith, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, and John Lee Hooker. (Bart Bulll's article on Hooker won the magazine its first major award.)

Putting black and women artists on the cover was considered a risk, potentially damaging newsstand sales. Moreover, the magazine devoted itself to a long term set of investigative pieces on the AIDS crisis at a time when even gay publications were concerned about losing advertisers by doing coverage of the disease. On a cultural level, the magazine devoted significant coverage to hardcore punk, country and alternative country, reggae and world music, jazz of the most adventurous sort, and a variety of fringe styles. Artists like The Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, X, Black Flag, and the former members of The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and the early punk/new wave movement were cultural heritage pioneers in Spin's editorial mix, and were reviewed, featured and mentioned constantly at a time when Rolling Stone and other publications scarcely acknowledged their existence. Spin's extensive coverage of rap and hip hop culture, especially that of contributing editor John Leland, was notable at a time when no other national publication was paying serious attention.

Editorial contributions by music/culture figures like Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins, David Lee Roth, Dwight Yoakam, and others were an innovation at the time.The magazine also did "scene reports" on cities like Austin, Texas or Glasgow, Scotland at times when they were unrecognized as cultural incubators. Coverage of American cartoonists, Japanese "manga," monster trucks, outsider artists, and other non-mainstream cultural phenomena distinguished the magazine's dynamic early years.

In late 1987, publisher Bob Guccione Jr.'s father, Bob Guccione Sr., abruptly shut the magazine down despite the fact that the two-year old magazine was widely considered a success, with a newsstand circulation of 150,000. Guccione Jr. was able to rally much of his staff, locate new investors and offices, and after missing a month's publication, returned with a combined November/December issue. At the time, this power struggle was much discussed, often in terms of the Oedipus myth.

Guccione sold the magazine to Miller Publishing in 1997. In February 2006, Miller Publishing sold the magazine for less than $5 million to a San Francisco company, the McEvoy Group LLC, which also owns Chronicle Books. That company formed Spin Media LLC as a holding company. The new owners replaced editor in chief Sia Michel with Andy Pemberton, a former editor at Blender. The first issue to be published under his command was the July 2006 issue (sent to the printer in May 2006), which, highly uncharacteristic for the magazine, featured Beyoncé on the cover. Pemberton and Spin parted ways in June of 2006. The current editor, Doug Brod, was executive editor during Michel's tenure.

For Spin's twentieth year they released a book chronicling the last twenty years in music. It has essays on Britpop, grunge, emo, and many other types of music, as well as pieces on groups including Marilyn Manson, Nirvana, Weezer, Nine Inch Nails, and The Smashing Pumpkins.

In February 2008, Spin released a digital edition available through Texterity.

Notable contributors have included Dave Eggers, Chuck Klosterman, Byron Coley, Kim France, Tad Friend, Elizabeth Gilbert, Andy Greenwald, William T. Vollman, Will Hermes, Dave Itzkoff, David Bourgeois, John Leland, Bart Bull, Greil Marcus, Matt Groening, Glenn O'Brien, Norman Mailer, R. Meltzer, Karen Schoemer, William Burroughs, Anton Corbijn, Bob Gruen, Roberta Bayley, Jon Dolan, Jonathan Ames, Strawberry Saroyan, and Marc Spitz.