SPIN | 
| Publisher: Spin
List Price: $47.88
Buy New: $9.95
You Save: $37.93 (79%)
Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 302
Format: Magazine Subscription
Type: Consumer magazine
Subscription Issues: 12
Subscription Length: 12 Months
Issues Per Year: 12
First Issue Lead Time: 6-10 Weeks
ASIN: B00005N7SU
Release Date: November 23, 2001
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 3 months
| |
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Founded in 1985 by Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione's son, Bob Jr., Spin magazine aimed to occupy a space forged and outgrown by Rolling Stone, which had since moved on from counter-culture reporting to a more pop-culture focus. Due to its well-funded birth, Spin rode the wave of the burgeoning alternative rock movement and was afforded the luxury of being as controversial as it wanted, forsaking at times somewhat slanted reporting in favor of the punch and jibe. Nonetheless, it brought into America's peripheral vision early stories of the ravages of AIDS in Africa, in addition to standard artist interviews and album reviews. Switching from a tabloid format to a glossy perfect-bound publication, the magazine now reports on fleeting music trends and the Next Big Thing more than it unearths alternative-rock gems, but it still does a good job of uncovering behind-the-scenes-stories, such as the violent acts and deplorably unhygienic conditions of 1999's Woodstock III music festival, in a way no other music magazine does. When the Beastie Boys released Hello Nasty in 1998, Spin published three different editions of the magazine--each with a separate headshot of one member of the renegade hip-hop group. Three years later, Rolling Stone copied the gimmick, featuring the members of boy band 'N Sync individually on five different covers. If Spin's influence in rock journalism was ever in question, this event provides irrefutable proof. --Beth Massa
Product Description
Spin focuses on the progressive new music scene and young adult culture involved with alternative music. Each issue includes reviews, essays, profiles and interviews on a range of music from rock to jazz.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 40 more reviews...
 Spun out October 9, 2004
E. A Solinas (MD USA)
30 out of 36 found this review helpful
"Spin" is an accurate name for something like this -- a lot of hype, for an innocuous but rather tepid rock magazine. If Rolling Stone is the dirty old geezer of rock magazines, then Spin is the teenager who tries hard to convince you he's cool by name-dropping the Strokes.
Spin covers some of the same turf as Rolling Stone and Blender, but less lasciviously -- lots of coverage of popular bands. Some of them are quite good -- the Hives, for example, or indie newcomer Steve Burns (who quit his job on "Blues Clues" after hearing a Flaming Lips album, and reinvented his life as a rocker).
Unfortunately they overemphasize whatever bands are hot at the moment, and then overemphasize them again -- as well as tacking them up in whatever "coolest"/"best" lists they chalk up for the year/decade/century/history of rock. Indie cred is maintained by a few half-page articles on potentially hot bands like the Comas and Metric, but this info is halfhearted. It's like they're reluctant to tear themselves away from articles on better-known bands, regardless of talent.
The writing, however, has that certain affliction that a lot of major rock magazines have: the Need To Be Cool. Their writers always are trying to be funny, but rarely come across that way. It seems silly and strained, like a soccer mom wearing a spandex tube dress. Even the CD reviews are mediocre. However, one recent highlight is Dave Eggers' columns -- witty, funny, and a little bit skewed. In fact, they are often the best things in the entirety of the magazine.
One of the problems is the emphasis on stuff in Hollywood. Scarlett Johanssen is a wonderful actress, yes. But she doesn't sing, nor has she appeared in a music-based movie -- Jack Black yes, Scarlett no. And what is up with party coverage on TV starlet Mischa Barton and MTV couples?
Check out sublimely indie mags like Chord, Filter, Under the Radar and the online Kludge for in-depth looks at some worthy bands. As for Spin? It's still trying to convince us it's cool, but Eggers is the only regularly cool thing about it.
 Completely worthless December 11, 2002
Doesn't Matter (New York City, NY)
25 out of 42 found this review helpful
If you are completely unable to develop and form opinions on your own, sign up. Spin will do it for you. This is horrible, god-awful tripe. Only the lowest forms of life on earth read this. Those who attach themselves to whatever the trend of the day is, or those who believe that their musical taste is inherently superior to everyone else's.Is it better than Rolling Stone? Yes. Could there be a more back handed compliment? No, I don't think so. The magazine is the typical major media garbage. They want to pretend that they are counter-culture, but the truth is that this magazine does nothing but skim the surface of everything that is mainstream pop culture. There is so much non-music related filler it's insane. The reviews provided by Spin are just what you would typically expect from brain dead critics. Aloof, condescending non-sense, and a whole lot of butt kissing. You won't hear about any bands from Spin magazine that you didn't hear about on MTV News first. It's just pathetic. This magazine has absolutely no redeeming qualities. It tries so hard to be whatever is cool and hip, and it fails miserably. At best, it's a print version of MTV, and who needs that? If you want something that skims the surface of flavor-of-the-day pop culture, this is for you.
Spin Magazine July 3, 2006
Mike Reed (USA)
17 out of 20 found this review helpful
Give me a break,people!All Spin Magazine is a cheap rip-off/wanna-be of Alternative Press.I've looked at like maybe ten OR less issues of this waste of printed material in the past as many years.Think I may've saved ONE of those issues.Sometimes,I'll find an issue left by an uninterested patron at the post office that's been left behind.I'll then take it home,then likely toss it out after I've looked through it twice.Avoid at all costs!
 better than rolling stone, occasionally insightful, but... April 24, 2002
Pen Name? (Toledo, OH United States)
16 out of 20 found this review helpful
Every now and then Spin offers some high quality rock criticism. I, too, found it's 90 greatest albums of the '90s issue to be very good... yet so many of the artists they covered in that list go largely unnoticed in the magazine's regular issues, or end up buried beneath a lot of sub-par not music related articles and advertising.
If you are looking for a higher quality magazine of music criticism and rock journalism, I'd suggest seeking out some of the lower circulation, genre-specific magazines out there. Spin caters too much to evaluating pop trends and pushing bands that are already popular for my taste. If the subscription price is cheap enough and you just want something to browse, then go for it. But if you really want a quality music magazine, you'll have to look a little harder at your local bookstore, there are some out there.
lame. November 24, 2001
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
Having been a subscriber until recently for about 4 years, I can state from firsthand experience just how lame this magazine has become. Regarding the Amazon review of the magazine, merely coming up with a gimmicky cover series on the Beastie Boys hardly qualifies as anything more than the obvious, clever advertising. It has nothing to do with the music, any music. The editors constantly put ridiculous bands on the cover and give them top billing as well in coverage. Offspring (as "punk!"), Slipknot, Creed, Metallica, KISS, Axel Rose, David Lee Roth (Agh!!) and, if I'm not mistaken, that brilliant mind of innovation, Fred Durst, have all been cover boys in the past 12-18 months. Utterly pathetic. Of course, if you're musical taste is of that ilk, go for it. Occasionally, they'll have an interesting article or band profiled, but it's hardly worth the yearly subscription for it. I've cancelled my subscription and haven't regretted it at all. If you want to read a music magazine that's about music, not the idiotic rantings of arrested adolescence, check out Magnet magazine sometime.
|
|
|
