What Spin Magazine Meant to Me

It's official. The last truly great issue of Spin Magazine was the October 2011 issue with Das Racist on the cover as edited by Patton Oswalt. While many other issues came after with equal quality, it wasn't long until my favorite magazine would turn into a blurry, bizarre monster. This was because in June of 2012, Buzzmedia bought the magazine with intentions of expanding online and turning the publication into a less frequently published, bulkier magazine. Along with that came many changes that I feel essentially tanked the magazine, and yesterday, December 21, it was announced that Spin Magazine was officially halting future publications. In many ways, I was equally shocked to see the most influential magazine in my life disappear, but also kind of fine, as the last few issues have only made me nostalgic for better days.

I still remember the first ever issue that I bought of Spin Magazine. In fact, I keep almost all of the issues in pristine quality in a box under my bed. The first encounter that I had with Spin Magazine was at LAX in 2004 right before I was heading to a People to People conference in Washington D.C. I stopped off in a nearby magazine shop, looking for something to get me through the long flight ahead. 

Something about the logo transfixed me. I loved the boxed simplicity of it. I may have not cared too much for Linkin Park, but the variety of topics located inside should keep me entertained. It was right before A.F.I. blew up with "Sing the Sorrow" and Good Charlotte's Joel and Benji Madden were offering sex advice to readers. I forget if Joanna Angel was also taking questions, but I remember her frequently in those issues.

I have subscribed longer to Rolling Stone magazine, but in that time away from home, I found a new favorite publication. The most interesting aspects were not necessarily the interviews, but the gimmicky features that came with every issue. There were the segments that would ask performers and actors what was on their iPod and why they picked those selections. Then there was my favorite; the section that I would turn to immediately whenever a new issue came out. I enjoyed reading their charts, which essentially was an excuse to tell stylized jokes with a header and brief, often single word, subject. It was brilliant pop culture humor and when I got back to Long Beach after that trip, I had that revelation.

Sure, one issue could be great, but truly the next one was better? It took awhile for the frequent purchases to happen, so my 2004 collection is spotty. However, once things picked up, I remembered driving to local 7-11s and scouring the magazine rack for those issues. For some reason, they meant the world to me and it always frustrated me when I had to walk out empty handed. Okay, not empty handed. We did get Slurpees. 

After awhile, the subscription process started, and due to a few events that saw me change households, I got two copies a month for awhile. This was a relief, as I cherished the issues and didn't want to rip apart anything. I basically used one to make collages and the other to be in a box under my bed. 

Being young with big dreams of being a writer, it wasn't long until my initial dream of writing for Rolling Stone (yes, just like Almost Famous) evolved to a new goal. Spin Magazine was superior in every way. Not only were their segments better, but the musicians that they interviewed seemed more candid and their reviews, which consistently changed their grading system from the letter grades to the stars, tackled more interesting selections. They even had segments that featured a beginner's guide to various genres that were more obscure. I got a lot out of those pages.

However, it made me excited to want to be a journalist just because I wanted to interview these people. True, they never got me to actually care about Pete Doherty, but because of them, I was able to find out everything that I needed to know. Even their puff pieces about best live bands and the gratuitous anniversary issue of Kurt Cobain's death that introduced me to Chuck Klosterman with a piece about if Cobain had survived to the 00's, were written so precisely, but there was a sense of passion and interest in their voices. 

At very least, I felt more consistently entertained by Spin Magazine than Rolling Stone. They may have not bee the most underground magazine in the world, but I felt like it was an exclusive club to be a subscriber. I didn't have specific writers that I looked for, but I had those segments and editorial pieces about the legitimacy of music sampling. To me, they were cutting edge, and I wanted to be apart of it. In fact, most of my high school life was me striving to get skills and hopes to write for them. Essentially that backfired as I have poor interviewing skills.

Not only did the magazine feel exclusive, but their influence was amazing. To the right of this paragraph is the photo of the issue that probably changed my life the most. When celebrating their 20th Anniversary, the magazine underwent several commemorative issues, including the 100 Greatest Albums in that time frame. I pretty much was enamored and curious by every single entry in that list and made it my duty to fill in the cracks. 

Ever since this issue, Spin Magazine has been my go to for music suggestions. From this list alone, I discovered artists that would stick with me forever. While I cannot say that I liked them all, there was enough on here to make me believe that they had a way of connecting with me personally. 

They also released an issue that looked at innovators of that 20 year time frame, and it was my first introduction to names like RZA. It was also a way of introducing me to a different way of thinking. I still remember the Trey Parker and Matt Stone interview talking about how the only way to be punk was to say that President George Bush was cool. In many ways, this magazine interviewed people that taught me to think against the grain and therefore forge my own identity. At very least, they interviewed people that I found fascinating, including the Trent Reznor issue around the release of "With Teeth" that turned me from a bystander to a belief that this man was a genius. He may have had a troubled life, but the way that he approached music was breathtaking.

Over the course of the early days, they managed to make me care about the White Stripes more than any other publication. They also featured the greatest photo shoot ever with the Beastie Boys, which saw Spike Jonze behind the camera. The pictures are incredible plays on trick photography and almost cemented in me pointlessly defending the great band simply because their aesthetic was some of the most appealing things that I ever saw.

Sure, they didn't always interview great people. They had Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco on the cover. They even got flack for putting My Chemical Romance on the cover a few times, even taking fan mail. Of course, this means nothing to those that didn't partake in music culture at the time and saw MCR fans as suicidal lowlifes. I was the middle ground who saw merit, but not too big on their fans. At very least, pulling out those issues immediately reminds me of a time and place of being on Myspace and hearing everyone complain about those bands nonstop as being a desecration to music. In some ways, Spin Magazine could be perceived as selling out, though I don't think that is entirely a justifiable statement, considering that their output otherwise has been consistently against the grain.

They even published an anthology of articles from their career ranging from Madonna and Prince to Beastie Boys and 2Pac to various drug fads. As far as anthologies go, this one sits on my shelf with constant reference. It is impossible to really accuse Spin Magazine of not being different when the chapters are pretty much essays spliced with quotes, lists, and other less formal content that established the point. I strive to make something that artistic and that factual, but I don't quite know how. This blog has been heavily influenced by Spin Magazine warping me to believe that I need to be different.

As the 20th Retrospective stuff turned me into a die hard that enjoyed the nostalgic look backs, I almost felt like collecting all of the old issues. I stopped when I felt that it would be too futile and expensive. I still picked up every issue as they were released and found a new band to listen to. I also enjoyed reading music reviews, which saw my only known exposure to a negative review of the Transplants' "Haunted Cities" which just served as an extensive joke about stoners (it was weird, but everyone else gave that album high marks). They even had a movie section that tried to compete with Peter Travers' Rolling Stone section, but it never quite took off. However, it did make me aware that a movie called Postal unfortunately existed.

I loved their end of the year list and it was what I looked forward to without delay. While I am still trying to figure out who exactly made me addicted to lists (narrowed to: box office reports, David Letterman, and Spin Magazine), I always felt like I got my money's worth with these issues. At very least, their Top 50 albums were more unorthodox and featured bands that I never heard of. I also was impressed with whoever was their number one album, which lead me to of course listen to those. They may be the only reason that I have ever listened to TV on the Radio. I also listen to whatever other description sounded good.

Other things that made their end of the year issues great and essentially set them apart from Rolling Stone was their segments. Besides the mandatory interviews, they also had a bunch of people who did prominent work in that year to review the singles of that year. It would be great just to read in print these great performers get candid and ramble on about their own stories just because they hated the music. That always struck me as interesting and was my consistently most revisited section of these issues. They managed to be hilarious looks into people that you didn't know were funny.

The years continued on and on and I collected a lot of favorite new bands as a result. Some of them are more obvious than others, but all of them resulted from suggestions or interviews present in these pages. In many ways, I looked at Spin Magazine as the more successful, less mainstream equivalence to the shortly lived brilliance of Blender Magazine. Even years on, I would revisit old issues when I found a certain love for these artists and wanted to see what they sounded like before they got famous. The results were often surprising.

I would list all of their successful recommendations, but that would be too long and inconclusively incomplete. To say the least, they got me hooked on M.I.A. before "Paper Planes" took a year to catch on in the Pineapple Express trailer, and I had been listening since "Arular." I found Lily Allen to always be a fascinating interview because I saw the progression from celebutante to a desired homely figure. I began listening to LCD Soundsystem and St. Vincent as a result of those pages. They even turned me onto rap music, which I initially denounced as pointless, with Wu Tang Clan and Public Enemy. They had influence.

The trouble is that as I got older, I still read and got influence, but by 2010, I was on my way to a different passion. I was burned out on doing music journalism. Ever since, I have been passionately pursuing movies and enjoying the culture that came along with it. As of now, I dream of being a critic, or at very least, a writer for online publications that will hopefully make things pay off. However, the silver lining is that of the magazines that I subscribe to, Spin Magazine and Rolling Stone, I still find an excuse to listen to new music regularly.

But the influence is still bone deep for me. I still have all of the issues under my bed. Or at least I did, until this past year when Buzzmedia changed my view on the publication. I remember opening the mailbox, anticipating a great new issue, and seeing this bulky, Interview Magazine-style feel that just felt like a waste of space. I remember reading the welcoming note from the editor-in-chief detailing everything, and basically the new look was to make themselves stand out when it came to picking up magazines off of the shelf. They also wanted to tackle more obscure subjects and they were ones that I didn't care for.

I gave them a shot, but with issues coming out every two months as opposed to every one, I felt like it was the end of an era. The issues no longer had the interest for me to just keep in pristine quality. Even the logo not being in the left hand corner annoyed me. In some ways, I felt like this was the end, if not of the publication, then of my subscription. I kept trying to find reasons to keep them, but soon I saw those issues being cut up for the 10% that was worth keeping. Tragic, yes, but it made the news of the canceled publication easier to handle.

I have since subscribed to e-mails from them, which somehow feels  little more in tune with what I want from them. However, I have long argued that turning print into online publications is a heartbreaking reality for a boy who has read hard copies in his hands for 15+ years. There was something intimate about the format that I loved. With online publications, I cannot stick them in a box under my bed and reference later. Who knows if they will even have the article online five years from now? I enjoy the archival aspect of having a hard copy.

The e-mails are fine, and they have been a nice touch to keeping me from blowing a gasket over missing their end of the year coverage. However, it just doesn't feel the same. It feels like only ever seeing your mother, who has held you as a child, forever over Skype and never once getting that hug that you want. You talk to everyone over Skype. You want someone to be in the same room as you, but it will never happen. That is how Spin Magazine feels. I still get enthused by some pieces, but the amount that I don't read because of the infrequently excessive amount of e-mails is depressing, as they all would have been in my head by now in print form.

I do realize that print is dead. However, I felt like Spin could overcome it. Now all I have is Rolling Stone, whose puff pieces are gaudy tributes to Bob Dylan. They have good interviews from time to time, but none on the level of Spin Magazine even a year ago. I may be the only one mourning the publication's loss, but as a writer who has dreamed of writing for publications and seeing my name in print, this is a depressing blow to finally have it hit the thing you loved most. 

I know that in some ways, I am hypocritical. I write this blog online. I unsubscribed to the Los Angeles Times because I didn't read it enough to justify paying for it. I get all of my movie news from /Film and Cinemablend... online. I believe in podcasting as the future, an essentially online format. Everything about me is online except for this magazine. I guess that I just wanted a sense of realism. 

Maybe it is my desire not to let go of the building blocks of my childhood, especially as they dwindle down. I used to have Indie 103.1, Spin Magazine, the Simpsons, and even Mark and Brian's KLOS morning show. All except one of those is gone, and I remember the day each of those died. It feels odd to have that nostalgic desire of dead youthful inspiration at a young age, but I get it now. Now all I have is Rolling Stone. Once that goes, I am living online.

Of course, the publications of the last few months have made me fine with the cancellation. I didn't want it to continue like that. It was too ugly and strange. At least online, it looks somewhat normal. However, because of the competition, I doubt that I read it as frequently. That is the real tragedy. I accept the decision to move on, but as the bearer to what made me passionate about pop culture journalism as a respectable career, it is sad that it isn't quite the same to me anymore.

I'll miss you, though I hope to see you in my e-mail box sometime soon.