The best albums of 1981

Let’s face it: With most “Best Albums” lists, you know the broad strokes of the ranking before you even click. Part of that predictability is …

Before MTV would be rendered extraneous, record labels would fork over millions for bands and artists to produce memorable music videos that helped …

SPIN launched in the peak MTV era, when an innovative — or even just salacious — music video could make or break an artist. Thirty five years later, …

Olivia Rodrigo may be a teenage pop star who works for Disney and first scaled the Hot 100 with a piano-driven ballad, but her second No. 1 of 2021, …

The problem with lists like this is they are invariably bullshit. So our prime objective was to make sure we didn’t do a bullshit list. I’m not saying …

Long ago, in the days before there were multiple MTVs glutted with reality shows about sexually active teens, network producers came up with a …

We know, we know — the best concert of all-time is your friend’s obscure indie-punk band playing a sweaty neighborhood basement back in ‘94. We admit …

In the mid-’80s, a big-haired then-Senator’s wife named Tipper Gore was taking a stroll near her 11-year-old daughter’s room. Without warning, she …

Best Album lists tend to earn all the internet hype — it always feels like a somewhat serious, academic endeavor, adding to the pantheon of OK …

After a deluge of canceled or delayed tours, drive-in experiments, Bandcamp Fridays and bedroom livestreams, we’re finally here. It’s hard to …

Despite what some “best of” blurb intros may tell you, there is no exact science to list-making. And constructing one so methodically just might ruin …

Rock is obvs not dead but it’s not hard to see why people always say it is, almost wishfully. For decades, the most commercially viable (and even …