Three months ago, I accidentally wound up in a giant mansion on the outskirts of Austin, Tex. It was one of those random detours that are supposed to happen at the South by Southwest festival: You get into a vehicle at the end of the night, on the promise of something better than staggering back to your hotel room, and occasionally it pans out.
In this case, it briefly appeared to have panned out, big-time. Through a case of broken telephone, the word was that the guy who had greeted us at the door was the publisher of Spin magazine, and we had arrived at his home. Then it turned out that he was only renting ... and he was no longer the publisher.
The gentleman in question was Jake Hill, recently deposed when Spin was sold to new owners. Near as I could tell, the house had been rented before he'd lost his job, and he'd decided to keep it for the annual music pow-wow anyway.
To call that night a wake for the Spin we'd all known would probably be attaching too much significance to a low-key party hosted by a guy with temporary possession of a mansion. So it would be attaching way too much significance to call it a wake for something much bigger - the very notion of mainstream magazines devoted to serious music journalism. But in hindsight, that's pretty much what it was.
Until recently, Spin was pretty much the only publication that fit that bill. The declining cultural relevance of Rolling Stone, the pioneer and long the standard-bearer, was more or less what fuelled Spin's 1985 launch in the first place; Blender, its other main competitor, has never pretended to be anything other than glossy, playfully cynical fun.
Not that Spin wasn't long under fire - often deservedly - from purists for obsessing over the biggest names and the latest trends (the Strokes-led New York retro-rock movement, the Killers-fronted new-wave revival). But even in the last few years, under editor-in-chief Sia Michel, it boasted its share of incisive music journalism. Its front-of-book section took pains to highlight promising new bands under the radar elsewhere; its album reviews were detailed and decisive; its interviews were long and probing. And more so than any other venue, it was the place for talented rock journalists to stake their turf - from seasoned writers like Marc Spitz to emerging talents like Andy Greenwald to pop-culture philosopher Chuck Klosterman.
No matter how good it was, though, Spin was doomed. Its target audience - people with huge record collections and a penchant for endlessly debating music with their friends - had switched to a different forum. You could go online for free to learn about, discuss and listen to the latest releases before they came out, or you could pay for a magazine whose early deadlines had it playing catch-up. Not an overly tough decision, and Spin's circulation showed it.
When Hill took over in 2004, there was speculation as to whether he could keep Spin from folding. As it turns out, folding would have been a kinder fate than what befell it.
Picking it up at a discount price, Spin's new owners turfed Hill and Michel and parted with most of the big-name talent. Brought in as editor-in-chief, with a mandate to broaden its appeal, was former Blender editor Andy Pemberton. And what he produced might just be the most pitiful excuse for a music magazine on the shelves.
The May issue, over which Pemberton had some control, was a sign of things to come. The articles were shorter, Kevin Federline was inexplicably interviewed and "alt-porn queen" Joanna Angel was introduced as a sex columnist. But nothing could have prepared readers for the awfulness of the latest Spin - most memorable as a sort of pathetic homage to Beyonce, complete with a cover that looks straight from Cosmo, a fawning note from Pemberton titled "Simply the Best," and a spot for her atop a lame People-style list of "the 25 hottest stars under 25."
That feature still beats the hard-hitting interview with Busta Rhymes. (Sample question: "You launched Leaders of the New School while in high school, and your first album came out when you were 19. Must have been an awesome time.") And the Us-style body-language analysis of a photo of Lindsay Lohan and Susan Sarandon. And the page pronouncing skinny jeans "hot." And the single-paragraph CD reviews that make Blender look authoritative. And the back page that Klosterman previously occupied, now devoted to a Q&A with that noted rock 'n' roll icon, the founder of Wikipedia.
The issue is such a disaster that rumours are already swirling that Pemberton has been fired. But it doesn't much matter: Even if Spin turns back the clock and sticks an earnest indie band on its next cover, the damage has been done.
For readers who hadn't already turned online for their music coverage, this has been were their cue. The American music magazine, as we once knew it, is dead. Andy Pemberton was just the messenger.
