SPIN 35
A Survivor’s Journey
Five years ago, Olia Ougrik, the 39-year-old co-owner and public relations director of Los Angeles-based PR and advertising firm Raconteur, was madly in love with her fiancé, Guillaume, and excited about their future together. “I was going to get married, buy an apartment, have a kid, and everything was peachy keen,” Ougrik remembers, telling SPIN over the phone from her mother’s home in Paris, where she’s been staying during the pandemic. “But I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m happy right now. It’s not going to last.’ And then, boom, the Bataclan happened.” On Nov. 13, 2015, three ISIS terrorists, armed with machine guns and wearing suicide vests, stormed popular Paris concert venue the Bataclan as Eagles of Death Metal were performing before a sold-out crowd of 1,500. Ninety victims d...
The Most Influential Artists: #24 Jay-Z
As part of our 35th-anniversary, we’re naming the most influential artists of the past 35 years. Today, we’re at #24. From Brooklyn, New York here is Jay-Z. Credit: Johnny Louis / Contributor Madonna built herself into a pop corporation — a towering monument to Madge — long before Brooklyn’s Shawn Carter began his reign as Jay-Z. Genre aside, the key difference: From the jump, his artistry is inextricable from economic hunger, indomitable confidence, lyrical swagger and biography as hard-won destiny. Airtight verses, impeccable beat selection and singles that became proto-memes — “Dead Presidents,” “Hard Knock Life,” “99 Problems” — certainly bolstered the legend; issuing strong, savvy LPs almost every year, marrying the queen of R&B Beyoncé and aligning himself uneasily with Kanye Wes...
Born to Run
Hanging up outside of the Hoboken mayor’s office are crooked and out of order framed pictures of past mayors. Very apropos for a city that’s known for its crookedness. Fortunately, Hoboken’s current leader, Mayor Ravi Bhalla, 46, has been straightening out the Mile Square City since being elected to city council in 2008. Bhalla has spent his life fighting for others. It’s part of his Sikh faith – Bhalla was New Jersey’s first Sikh mayor when elected in 2017 – and it’s his faith that unfortunately made him a target for being bullied growing up and being labeled a terrorist while running for mayor. I recently spent the day with His Honor, where he spoke openly about having his own civil rights violated, his immigrant parents and why his wife is so damn important. After listening to his...
The Most Influential Artists: #25 Eminem
As part of our 35th-anniversary, we’re naming the most influential artists of the past 35 years. Today, we’re at #26. From Detroit, Michigan here is Eminem. CREDIT: J. Shearer/WireImage Marshall Mathers. Slim Shady. Eminem. An unholy trinity embodied by the blonde-haired, blue-eyed best-selling solo rapper of all time. For better or worse, Eminem kicked the door in for white rappers at the dawn of the millennium. After critics investigated and Jim Carrey eviscerated Vanilla Ice, Eminem battled to the top of every doubting cipher from Detroit to L.A. When Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine discovered him, he took the antagonism, shock, comedy and verbal dexterity of battle rap and made it commercial. His Aftermath debut, The Slim Shady LP, and its darker, horrorcore-leaning sequel, The Marshall Mathe...
The Blues Never Die
There is a tiny, crumbling town in the Arkansas delta where spirits glide among the ruins, and in the liminal space between dusk and dark, if you get real quiet, you can hear, ever so faintly, the strains of a blues guitar. Hold your breath and lean in. It’s Robert Lockwood, Jr – couldn’t be anyone else – playing a song you’ve never heard before, plaintive and haunting, the kind of blues that breaks your heart. The voice is faint and you can’t quite make out the words, but then a piano joins in and the whole mood changes. Exhale and relax. That boogie-woogie sound belongs to Pinetop Perkins and people drift outside to listen, ears tuned to the song on the wind. And now, a harmonica. Sonny Boy Williamson; you’d recognize that freight train-chugging anywhere. They jam, Lockwood, Perkins, and...
The Most Influential Artists: #26 Beyoncé
As part of our 35th-anniversary, we’re naming the most influential artists of the past 35 years. Today, we’re at #26. From Houston, Texas here is Beyoncé. CREDIT: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Coachella Ever since Beyoncé strutted her stilettos into the game with Destiny’s Child in 1998, the world knew they were gazing at a star in the making. But no one could predict just how far the Houston rocket would shoot into pop culture’s stratosphere. After cementing herself as a respected artist with the multi-platinum girl group, she launched her solo career with 2003’s Dangerously in Love — turning the pop world on its head with a singular “Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh, oh, no, no” booty shake. Over the years, she’s racked up 24 Grammy Awards and numerous Top 10 hits, experimented with genres like ...
Gabriel Garzón-Montano Is Doing Whatever the Hell He Wants
There’s nothing one-note about Gabriel Garzón-Montano. He’s a multi-instrumentalist and producer with heritage rooted in France (on his mother’s side) and Columbia (his father’s). His catalog draws from R&B, alternative and funk. And that eclecticism blooms even further on his second album, Agüita: Here, the New York City artist leans into his Latino side, venturing into reggaetón and Latin trap music, and he weaves in sweeping orchestral tunes reminiscent of his 2017 debut, Jardin. “[I’m] doing whatever the fuck I want,” he tells SPIN. “Just having fun and celebrating myself.” But it took a chance career break six years ago to reach this point. When Garzón-Montano released his first EP, 2014’s Bishouné: Alma del Huila, he personally delivered 500 vinyl copies to local record shops in ...
The Enduring Relevance of College Radio
I have a poster of a 1993 University of Vermont campus-radio-sponsored show featuring Fugazi and Shudder to Think. The caption, “Washington’s Fugazi Claims It’s Just A Band. So Why Do So Many Kids Think It’s God?”, is from a Washington Post article published around that time. That poster, along with one from an earlier station-sponsored performance by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam, is displayed in my office at the Library of Congress. In my basement is a stencil from KMFDM, whose accompanying can of spray paint helpfully advises DJs to refrain from defacing the program director’s car; as a vehicle-owning program director, I appreciated the admonition. Shortly after arriving on UVM’s campus in 1990, I visited their student-run radio station WRUV and, after b...
The Most Influential Artists: #27 Ricky Martin
As part of our 35th-anniversary, we’re naming the most influential artists of the past 35 years. Today, we’re at #27. From San Juan, Puerto Rico here is Ricky Martin. CREDIT: Michael Tran / Contributor “Livin’ La Vida Loca” lit the fuse for the Latin pop explosion of the ’90s. Puerto Rican crooner Ricky Martin became a global pop star in 1999 with a pelvic-thrusting performance that drew in both women and men. Martin may have appeared to arrive out of nowhere, but his crossover domination was well plotted out. He first entertained Latino audiences in the ’80s as a member of the boy band Menudo. Into the next decade, he went solo and let out the Wepa! heard ’round the world in the bilingual banger “María,” and he later scored a goal with the 1998 FIFA World Cup anthem “The Cup of Life.” Tha...
iDKHOW Have No Rules
I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME — otherwise known as iDKHOW — were actually in hiding at the beginning. While Dallon Weekes was playing bass for Panic! at the Disco and Ryan Seaman was drumming for Falling in Reverse, the two would share musical rendezvous every now and then, quietly booking shows at small venues without letting anyone know. “From the get-go, there have been no rules other than to have fun doing this,” Weekes tells SPIN days after the releasing their debut album, RAZZMATAZZ. “It was our way, at least at first, of reminding ourselves why we got into [playing music] in the first place.” CREDIT: Lauren Watson Perry The secrecy eventually crumbled, and the duo devoted themselves to this project — to finally crystallize it, make it real. And now it’s hard to believe tha...
The Canonization of Saint Sinead
“Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.”Joan of Arc, 1400s “Put your fucking seatbelts on ’cause I haven’t finished yet.”Sinead O’Connor, SPIN 1992 Sometime in Fall 1987, in the dark, late night of a Manhattan short-term office rental, SPIN founder and editor-in-chief Bob Guccione Jr. was digging through trash. This was a common occurrence. Once his editors had gone home he’d rummage for promo cassettes of new music discarded as actual, literal rubbish. He played one particular tape, The Lion and The Cobra, its title taken from Psalm 19:13: “You will tread upon the lion and the cobra, you will trample the great lion and the serpent,” all night long while he worked, till five in the morning. The artist was a complete unknown named Sinead O’Connor. The next ...
The Most Influential Artists: #28 Lady Gaga
As part of our 35th-anniversary, we’re naming the most influential artists of the past 35 years. Today, we’re at #28. From New York, New York here is Lady Gaga. CREDIT: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic Lady Gaga could have been just another pop star. But she’s also become a boundary-pushing icon, an advocate using her platform for social justice, LGBTQ+ rights and sexual assault survivors. Like Madonna, Cher and other legends before her, Gaga has become a master at reinvention — from the ‘80s-saturated Born This Way era, filled with leather jackets and big hair, to the nu-country phase of Joanne, with her millennial pink cowboy gear. And her latest work was no different: 2020’s Chormatica brought introspection to the bombastic dance-pop songs that helped cultivate her fanbase. No one can ever s...
