The June 1990 issue of
Spin is certainly a time capsule. The cover star is Lisa Stansfield, which greatly annoyed the mag's alt-leaning readers but is fine with me—
Affection is one of my favorite albums ever, though "All Around the Girl" disqualifies it for the Cover Head Hall of Fame. The reviews section ("Edited by Jim Greer," it notes; Greer went on to play bass for Guided by Voices and then write
a book about them in which Greer's time in the band is barely mentioned) features write-ups of albums by Nick Cave, Cowboy Junkies, Blue Aeroplanes, A Tribe Called Quest, Television Personalities, the House of Love, the Sundays, Ernie Isley, the Silos, Stone by Stone with Chris D., Tony Williams, and Loop; Frank Owen's "Singles" column takes on New York's John Cardinal O'Connor's condemnation of heavy metal and the flap over Chill Rob G's and Snap!'s competing versions of "The Power"; the contents page tells us the magazine has 98 pages, which is a good thing considering there are almost no page numbers on the actual pages themselves. (That Bob Guccione Jr. and his minimalist design sense!) But the main reason I tracked down this piece of nostalgia on eBay is that after seeing the
Ludacris Area Codes Map, I remembered the "Hip-Hop Map of America" by Bob Mack, who would go on to edit the Beastie Boys' 'zine,
Grand Royal. The full map, and some choice excerpts, below.
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Idolator
Admittedly only surface LOLz to be had in this familiar story about a "new" study tracking hip-hop's increased number of drug references over two decades—"The word 'flinging,' for example, means selling drugs. Some slang words for marijuana include 'broccoli,' 'trees' and 'chronic.' 'Fat sacks' and 'strapped horns' refer to cocaine smoking pipes, according to the study."—but hey, it's a slow afternoon at best. [
