Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.

In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard. It pointedly provided a national alternative to Rolling Stone's more establishment-oriented style. Spin prominently placed newer artists such as R.E.M., Prince, Run-D.M.C., Eurythmics, Beastie Boys, and Talking Heads, on its covers and did lengthy features on established figures such as Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Miles Davis, Aerosmith, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, and John Lee Hooker—Bart Bull's article on Hooker won the magazine its first major award.^{[citation needed]}

Putting black artists and women artists on the cover was considered a risk, potentially damaging newsstand sales. Moreover, the magazine devoted itself to a long term set of investigative pieces on the AIDS crisis at a time when even gay publications were concerned about losing advertisers by doing coverage of the disease. On a cultural level, the magazine devoted significant coverage to hardcore punk, alternative country, reggae and world music, experimental rock, jazz of the most adventurous sort, the burgeoning college rock and underground music scenes of the 1980s, and a variety of fringe styles. Artists such as the Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, X, Black Flag, and the former members of the Sex Pistols, The Clash, and the early punk/New Wave movement were cultural heritage pioneers in Spin's editorial mix, and were reviewed, featured, and mentioned constantly at a time when Rolling Stone and other publications scarcely acknowledged their existence.^{[citation needed]}Spin's extensive coverage of hip-hop music and culture, especially that of contributing editor John Leland, was notable at a time when no other national publication was paying serious attention to the genre.^{[citation needed]}

Amy Jade Winehouse (14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011) was an English singer and songwriter known for her powerful deep contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres including R&B, soul and jazz. Winehouse's 2003 debut album, Frank, was critically successful in the UK and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. Her 2006 follow-up album, Back to Black, led to six Grammy Award nominations and five wins, tying the then record for the most wins by a female artist in a single night, and made Winehouse the first British female to win five Grammys, including three of the "Big Four": Best New Artist, Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

In 2007 she won a Brit Award for Best British Female Artist; she had also been nominated for Best British Album. She won the Ivor Novello Award three times: once in 2004 for Best Contemporary Song (musically and lyrically) for "Stronger Than Me", once in 2007 for Best Contemporary Song for "Rehab", and once in 2008 for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "Love Is a Losing Game".

Brandon Richard Flowers (born June 21, 1981) is an American musician, best known as the frontman of the Las Vegas-based rock band The Killers. He has also released a solo album titled Flamingo.

Flowers, the youngest of six children, was born on June 21, 1981, in Henderson, Nevada, to Terry Flowers and Jean Flowers (née Barlow). His older siblings are his brother Shane and four sisters April, Shelly, Amy and Stephanie. His family lived in Henderson until Flowers was eight, when they moved to Payson, Utah, for two years before moving to Nephi, Utah, at which time he was in the 6th grade. Flowers lived in Nephi until his junior year at Juab High School. He moved to Las Vegas to live with his aunt and graduated from Chaparral High School in 1999.

Brandon Flowers responded to an ad that Dave Keuning had placed in the paper in late 2001 whereupon they became The Killers. After several short-lived bassists and drummers, Flowers and Keuning were joined by bassist Mark Stoermer and drummer Ronnie Vannucci and the line up became official in August 2002.

Courtney Michelle Love (born Courtney Michelle Harrison; July 9, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, actress and artist. Love initially gained notoriety in the Los Angeles indie rock scene with her band Hole, which she formed in 1989 with Eric Erlandson. Their debut album, Pretty on the Inside (1991) garnered them critical praise, and they went on to achieve international critical and commercial acclaim for their following albums, Live Through This (1994) and Celebrity Skin (1998).

Love also had a career in acting, originally landing small roles in Alex Cox films in the 1980s. In 1996, Love starred in The People vs. Larry Flynt alongside Woody Harrelson, and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance. She later had a brief solo career in the early 2000s after the dissolution of Hole, releasing America's Sweetheart (2004), and went through several rehab sentences and run-ins with the the law until achieving sobriety. In 2009, Love reformed Hole with new members and released Nobody's Daughter (2010). In 2012, she debuted an art exhibit featuring a collection of her own paintings and drawings titled "And She's Not Even Pretty".

Gerard Arthur Way (born April 9, 1977) is an American musician and comic book writer who has served as lead vocalist and co-founder of the band My Chemical Romance since its formation in 2001. He is also the writer of the Eisner Award-winning comic book The Umbrella Academy.

Gerard Way was born April 9, 1977 in Summit, New Jersey to Donna Lee (née Rush) and Donald Way. He has Italian ancestry on his mother's side and Scottish ancestry on his father's. He was raised in Belleville, New Jersey and first began singing publicly in the fourth grade, when he played the role of Peter Pan in a school musical production. His maternal grandmother, Elena Lee Rush, was a great creative influence who taught him to sing, paint, and perform from a young age; he has said that "she has taught me everything I know". Also, while in elementary school, the glam metal band Bon Jovi was instrumental in forming his love of music.

At the age of 15, Way was held at gunpoint, as he said in an April 2008 Rolling Stone interview: "I got held up with a .357 Magnum, had a gun pointed to my head and put on the floor, execution-style." He went on to say that "no matter how ugly the world gets or how stupid it shows me it is, I always have faith." At age 16, Way appeared on an episode of Sally Jesse Raphael which discussed the controversy surrounding the publicizing of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's crimes in comic books[1].