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]}