The Guide to the Guides: review of bulky rock guides, which is generally pretty successful, though obviously filtered through the point of view of an indie fan who wants namechecks for his indie faves (indie rock kids know too much about music anyway and shouldn’t be encouraged). Hence Spin’s entertainingly crass Guide gets dissed. But then again so does Colin Larkin’s doughy doorstop – and generally the reviewer gets it right.
Every American music fan I know seems to hate Spin!, a magazine I’ve enjoyed on the few occasions I’ve bumped into it. That may be a grass-is-greener situation, though: most American music fans seem to have a far-too-healthy respect for Q. I suppose, too, I wouldn’t find Spin!s cooler-than-thou pretensions so amusing if it was the only thing I had to go on. (link via Us Vs Them, still the acceptable face of indie rock online).