clippings, the ticket stubs. But what truths can we really hold when it comes to our icons?

Even the most skilled rock journalist will only divine what a cornered musician wishes to reveal during the course of a carefully arranged and negotiated sit-down. It's in the photographs, however, that we begin to get a deeper understanding. Here, we see the things that artists can't completely mask. In this collection of timeless portraits from the pages of Spin -- a special section that kicks off our 20th-anniversary year – Beck appears quizzical and probably is; Marilyn Manson looks demented and probably isn't; Chuck D seems furious, but look closer and there's some worry too; and Kurt Cobain is, for a moment, at least, content. Each of these photographs reveals something uncontrollable, and something dangerously true, about the artists who've made the last 20 yeas of rock'n'roll so exciting. Every picture indeed tells a story – only sometimes it's not the one we were expecting.

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