March 3, 2010 – With his short stories and novels, Mississippi's Barry Hannah -- who passed away Monday of a heart attack at age 67 -- captured the disorienting jerks and reverberating thuds and bewildering empties of the "contemporary" South better than just about any author of the past 40 years. For young readers growing up in the region, his wittily twisted yet finely crafted prose often fucked with our heads in a way that felt entirely accurate to how life constantly did the same.

March 2, 2010 – Keith "Guru" Elam, the MC for Brooklyn-based, jazz-tinged outfit Gang Starr, who suffered a heart attack over the weekend, is recovering after treatment in a New York City hospital. The news about Guru, 43 -- first reported by hip-hop blogger and Hot 97 radio personality Miss Info -- broke late Sunday night, as well as word that the rapper had slipped into a coma. But Tuesday morning, Guru's Gang Starr partner DJ Premier posted this update on Twitter: "Good news: Guru surgery was successful, keep sending him love." Guru himself followed with this statement: "I am doing fine and I am recovering! I'm weak, though...I appreciate your well wishes and all the love." The impact of Keith "Guru" Elam transcends quotable rhymes or dope records or his notable outreach between hip-hop and jazz musicians.

February 8, 2010 – British classic-rock coots the Who played a much-discussed halftime set at the 44th Super Bowl Sunday night, and we've got the Top 10 highlights: 10. Zak Starkey's bull's-eye RAF cymbals! You go, Zildjian! 9. Stage set provoked nostalgia for late-'70s computer memory game Simon among key fortysomething CBS demographic. 8. We totally nailed the over/under on Pete Townshend's windmilling. 7. No Roger Daltrey wardrobe malfunctions (Yikes!). 6. Surprise cameo by "Laser O'Riley," Baba's technically savvy cousin. 5. NFL Today pundit and former Denver Broncos tight end Shannon Sharpe inspired to wail chillingly dead-on a cappella version of"Love, Reign o'er Me." 4.

October 1, 2009 – After hearing the recent news of a Fox Searchlight deal to produce a feature film about the Ramones -- based on the memoir I Slept with Joey Ramone, written by Joey's brother Mickey Leigh and former SPIN staffer Legs McNeil, set to be published in December by Simon & Schuster's Fireside imprint -- the only appropriate reaction by any semi-sane fan of the punk icons had to be OH MY GAWWWWD NOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Hollywood's virtually spotless record of churning out cheeseball music biopic atrocities has done as much or more irreparable damage to the reputation of the pop recording industry as collegiate file-sharing and illegal downloading combined. Entire generations of kids are now too horribly embarrassed to listen to the Doors after witnessing Val Kilmer's desert peyote scene in Oliver Stone's 1991 wankorama about the Lizard King, et al. (the most they can risk is Jay-Z's "Takeover").

September 4, 2009 – Once again, the enormous and increasingly joyless shadow of Jay-Hova has been cast over the vast, still-Auto-Tuned expanse of hip-hop. Set for official release on September 11 in conjunction with a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden for the New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund (but already leaked online to mixed reaction), The Blueprint 3 is the latest full-length attempt by the kid humbly born Shawn Carter in Brooklyn's Marcy Projects to create a world-historical event horizon around what is essentially another slab of professionally produced rap product. Sure, his contribution to the 9/11 cause is a wonderful, hometown gesture, and only fools question whether Jay-Z is still an ace MC-his meticulously composed lyrics are full of challenging flows, witty punning wordplay, and admirable attempts at social significance amid the usual narcissistic hoo-ha.

August 28, 2009 – Hyped by some Kool-Aid-gulping outlets as "one of the greatest collaborations in hip-hop history," the four-MC weave of Drake, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, and Eminem on a remixed version of the track "Forever," available Aug. 29 via iTunes (but available for streaming in a leaked version below), may be somewhat historic -- Weezy and Em have never rhymed on the same song -- but it's more notable for the airhorn-blowing, naggingly infectious production than the MCs' contributions. "Forever" -- concocted by Toronto up-and-comer Matthew Samuels, a.k.a., Boi 1da (Drake's "Best I Ever Had" and "Uptown") -- will be included on a compilation of songs supposedly inspired by the documentary More Than a Game, which follows LeBron James' high-school hoops odyssey in Akron, Ohio.

August 25, 2009 – Being confined in a small dark room snout-to-snout with Trent Reznor and his music for two-and-a-half hours -- which was the case at Nine Inch Nails' "goodbye tour" show Saturday at New York City's tiny Bowery Ballroom -- is a rather startling experience for everyone involved. (See a photo gallery of the show here.) Sure, he could scoot up to the tiny Bowery dressing room for a B12 shot (or whatever uber-healthy 44-year-old rock stars resort to these days) or we could flee to the pissoir and pound another $7 draft, but after Nine Inch Nails' pistoning programmed beats and power-sawing guitars jacked into their relentless, familiar schematics, and Reznor assumed his clenched crouch behind the mike (imagine an NFL fullback picking up a blitzing linebacker), we were all locked in the ritual together. And make no mistake, despite the towers of cornea-lashing strobes behind the piles of e

August 19, 2009 – Weezer can be counted on for a variety of things: Undeniably catchy choruses with gnomically nonsensical lyrics, disappointing post-2001 albums that exclude superior songs you'll eventually find on B-side collections, and somewhat amusing photos of a teenaged Rivers Cuomo sporting Aquanet metal hair. Now, with the announcement of the band's seventh album, Raditude, set for release October 27 on Geffen, we can add to that list pointlessly goofy, sadly banal, bad-pun album titles. So, inspired by Weezer's example, and in tribute to REO Speedwagon's immortal You Can Tune a Piano, But You Can't Tuna Fish, SPIN presents the Top 20 Worst Album Titles of 2009. 1. Weezer - RaditudeWe preferred the rumored second choice: Radatouille 2. Cursive - Mama, I'm SwollenShouldn't this sort of thing be dad's department? 3.

August 13, 2009 – At her best, Scarlett Johansson drifts through our consciousness like a lusty apparition, or more accurately, like an apparition of lust -- she's barely there, but the shape and pace of her performance unveils a fantasy gateway. As an actress, she gets it, appearing most at ease when she submits to this ghost dance. But as a singer, at least on last year's Anywhere I Lay My Head -- amid the lavishly hazy, 4AD-nostalgic, hipster male gaze of producer Dave Sitek (assisted by other members of TV on the Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, etc.) -- that illusion's been disrupted. She's been an apparition, but an uncomfortable, gauche, even intrusive one. Sitek did what Woody Allen did in Scoop -- make ScarJo a random annoying image you'd carelessly kick out your dreams. So now it's shaggy, shades-wearing, L.A. singer-songwriter Pete Yorn's turn.

August 6, 2009 – This weekend brings us the 10th annual Gathering of the Juggalos, a tragic display of American trash culture's bloated, badly tattooed underbelly, i.e., the festival of relentless depravity celebrating all things Insane Clown Posse.