September 20, 2007 – We weren't innocent lambs by 1977. Even tuba-playing virgins who lived in half-finished, rural Georgia subdivisions knew the times they had a-changed. Television had shown us all about it. Several years before, every day after school, The Andy Griffith Show's kindly Southern sheriff had blurred into the Watergate hearings' kindly Southern Senator Sam J. Ervin Jr., who detailed the antics of our creepy, pitstained pit boss of a president. The Vietnam War had ended infamously as CIA helicopters, sagging with refugees, fled the roof of the U.S. Embassy. "Recession" and "inflation" were a constant refrain. (Who knew what they meant? But they sure made Dad anxious.) My favorite record was the Dickie Goodman novelty 45 "Energy Crisis '74," which took for granted that the government was manned by incompetent boobs.

August 5, 2007 – The eager, smooth-voiced Q101 radio jock worked himself into the requisite I'm-not-just-saying-this- because-I'm-paid-to lather, babbling on about how long it's been since the next act to grace the AT&T stage has played Chicago, eventually booming loud enough so that his platitudes reverberated all the way back to the food court: "It is my honor and privilege! ladies and gentlemen, SILVERCHAIR!!!!!" To refresh, Silverchair are an Australian band who released their debut album Frogstomp in 1995 when the trio were all 15 years old. "Tomorrow," an exact cross-breeding of Nirvana and Pearl Jam, was a substantial radio/MTV hit and singer-songwriter Daniel Johns (with his soulful eyes and scraggly blond hair) became an odd tiny-tot-Cobain heartthrob prodigy.

August 4, 2007 – "How ya'll doooo-aaooowww-ing!" It's lunch time on the first day of Lollapalooza 2007 and a wiry, pigtailed guy in circulation-threatening jeans is shrieking over a swell of gospel organs at thousands of bemused viewers on one of the main stages. His partner, a towering guy in a light blue cape with a cross embroidered on the back, stands behind a drum kit and a bank of synths, churning out a mid-tempo beat that bares slight resemblance to an '80s Chicago-house jack track. The singer, Ghostland Observatory's Aaron Behrens, is off on a diva-drag queen testimony about how everything is new every morning when we wake up and we've gotta, like, seize the freakiness of the day and, um, freak out.

July 30, 2007 – "Put it in my hand and tell me how much pressure it takes to get you off!" Those are the indelicate opening words of Juliette and the Licks' 2005 debut EP, ...Like a Bolt of Lightning. And the ickiness oozes on, as singer Juliette Lewis crudely baits a "20 Year Old Lover" who still lives with his mom, then pants heavily over the neo-punk squall of "Get Your Tongue Wet." A Spin staffer who shall remain nameless vouched for the band's live show, but after watching Lewis thrash around onstage like a barefoot Cops perp being Tasered, it seemed obvious that her hammy attempt at PJ Harvey intensity would be short-lived. Instead, in the years since, she has played Warped Tour, had Dave Grohl sit in on drums, and recorded two more albums (the latest, Four on the Floor, was just released).

July 16, 2007 – There was a sketchy edict before this RSVP Manhattan cattle call that it wasn't "for review" and that journalists should, I guess, just stand around and sip $10 cocktails and act like we didn't see that gruesome, babbling death-mask video after a recent London show and instead reminisce about our favorite Hole concert at the Academy in Times Square in the mid-'90s when Courtney planted her black pump on a monitor and shredded all the doubters who dismissed her as a toxic phony (while Drew Barrymore giddily leaped up and down at the side of the stage wearing her tiny backpack). Oh man, those days were, like, so not shitty! Of course, there's been a lot of crack through the pipe since then, and all I can think of is who's taking care of that poor beagle that Courtney brought to court when she was facing felony possession charges awhile back?

July 6, 2007 – What follows is an unabridged version of the story that appears in our July issue. For the moment, 50 Cent is preaching to the choir. While a gaggle of assistants and security personnel lounge around a Manhattan recording studio, their multiplatinum benefactor discourses on how violent films like Scarface and GoodFellas have a greater potential negative impact on kids than hip-hop does.

June 11, 2007 – If you were to imagine the soundtrack for the death of the record industry, you couldn't do better than an acoustic version of "Iko Iko" played by a graying white man in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki cargo shorts standing in the bar-lounge of the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin, Texas, on Friday night of this year's South by Southwest music festival. Back in the go-go '90s, this was schmooze central, where every wannabe player clocked SXSW time. Now, with sales tanking, labels consolidating, and staffs liquidating, it's a comparative dead zone. Retired couples box-step by the fireplace while a handful of industry grunts soldier on, draining the last $13 martini out of their soon-to-dry-up expense accounts. "I'd rather drag my penis through ten miles of gravel than be here," says Stephen Bazzell, lead singer of the unsigned Atlanta modern-rock band Uncrowned.

May 10, 2007 – For our May cover feature, six stars of this year's festivals give the skinny on ginormous outdoor shows to (sun-)baked crowds. SPIN.com was on hand for the historic cover shoot in Hollywood, and we filmed our own quick interviews with the cover subjects. Watch our on-site video interview with Nightwatchman/Rage guitarist Tom Morello, and keep checking this space for interviews and behind-the-scenes footage of Jeff, Satellite Party's Perry Farrell, AFI's Davey Havok, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, Wu-Tang's RZA, and Spoon's Britt Daniel. Rage Against the Machine are re-forming to headline Coachella and Rock the Bells. How strange is it that after so many years of performing protest music, you guys haven't been around for the George W. Bush era?I know what you're getting at, but bands don't exist to address historical events. It doesn't work that way.

December 19, 2006 – 1. "Crazy," Gnarls Barkley. The seemingly dead dream of an alternative music in which rock, hip-hop, funk, R&B, electronic, et al., speak a fresh Esperanto is given a liberating new pulse. LISTEN: WINDOWS | REAL 2. "When You Were Young," the Killers. Justifying the album's cornball fantasia, these tetchy gits put their '80s synth-pop boudoir on shiny chrome wheels and head out on Highway 9. LISTEN: WINDOWS 3. "Ain't No Other Man," Christina Aguilera. Unleashing perhaps the hardest bop track since Charles Mingus' "Better Get Hit in Yo' Soul," DJ Premier builds a blass-blasting stage and Xtina grinds her spiked heel. LISTEN: REAL 4. "Welcome to the Black Parade," My Chemical Romance. They may not be this generation's Nirvana, but they sure want to be, and this snarling, we/us pronouncement is enough to make Mom and Dad pee their pj's. LISTEN: REAL 5.

December 19, 2003 – 1. 50 CENT"In Da Club" (Shady/Interscope) Since we'reall gonna get shot or suicide-bombed anyway, let's throw africkin' birthday party! With pole dancing, Ecstasy, andKevlar! Fiddy should pray five times a day to the West (a.k.a. Dr.Dre) for blessing him with a beat so irresistibly sultry. 2. EMINEM"Lose Yourself" (Shady/Interscope) Screw the corny Aerosmithsample on "Sing for the Moment" -- this tinkly, guitar-driven epic isEm's defining yes-you-can power ballad. So packed with anticipationyou're on the edge of your seat for a half-dozen bars just to hear himfinish the damn "Mekhi Phifer" rhyme. 3. THE WHITE STRIPES"Seven Nation Army" (V2) Scowling as he falls down thecelebrity rabbit hole, Jack White knocks off a tawdry guitar solo, thenthreatens to move to Wichita. The day is saved by the year's best bassline (that Timbaland had nothing to do with). 4.