SPIN's Year in Music 2012

For Taylor Swift, the past 12 months have been the moment when the always crossover-hungry country singer finally and unabashedly embraced pop. She also issued…

They made disappinting, often horrific art. They issued tone-deaf statements. They tattooed images of their battered ex-girlfriends on their necks. A look back at the…

From the outset, 2012 offered few figures as divisive as Lana Del Rey. Some saw her as a desperate, pre-fab "indie" marketing creation. Others were…

Decisions, decisions: A filmgoer had to make a lot of on-the-fly calls when they saddled up to the multiplex window and plopped down their stack…

James Brown's life was as deep and mythic as his celebrated groove. In the magisterial, rollicking biography The One: The Life and Music of James…

I don't want to alarm anyone, but it looks like we may have reached peak dubstep.That might be news to Muse, Taylor Swift, Ke$ha, Chris…

Last season's post-dubstep murmurs and moombahton grooves have ceded the spotlight to the class of 2012. This year's best dance albums move with the frenetic…

Last year SPIN picked an album by a band with an R-rated name as our No. 1 LP of the year, but the the world…

In the early dawn hours of January 20, 2012, in a small village on the outskirts of Auckland, New Zealand, heavily armed police (with help…

Do you remember when you first heard "Gangnam Style" and the small child next to you looked up and went, "Really, man? Are you kidding…

Egotistical rants! Epically long open letters! Dancing penises! SPIN looks back at the one-liners (and in some cases, mouthfuls) that defined the past 12 months.