Trying Hard to Put a Different Spin on Things

Michael Hirschorn can’t catch a break. Just as he puts out the issue of Spin that he’d hoped would show him coming into his own as the magazine’s new editor in chief, he finds that rival Rolling Stone has the same cover subject on its current issue: the edgy cartoon scamps of “South Park.”

This was the one Hirschorn had hoped would really display his stamp on the magazine--and further distinguish its new directions from those of its rival.

“This is the first issue where I feel I can really say we’ve arrived as a new incarnation of the magazine,” says Hirschorn, 33, who took over last summer when the ownership team of Vibe magazine bought Spin from its founder and only prior editor in chief, Bob Guccione Jr.

At the same time, though, his primary focus is not on the shadow of Rolling Stone, but the legacy of Guccione, who brought Spin to prominence in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s covering the rise of alternative rock and the so-called Generation X. Guccionne also put a very personal stamp on it with a brand of advocate journalism on such topics as AIDS and the Bosnian crisis.

“We’re trying to put out a magazine that doesn’t really exist in the U.S.,” Hirschorn says. “We want a cutting-edge magazine for younger people that doesn’t really treat them as idiots--a smarter, slightly more challenging magazine that might currently exist for older people, but not for younger ones the way that, say, the Face does in England.”

So how’s he doing?

“The new issue is hilarious,” says Shelby Meade, a music publicist at the New York public relations firm Nasty Little Man. “You get the feeling that they’re hitting their stride, and I get a sense of renewed excitement from the people there. It’s fun to call them again.”

Hirschorn was formerly executive editor of New York magazine and served most recently as features editor for Esquire. He says he has a great deal of affection and affinity for Guccione’s accomplishment, but he’s not shy about wanting to make his own mark on the publication.

It’s a tough task, especially considering the current lack of direction in the alternative-rock world. The pick of Anglo-Indian band Cornershop’s “When I Was Born for the 7th Time” as Spin’s album of the year for 1997 seemed a bit obscure in terms of cultural significance, and putting Marilyn Manson on a recent cover seemed to many in the music business both obvious and a bit late for Spin, which is supposed to be ahead of the mainstream curve.

Some also point to Spin’s choice of slain rapper Notorious B.I.G. as its artist of the year as an indication that it had to reach outside its own coverage zone to find a worthy figure. It also raised speculation about the influence of its association with hip-hop-oriented Vibe. But Hirschorn argues that Spin has always covered hip-hop as overlapping with alternative rock, and insists that it was done without input from Vibe’s management.

For the near future, Hirschorn is encouraged that such Spin favorites as Pearl Jam, Hole, Nine Inch Nails and Tori Amos are all scheduled to have new albums this year. “It remains an alt-music magazine, and we’ve committed to having 100 pages more music coverage in the course of this year than last year,” he says. “But hopefully we’ll also be a magazine that reaches across the broader spectrum of pop culture--film, television, style, journalism--more than you’d see a year ago.”