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 Maxim Magazine has admitted to publishing a "review" of the Black Crowes' latest album after having heard only one song. In an open letter to Maxim Magazine, manager of the Black Crowes, Pete Angelus, writes:
"In my thirty years in the music business, I have never once written a
letter to any publication to discuss or oppose a "review" of my artist's
work.... However, this letter was not written to address a bad "review" but
rather a fabricated album review that your magazine published even though
your "music critic" had not heard more than one song."
In his letter Angelus says that a fabricated review is a serious concern that may ultimately harm all artists because it calls into question the credibility
of the entire review process.
A February 20th e-mail response from Maxim stated:
"On the rare occasion that we are not given music because of our lead
time or unavailability of the tunes, we make an educated guess ... Of
course, we always prefer to hearing [sic] the music, but sometimes there are big
albums that we don't want to ignore that aren't available to hear, which is
what happened with the Crowes. It's either an educated guess preview or no
coverage at all, so in this case we chose the former."
Coming Clean
After one botched public apology in their magazine which skirted the issue and admitted no real fault, Maxim faced some serious criticism in the media. Feeling the pressure they subsequently came clean. Here's what they finally published in their magazine:
"It is Maxim's editorial policy to assign star ratings only to those
albums that have been heard in their entirety. Unfortunately, that policy
was not followed in the March 2008 issue of our magazine and we apologize
to our readers."
And apparently it's not the first time. The recording artist known as "Nas" has publicly stated that Maxim gave his unheard, unfinished album a 2.5 star rating.
Music reviews have less impact on music buyers today because we can all preview the music ourselves online before we buy it. But it's still a frightening thought that music "reviewers" are assigning starred ratings to albums they have never heard.
It just goes to prove that you can't believe everything you read.
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