Well technically, this is music news. But more importantly this is news for anyone interested in reading critics’ reviews. Over at MSNBC.com, a disturbing story today about how Maxim magazine reviewed a new album without even hearing it first.
The review, published in Maxim’s March issue, gives the [Black] Crowes’ “Warpaint” a rating of two-and-a-half stars out of five. “The writer — who has not heard the album since advance CDs were not made available — wrote what appears to be a disparaging assessment anyway, citing, ‘it hasn’t left Chris Robinson and the gang much room for growth,”’ said a statement on the band’s official Web site. The band’s manager, Pete Angelus, said the magazine explained that its review is an “educated guess.”
Excuse me!? An educated guess? You reviewed a record on what you think it maybe sounds like? As a critic and more importantly as someone who takes some stock in reading reviews online and in publications, this really makes me angry. I wonder how many films Maxim writers have not seen but decided to give a positive or negative review. Or worse yet, do they make up other information in their articles just to make it more interesting? Or even worse than that, what other publications do this? I don’t give much of a hoot what Maxim thinks about anything “artful”, but I do care if other publications start following this lead.
This kind of thing seems to becoming more prevalent in today’s journalistic standards. Granted this is just an album review, but does anyone remember the Dan Rather debacle? How about Newsweek’s bogus story that resulted in several deaths a couple years back? You have my personal word that I will never ever review a film without at least seeing it first. I’ll hypothesize and make assumptions, but I’ll never write that something was great or something was bad without at least viewing it first-hand.
A representative for the magazine would not confirm or deny to The Associated Press whether the writer actually listened to the album. Instead, Maxim released this statement in response: “Maxim will continue to provide our readers with information that is important to them, whether it is about fashion, lifestyle, technology, music, movies and more.”
Sounds like an admission to me. The only other explanation I can think of is that the “publicist” got his hands on an illegal bootleg copy of the album somehow and doesn’t want to admit that for fear of going to jail. Either way, The Black Crowes should sue his ass.
Comment by Goon — February 23, 2008
But with the reviews, I don’t take much stock in user reviews (unless I know them). I read “reputable” sources and trust them. That would not include Maxim [anymore].
Comment by Andrew James — February 23, 2008
Comment by Matt Gamble — February 23, 2008
Comment by Shannon the Movie Moxie — February 24, 2008