Super-Creative Music Reviews

[Lemur]

Wow, music journos are setting new standards for creative writing:

Black Crowes manager Pete Angelus says, “Maxim's actions seem to completely lack journalistic integrity and intentionally mislead their readership. When confronted with the fact that they never heard the album they are claiming to 'review’ in their music section--with a star rating, no less--they attempt to explain that it was an 'educated guess.' In an email correspondence, Maxim went on to state: ‘Of course, we always prefer to (sic) hearing 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.’ ”

Isolated incident? Not exactly ...

Maxim has gone one better and awarded another mediocre review to an album that doesn't actually exist yet. Last we heard, Nas' Title That Certain Bloggers Take Great Delight In Printing Whenever Possible had been delayed until late spring. Turns out the rapper has possibly yet to even deliver the tapes to Def Jam; Nas tells the New York Post that he's "finishing the album now" and talking up a new April 22 release date. Perhaps in deference to those long magazine lead times, the educated guessers at Maxim went ahead and gave Nas' unfinished album 2 1/2 circles (out of a perfect five).

Wow, just wow. I knew the music business was scummy, and I know firsthand that entertainment journos can be lazy, but this really takes the cake.

[Ramses II CP]

The thing is, who in the heck do they get to write that trash? How do you convince someone who may someday have to sell themselves for another job as a music critic that they should make up a review out of thin air.

Eh, well, who cares. It's still a better review than 99% of game review outlets give.

[Big_John]

still, i'd rather read a review/rating of a non-existent/unheard album over a pitchfork review.

[Quirinus]

Maybe, just maybe, it's this:

A likely explanation is that the rating was awarded on the basis of a leaked copy of the album, but no one's admitting that [....]

...no?

[Lemur]

Doesn't explain the review of the album that hasn't even been delivered to the record company yet. You know, the one that's still being mixed in the studio.