Maxim vs. The Black Crowes- isolated incident?
It’s funny that in the scandal that a Maxim reviewer flogged a Black Crowes album without hearing it, the reports usually start out that the mag wasn’t exactly a bastion of journalism to begin with, which is to say “Well, what do you expect?” As Fred Mills at Harp point out, Dr. Eugene Chadbourne used to do the same at Maximum Rock and Roll as did Richard Meltzer elsewhere but the big difference was that they proudly admitted it up front, which is to say “Hey, I already KNOW this is a joke?” OK but the Maxim thing is an isolated incident… right? I mean, reviewers don’t blow off their assignments and just type up whatever fits their mindset (or the publication’s mindset), right? They actually sit down and play a record at least a few times, concentrate on it and really think about it, right? Nope. Granted, it ain’t as egregious as this Maxim case but the sloppy way that some of these write-up’s are done are obvious when you see cliches, not to mention repeating passages from the press release (which you don’t necessarily know about but which does happen). So yeah, Maxim does deserve the public shaming for this stupid incident but don’t be too sure that the rest of the scribing world is so clean either. Shocking, ain’t it?
