It's A Conspiracy

Maxim magazine gave The Black Crowes' new album, Warpaint, a negative review in its most recent magazine. (That leading many to ask, Maxim magazine is still around? Seriously, didn�t they go out of business like five years ago? The only seem to market to plump public servants in Portland.)

The only problem with the review is, well, the Black Crowes didn't hand out any advance copies. In fact, the band only released one single. The magazine instead made an "educated guess," on what they thought the album was going to be like.

Did they get Nickelback and the Black Crowes confused or something? You can make an educated guess that Creed's new album is going to be horse (bleep), but the Crowes have earned a reputation.

In fact, you should only make "educated guesses" in certain case.

• That chick on the phone that sounds hot, isn't. Especially if she's from Boston.

• The Raiders will have another losing season.

• And any movie with Michael Ironside is going to be money.

And that's about it. You could probably blame ESPN�s Sports Dork Bill Simpson for this. As his influence of lazy journalism is ruining the written world. Not that Maxim is know for its snappy writing.

Maxim issued this apology following the bogus review.

Maxim editorial director James Kaminsky responded Tuesday with this statement: "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."

Wow, that almost seemed sincere. My apology after telling a former supervisor, "you are not good at your job and nobody wants to work with you," had way more feeling. Needless to say, the Crowes weren't impressed.

�In my opinion, Maxim�s �apology� is self-serving damage control by failing to mention The Black Crowes. The appropriate action from Maxim is to immediately issue a public apology to The Black Crowes for disparaging both the band and their soon to be released new album �Warpaint� without having heard the material.�

Yes Maxim, why not going back to being a cheap knockoff of Playboy, but without the literary excellence or, you know, actual reviews of music and movies.