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Poetic Felony

MAXIM Magazine Reviews Black Crowes' Warpaint Without Hearing The Album
2/23/08

For some folks it's easy to hate the Black Crowes. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but for a magazine to trash any CD, DVD or establishment without hearing it raises interesting questions. MAXIM, a slick-high gloss magazine, specializes in beautiful women in little clothing. They run short reviews on various artistic endeavors. Until now, the magazine showed no visible signs of publishing untruths until they wrote a review of The Black Crowes new album Warpaint without hearing it.

This story pinpoints The Black Crowes returning the favor to the magazine. I'm all for freedom of speech, but magazines--or writers--fade into grey territory when they write reviews of something they haven't heard. If this slick New York/L.A. magazine employs such tactics--and charge you five bucks an issue for it--doesn't make hardworking operations like Swampland or any artist that doesn't earn a fraction of MAXIM's income--betray their own honest and sound work habits. Folks wonder why musicians hate journalists. We never write reviews of anything we haven't heard. MAXIM sells more than a few copies across the United States. Swampland doesn't cost a thing, and--if I may bold to say--operate far above the standards of MAXIM. I'll grant you they contain better pictures of the babes, but we're in it for the storytelling...

If you want to tell the Robinson brothers they suck, go ahead. Write it in your blog or on your website--that's your privilege. Better still--listen to the record--and send their management an official email through their website. Regardless if you're spending your time wisely or not--you're still not charging anyone for these opinions...MAXIM does. So, magazines publishing reviews of music they haven't heard should insult everyone's intelligence. What if media outlets took it upon themselves to make up a story? That's in the same category as signing your name to someone else's lines, or taking the credit for someone else's cooking. This media dust-up will hopefully only sell more copies of Warpaint. 

There are many faces to poetic felony...

James Calemine
JCalemine@swampland.com

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