Rumbled!
This is a truly hilarious story: Maxim have been rumbled writing a review of an album they’ve never even heard. Superb!
What happened was that they printed a review of the new Black Crowes album, and weren’t especially generous, and they did it before the actual album was sent out to anyone for review – only the single was in circulation. Maxim’s excuse? They kind of, erm, just made it up.
“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.”
What a wonderfully high falutin excuse for basically being lazy, lying publicity whores. Needless to say The Black Crowes are a bit miffed, but honestly – Maxim? Is anyone even mildly surprised that a sphincter-tighteningly pretentious shandy rag has sloppy, arrogant standards of journalism? If you are surprised, have you actually ever read Maxim? I know it’s tough to take your hand out of your trousers, look beyond the over-cooked pictures of empty, desperate slappers and actually read the shit, but have you? It is unbearably facile, lazy, smug, misogynistic, borderline xenophobic, playground garbage. I’d rather be caught on dogsandteens.com than with a copy of that shit on my coffee table.
Anyhow – two possible explanations I suppose. Firstly, the limp, self-righteous one above basically masquerading a case of laziness and a total absence of integrity. No surprise there then. Secondly, perhaps they downloaded an illegally leaked copy beforehand and felt that the legal connotations of admitting to that would be too dubious so they were left with so few options that was the best they could come up with.
Either way, I couldn’t really care less. The Black Crowes really are rubbish and I reckon Maxim, lazy as they were, were probably just about on the money: another album of turgid, derivative sludge was so inevitable you could bet your sister’s virginity on it with total confidence. That said, Maxim is such an awful little rag that it really is enjoyable to see them getting a big fat slap with the wet fish of comeuppance. Everybody wins, and I go to bed sniggering and happy.
Reminds of that reporter in Glasgow who wrote and published a fairly condescending review of a Meat Loaf gig she was too pickled to attend, only to find out after the fact that the gig was cancelled.
Paul Weller – Instant Karma
Smog – The Morning Paper
Billy Bragg – It Says Here
And, today, Nas came out with the same complaint as the BCs. Apparently his new album also got 2.5 stars, despite the fact that he’s still in the studio working on it.
Delicious.
Pre-emptive retaliation! Superb – get your kicks in first. Apparently Spiderman 5 is going to be shit. Anyone surprised?
Maxim’s a pretty awful mag, and these fake reviews really are a horrible crime in the world of music journalism, but if forced to offer them some sort of defense, I’d probably have guessed that the Black Crowes were worth a 2.5 as well.
Someone really bashed a canceled Meatloaf gig? Now that’s embarrassing.
Story of the Meatloaf gig makes me chuckle, it’s been doing the rounds for several years, the journalist in question wrote for NME and the Scotsman for some time,
I just loved the phrase “an educated guess preview”. So much better than “I made it up”. What a welcome addition to the English language. So useful for those awkward work moments.
As China points out, I bet you the review was 100% accurate though. My guess is that the marketing department insisted they cover the Black Crowes album, the music writer groaned because they’re shit, and just knocked out something generic he or she knew would be 98% likely to be on the money and handed it in.
I actually think the Meatloaf one is funnier, but this one has that wonderful double-edged nature that I can’t help but snigger at.
Yeah, but this does not diminish in the slightest the incontrovertible fact that Megan Fox is really effin’ hot.
BTW, just a heads up that your dogsandteens.com link doesn’t seem to be working. FYI.
(seriously, why do you even care what happens to or in Maxim?)
Care, no. But I did find it funny.
And Megan Fox is indeed somewhat attractive, although not doubt DC will be here any moment to tell us that she’s a minger, along with every other fit girl on the planet.
JC beats him to it……..
Megan Fox is a minger. She is a 2.5. At best.
You’ll have no dout realised that I have no idea what I’m talking about. I dont think I can recall seeing a picture of Megan Fox. If I did, it passed me by.
that reporter in the meatloaf episode? she must’ve had some enemies, coz someone at the paper should have fact-checked the fact that there was no concert! that’s rich.
I have to bow to the experts on this one. I moderated a heated panel extensive discussion last summer with my teenage son and his friends re. which Shia Labeof movie girlfriend was more unrealistically hot, Fox from Transformers or Sarah Roemer from Disturbia.
For my part, I spoke up for Roemer, but the panel consensus went with Fox. Case closed. Teenage hormones know best on such matters.
This reminds me, however, that I think my son reads Maxim regularly. I should ask him what he thinks of the whole fake music review controversy.
Okay – for all those sucked into the Dog Teens website trial: these guys own the domain http://www.whois.ws/whois-com/ip-address/dogsfuckteens.com/ and just aren’y DOING anything with it! Go figure. My favourite of their other domain names is Blackwaterteens.com – I’m thinking Hilary, Obama and Chelsea and maybe some lingerie. Hell, get the dogs along too.
Maxim is, I believe ,affiliated with Nuts. Actually, I don’t exercise my mind with Belief about anything to do with mens mags that dress up porn in giggly bum, tit and fanny suits but what the hey – I’m still glad to see them looking like they are on on a loser : http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91248-1305536,00.html.
Gents, go back to the Heff. Wear your sexuality with pride, jazz to a proper mag/the internet instead of reading flaccid semi porn. Its manipulative,advert rich, content poor, shite. Wank when you want to wank and don’t be sold shit while you are at it. Honestly, you go down this route you will end up like women (Why you have the Right to be Fat page 5-7, How to be a Size Zero page 8-, Giving your Man Good Head page 10-12, Taking Sexual Charge page 12-14, all interrupted by adverts to tell you what you should wear and look like). No wonder we are all schizo.
Maxim has clearly surrendered its right to pretend to even attempt to have worthwhile content. Yes, its nice to see that lass from Hollyoaks with her baps semi out and hair flying under a fan but those airbrushed baps are still covered and the reviews are made up.
Seriously, Playboy has tits out and better articles. How fucked up is the world when pornographers give the best editorial?
One point – Mrs. Toad.
Negative twelve points – Maxim and the bulk of America’s readers, apparently.
Good call!
It appears I do not have the monopoly on drunken rants on this site.
Well, you certainly don’t have a monopoly on should-be marketing slogans. Maxim’s got a winner in: “Maxim is, I believe ,affiliated with Nuts.”
It would pretty much peg the fuckwits for what they are.
I don’t believe I’ve ever been on a misogynistic, xenophobic playground. What’s it like?
I suspect that the practice of reviewing gigs/LPs without listening to them is fairly widespread. In one of Tony Parsons’ novels one of the characters does exactly that and you’d suspect that Parson of all people would know what goes on. On a lesser scale of laziness there was a time when reviews seemed only to mention the early songs on a record. I suspect that some people couldn’t be bothered to flip the vinyl over!
I’ve also some personal experience of this – a live review of a band I’m very fond of in a Scottish evening newspaper contained so many of my own words/opinions (from the web) with the rest apparently taken from a band interview that I’m convinced the guy concerned just didn’t bother to turn up. And it was a good points/bad points review. Sadly there were no setlist bloopers to prove my theory but the guy had phoned in advance to ask what they were playing! Journalists (particularly many young ones) are SOOO lazy … but clearly devious.
Well I too find myself writing reviews about albums I drift off for the second half of, and no matter how often I play them never seem to get past the first four songs. Journalism seems to be such a hierarchical industry that getting ahead seems to occupy people more than actually what they are doing. A lot, it has to be said, like the music industry.
I have yet to notice anyone ripping off my live reviews, but once you’d stripped out the bad language it would probably be unrecognisable anyway, and it would probably be harder work cleaning it up than it would be to just write the fucking thing yourself anyway!
You know those weird pump things that brain-wrong amateur interweb pornographers use (to create an airtight vacuum/suction around the wisp-free cameltoe minges of cash-strapped US college girls) in order to make the goods go all putridly uber puffy/bloated & blood vessel burstingly red/purple/black? i.e. the twot version of Pete Burns’ gob? That’s exactly what Megan Fox’s lips (on her mouth) look like. Real or botoxed, I wouldn’t want them anywhere near my goods.
I don’t want to appear overly picky, but she looks like any number of vacuous mannequins slagging about the likes of Charmed, or The OC or, Christ help us, Hollyoaks.
I wouldn’t say she’s a minger, just an obvious clothes horse for spunk.
Those pump things? What pump things? Christ, for all my filth I really am just incredibly innocent sometimes.
I file it as research when the boss wafts by.
Fucking pervert.
6 am in the morning and you lot are masterly debating whatever this is all about.
Get some sleep….
[...] from the Guardian). Whilst I may take issue myself with accusations of laziness, in light of the recent Black Crowes comedy, music journalists are not in the best position to be self-righteous about this at the [...]