Maxim Faces the Music

Last week, it emerged that Maxim had made the rather curious decision of awarding the new Black Crowes album, Warpaint, a mediocre two-and-a-half stars out of five in its March issue—despite the fact that the reviewer had heard only one song from the album. (The Crowes' label hadn't made advance copies of the album available for review, which means it probably does suck, but that's not the point!) An editor at the magazine responded by making the even more curious claim that, while the magazine of course prefers to hear music before casting judgment on it, "an educated guess" is acceptable when this is not possible. An editor higher on the magazine's masthead is now admitting otherwise.