This is the rob blatt blog.

Background info is to be found in the previous post to this one.

I was thinking about the situation between the band and the magazine from the point of view of the magazine today and came to a conclusion that I’m not sure I like. By reviewing the CD that they never heard, Maxim could be making a very dramatic statement to other bands releasing discs that are deemed important. Check out the statement from the magazine:

‘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.’”

Can you read the subtext in that statement? Give us your CDs or we will review them anyway. For the musicians, this means including Maxim in their future review copy lists or they risk having their CD unfairly reviewed based on their career, which might not be a good thing.

I have a feeling this is the last we’ll hear of Maxim’s music reviews for a long, long time. Not because they’ve learned their lesson publicly, but because it’s music reviews in MAXIM fer christsake…