Our players :
The Black Crowes, a southern rock band who are famous for 2 amazing records and a slew that followed of diminishing quality.
Maxim, the tits and ass magazine you look at in the airport magazine rack that’s full of instructional articles on how to maintain your lifestyle as a douchebag.

The Crowes have a new LP coming out, which is heralded as “a return to form.” Maxim ran a review of the album, giving it 2.5 stars.

The reason for the hubbub is that no one from Maxim has heard the album.

Here’s my .02….

If you are in the business of hype… fabricating emotion from ether, don’t be surprised when it backfires.

There is a lot of hype about the new Crowes album. I’ve heard all about a “return to form,” comparisons to The Southern Harmony and “the sonic majesty” or some other shit. I like the Crowes, I find their first 2 albums the be amazingly good… their second to be one of the better albums of the 90s, but like anything, I’m leery when I see so much bullshit built up over something that’s doesn’t exist yet.

Maxim wrote a review based on a combination of a few things : Response to massive hype, the Crowes reputation, and the quality of their last 3-5 albums which were also surrounded by the same type of hype.

Fair? Not at all, but if the Crowes PR can tell me it’s the best album they’ve ever released, why can’t a rag like Maxim tell me it’s just not that good with the same amount of credibility?