Boy, what a week for vague and allusive journalism! A statement from stoner-scuzz rockers the Black Crowes suggests that Maxim’s two-and-a-half star rating for the band’s new album, “Warpaint,” in its March issue was based not on the band’s “slavish debt to the Stones, the Allmans and the Faces,” but on contributor David Peisner’s vivid imagination.

The band is crying shenanigans that because it hadn’t sent out advances of the album, the writer had no way of hearing it, and that Peisner instead hypothesized about what it might sound like. Which, given his wafflingly negative review (featuring non-starter jabs like “Now that they’re legitimately grizzled, they sound pretty much like they always have”), wasn’t all that great. That inventive approach to music criticism is, of course, completely not OK in even the most ethically elastic circles of New Journalism. Black Crowes manager Pete Angelus cites this, allegedly an email from Maxim, as the magazine’s explanation:

“‘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.’”

Now, every music critic has dealt with the Sophie’s Choice of overlooking an important record or basing a review on scant information, like a junket listening session where you get one pass at an album while label flacks glare at you from across the boardroom. This holds doubly true for long-lead magazines like Maxim, and sometimes it’s tough to tell which approach is worse: neglect a record that’s sure to be in the public conversation, or pass a less-than-fully-formed judgment? There may be a better reason for this than what Maxim is offering to the Associated Press, which breaks new ground in non-explanation explanations:

“Maxim will continue to provide our readers with information that is important to them, whether it is about fashion, lifestyle, technology, music, movies and more.”

As for us, we’re mostly confused by the specificity of the rating (what imaginary sonic quality earned them that extra half star in Peisner’s mind?) and saddened that we may not be able to trust Maxim’s profiles of buxom young actresses portraying “Murdered Sorority Sister #4″ in forthcoming Eli Roth films. And yet, there’s also the possibility that this might be some kind of back-room PR stunt to get people talking about a new Black Crowes album they wouldn’t ordinarily have considered. In that case, we tip our hats to you, Chris Robinson, as there’s no better way to attract the music media’s attention than to make your band the center of a music media scandal.

-August Brown

Photo by Burt Steel / Associated Press