Maxim Reviews Black Crowes Album Without Listening To It: In the March issue of Maxim, David Peisner reviewed the new Black Crowes record, “Warpaint”, giving it a two and a half stars.

“The Black Crowes’ label didn’t make advance copies of the album available for review, so they were surprised when they saw Maxim’s turn up”. When they contacted the magazine, they say an editor emailed them:

‘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.’

Imagine reviewing a video game without playing it! This is one of many reasons why magazine reviews have become irrelevant.

SXSW Torrent: A torrent has been created for every artist playing at SXSW 2008 that can be found here. There is one MP3 file from 764 different artists which is almost 3.5 GB of new free music.

Nickelback Holds the Cards: Though Nickelback has three albums left on its contract with Warner subsidiary Roadrunner Records, sources say the band is looking to use its multi-platinum success as leverage for a new deal. “Insiders say EMI, SonyBMG and Universal Music have all reached out to gauge Nickelback’s interest in leaving Roadrunner”.

Last.Fm Enjoys Traffic Increase: Full-length streams has boosted Last.fm traffic which resulted in 59 percent surge in unique visitors, and a 58 percent increase in total pageviews over the past month. Ok, so you have more people in one room — now what? People can now stream full length songs — now what?

Artist Updates: If you were unable to get into Magic Bullets’ sold out Seattle and San Francisco shows, or if you couldn’t catch them on their co-headline tour with The Blakes, make sure you don’t miss them on February 28th supporting MTV’s Human Giant at San Francisco’s Mezzanine as part of the celebrated Noise Pop festival. Check out their single, Red Room, which has been getting spins throughout California. Contact Rob Wells or Chris Castle for more information.

Recommended Listening:

Kill the Lights by The Jakes

I’m Not Over by Carolina Liar