THE NIN HOTLINE

Tuesday February 26, 2008

Music critics don't listen to music, music fans have terrible OCD

While we all wait for March 1 to go down and with it some subsequent revelation of something new at nin.com, I wanted to share a bit of humor in something our very own Cliff pointed out to me. So, apparently Maxim apologized to the Black Crowes for reviewing their new album without listening to it - apparently the reviewer heard one song, and gave the whole album two and a half stars, with a generic write-up. The funny bit here is how The Onion AV Club is for-shaming Maxim, when they've done practically the same thing. If you can convince me that The Good Soldier from Year Zero is 'a near-reprise of 1994's omnipresent MTV hit "Closer."', I might pretend that Aaron Burgess actually listened to the album that he slapped a B- on. (See, now we've covered both halves of my headline.)

I guess the real point here is that music critics like these guys are even less relevant in an era where you can typically find the music online before they get their promotional copy, with the chief difference between you and them being that you might actually listen to the music before forming an opinion, apparently.