Because, come on, two and a half stars out of five for an album by The Black Crowes? That's a bit bloody generous by anyone's standards.

Anyway, now that The Black Crowes have kicked up an almighty stink about Maxim's fake Warpaint review, the magazine has been forced into issuing a humiliating apology that's bound to harm its readership. After all, how are horny teenage boys expected to wank themselves into a sticky mess over pictures of Megan Fox in a bikini now they know that a blues-oriented hard rock jam-band got given an invented but probably accurate review in a previous issue?

You might think that the average Maxim reader would be too busy scouring pictures of Eva Longoria in her knickers for traces of cameltoe to pay attention to any of the music reviews because, face it, what is a CD to the average Maxim reader if not a shiny, perfectly-round girlfriend with a sex hole in the middle?

Nevertheless, although Maxim readers couldn't give a stuff about its album reviews, the bands that make the albums obviously seem to. That was the case when The Black Crowes noticed that their new album Warpaint gained a mediocre two and a half out of five stars in the new issue of Maxim. Which was weird, since there were no advance copies of Warpaint around at the time.

Now, we know what you're thinking. You're thinking that this Black Crowes album is going to be as full of the same guffy old uninspired retrogressive Rolling Stones/ Lynyrd Skynyrd claptrap as the last Black Crowes album, and the one before that, and the one before that, and you're probably right.

But this didn't stop The Black Crowes from throwing a gigantic shitty tantrum about it until Maxim revealed that it hadn't actually heard the album all the way through and was merely making an 'educated guess' about it, even though anyone with the slightest amount of education would see that the Maxim review was about four stars kinder than it really had any right to be.

Still, Maxim has finally decided to properly apologise for the mix-up anyway, as BBC News reports:

Maxim editorial director James Kaminsky said in a statement: "It is Maxim's editorial policy to assign star ratings only to those albums that have been heard in their entirety. "Unfortunately, that policy was not followed in the March 2008 issue of our magazine and we apologise to our readers." A spokeswoman for the magazine refused to say if the journalist responsible would face disciplinary action.

As amateurish a mistake this was, at least it has forced some real change in the Maxim editorial department. For instance, when The Black Crowes release their next album, Maxim has decided to do the right thing and admit that it hasn't heard the album, reveal that it'd rather ram pounds of Anthrax down its cockhole with a splintery twig than ever actually listen to anything by The Black Crowes anyway and then quietly refer its readers to page 56 where they can see a lovely picture of Jessica Simpson's tits which is probably more their sort of thing anyway.

Read more:

Maxim 'sorry' over fake CD review – BBC

We were sceptical at first as the plate containing them slid under our half-ton steel door. They were piled in a sloppy pyramid next to green beans and some tough chicken. We pushed them around with our fork for a bit, then stabbed one to bring it up for a sniff. It smelled potato-ish, this was refreshing. Also, we individually spun a dozen of them on our right-pointy finger at the same time. This looked totally awesome. Then we used the tater tots to circumvent the in-house security system and knock out lots of guards until we gained our freedom.

Once outside the perimeters, we touched the sweet sweet tots to our lips and experienced a taste explosion unparallelled by any we'd ever experienced before. When we came to we realised this was because we'd coincidentally been tazed just then, but still. The tots were good, man.

Actually, none of that was true. We've never been to prison, and if we had we're sure we'd be permanently too scared to eat. Our potato review stands though, because you don't need to taste a tot to know it'd be delicious. It's kind of the way Maxim reviews albums apparently – without listening to them at all. It seems they did that to the Black Crowes just recently here.

Usually when any of the Black Crowes make a hecklerspray story it's because they're all dating Owen Wilson at the same time again or something. That happened once until the drummer wanted Wilson all to himself. Then there was talk of a band break-up and people started shooting up with liquefied pixie stix and stuff. It got ugly. Wilson made it really ugly.

We think that's how it went. We actually don't have specifics. This time, though, the band made it onto hecklerspray because they are about to release their first album in seven years – it's called Warpaint. The album has a song-by-song plot in which the protagonist keeps slicing open the chests of evil 1950s style red communist devils until justice is finally restored in track 12. It's actually pretty moving except #7 – that one's just an over-indulgent pile in which the main guy longs for his motherland. Gay.

We haven't heard it actually, but neither has Maxim magazine, who wrote a review of it any way. They gave it 2 1/2 stars out of five, and said:

"…it hasn’t left Chris Robinson and the gang much room for growth."

The problem there is actual review copies of the album haven't been issued by the band yet – they're all probably sitting in a pile on a desk at Black Crowe HQ. This can mean only three things – either the reviewer illegally downloaded a leaked copy, he's a future-seeing gypsy woman, or he hasn't even heard it but got paid for his review anyway. The band's manager stated he was told by the magazine the review was an 'educated guess.'

That sounds brilliant to us. Reviewing without knowing would make our jobs so much easier. For instance, Indiana Jones' crystal skull movie is pretty good until you realise that noise is actually Ford's bones creaking. Also, Tupac's next inevitable posthumous record is made of spliced cuts from a Shakur family 1981 Christmas video tape. At first the thrill of a young rapper opening presents is invigorating, but once you realise there's only like two rhymes for Legos… blah. And finally, in 2011 Kellogg's is gonna put out a honey-touched cereal flavoured solely by actual bee stings. It's pretty good if you like a closed throat.

2 1/2 stars on all accounts.

Read More:

The Black Crowes Slam Maxim On Album “Review” – Live Daily