Nas Is The Latest Artist To Feel The 2 1/2-Star Sting Of <em>Maxim</em>’s “Educated-Guess Previews”

After being caught reviewing the new Black Crowes album without reviewer David Peisner actually possessing a copy of said album and claiming the bogus critique as an “educated-guess preview,” Maxim has gone one better and awarded another mediocre review to an album that doesn’t actually exist yet. Last we heard, Nas’ Title That Certain Bloggers Take Great Delight In Printing Whenever Possible had been delayed until late spring. Turns out the rapper has possibly yet to even deliver the tapes to Def Jam; Nas tells the New York Post that he’s “finishing the album now” and talking up a new April 22 release date. Perhaps in deference to those long magazine lead times, the educated guessers at Maxim went ahead and gave Nas’ unfinished album 2 1/2 circles (out of a perfect five). That’s the same score that so incensed the Crowes, but Nas is much more sanguine about the whole affair.

Maxim has since apologized for the premature review, but Nas doesn’t care. “I’d prefer [a review from] Playboy,” the rapper said. “That kind of stuff doesn’t reach my radar or effect anybody around me. I don’t know what a music rating from Maxim is . . . I don’t know what it even means really.”

So wait, he’s not worried about a 75-ish word blurb-icle in a glossy spank rag deterring its flighty readership from picking up an album from an artist with a compact but committed fanbase, an album that will likely be reviewed in somewhat greater depth closer to its actual release date by publications with an actual connection to that artist’s culture and at least the appearance of an interest in music that goes beyond back-of-book space-filler? But if that half-filled circle had been fully filled it might have easily sent two or three more people to iTunes to buy an unfinished album!

JumpingThe Gun [NY Post]