Scandal update! Maxim apologizes to the Black Crowes, offers rare Eliza Dushku prints in penance

In the first recorded instance of tact in its publishing history, Maxim has officially apologized to the Black Crowes for making up a bunch of stuff about what their album might have sounded like if they'd heard it. Says Maxim editorial director James Kaminsky in a statement released today:

"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 apologize to our readers."

Yes, Rihanna's enlistment of synthy post-punks Klaxons as her backing band for her performance of "Umbrella" on last night's Brit Awards is blood in the water for music bloggers. But the pairing makes a bit more sense than, say, Fergie and John Legend, as Klaxons' biggest single was essentially cyborg girl-group pop, and Rihanna's been inching ever closer to Kylie-land house cuts. There's a long history of dance music traversing from England to the Caribbean and vice versa, so this set isn't the disaster it might have been if this were, like, Kings of Leon or another one of those bands that only Brits seem to understand. That said, if anybody in the live audience needed Lasik surgery in the near future, they can probably go ahead and cancel that appointment now.
--August Brown

One of the best mixtapes I ever received was from an old music-critic mentor (Hey there, Nick Marino of Paste Magazine), who in a gesture of massive inappropriateness, genius or some combination of the two, put the Moldy Peaches' "Who's Got the Crack" (essentially, the K Records version of any song by Young Jeezy) in a compilation doubling as his Christmas card. A half-decade and an onscreen Ellen Page/Michael Cera cover later, that band's Kimya Dawson finds her work nestled between Garth Brooks and Colbie Caillat at No. 8 on the Billboard charts for her eight contributions to the "Juno" soundtrack as a solo artist, Moldy Peach and as a member of Antsy Pants. The soundtrack sold 38,000 copies last week, nearly all digital, as the physical release only hit shelves Tuesday. Like the film's title character, Dawson is the recent mom to a fabulously named daughter (Panda Delilah!) which, given Pitchfork's inexplicable adoration of "Person Pitch," seems to make pandas the new wolves and babies the new Italo-disco in indie circles.

-- August Brown

[Photo: Kimya Dawson. Credit: Natalie Gruppuso.]

You can stand under my epilepsy-inducing laser show

Yes, Rihanna's enlistment of synthy post-punks Klaxons as her backing band for her performance of "Umbrella" on last night's Brit Awards is blood in the water for music bloggers. But the pairing makes a bit more sense than, say, Fergie and John Legend, as Klaxons' biggest single was essentially cyborg girl-group pop, and Rihanna's been inching ever closer to Kylie-land house cuts. There's a long history of dance music traversing from England to the Caribbean and vice versa, so this set isn't the disaster it might have been if this were, like, Kings of Leon or another one of those bands that only Brits seem to understand. That said, if anybody in the live audience needed Lasik surgery in the near future, they can probably go ahead and cancel that appointment now.
--August Brown

One of the best mixtapes I ever received was from an old music-critic mentor (Hey there, Nick Marino of Paste Magazine), who in a gesture of massive inappropriateness, genius or some combination of the two, put the Moldy Peaches' "Who's Got the Crack" (essentially, the K Records version of any song by Young Jeezy) in a compilation doubling as his Christmas card. A half-decade and an onscreen Ellen Page/Michael Cera cover later, that band's Kimya Dawson finds her work nestled between Garth Brooks and Colbie Caillat at No. 8 on the Billboard charts for her eight contributions to the "Juno" soundtrack as a solo artist, Moldy Peach and as a member of Antsy Pants. The soundtrack sold 38,000 copies last week, nearly all digital, as the physical release only hit shelves Tuesday. Like the film's title character, Dawson is the recent mom to a fabulously named daughter (Panda Delilah!) which, given Pitchfork's inexplicable adoration of "Person Pitch," seems to make pandas the new wolves and babies the new Italo-disco in indie circles.

-- August Brown

[Photo: Kimya Dawson. Credit: Natalie Gruppuso.]

Kimya Dawson essentially has the No. 8 album in the country

One of the best mixtapes I ever received was from an old music-critic mentor (Hey there, Nick Marino of Paste Magazine), who in a gesture of massive inappropriateness, genius or some combination of the two, put the Moldy Peaches' "Who's Got the Crack" (essentially, the K Records version of any song by Young Jeezy) in a compilation doubling as his Christmas card. A half-decade and an onscreen Ellen Page/Michael Cera cover later, that band's Kimya Dawson finds her work nestled between Garth Brooks and Colbie Caillat at No. 8 on the Billboard charts for her eight contributions to the "Juno" soundtrack as a solo artist, Moldy Peach and as a member of Antsy Pants. The soundtrack sold 38,000 copies last week, nearly all digital, as the physical release only hit shelves Tuesday. Like the film's title character, Dawson is the recent mom to a fabulously named daughter (Panda Delilah!) which, given Pitchfork's inexplicable adoration of "Person Pitch," seems to make pandas the new wolves and babies the new Italo-disco in indie circles.

-- August Brown

[Photo: Kimya Dawson. Credit: Natalie Gruppuso.]