Why I haven't bought a New Release in a while

So the Them Crooked Vultures album is now out, and as excited as I was about it's release, I still haven't bought it.  I've listened to most of it - we downloaded it at work via the magic of the Zune pass (which is the only way Zune manages to compete with iTunes, and kind of shameful, really, that Apple hasn't attempted to match it) and I found myself somewhat underwhelmed.  The thing is too, if they'd just sort of slipped it out there, it might not have been a disappointment, but the band hyped it - in a really astute, clever way, via facebook announcements of surprise shows and the like, but still - and so you end up realizing that there's maybe three or four good songs on there.  "New Fang" and "Scumbag Blues" are both terrific, but everything else is basically a jam.

I have to be honest, I wasn't ever really thinking of buying the album the day it was released (I still might get the album at some point - it's susceptible to impulse now, and we never know where that's going to go).  There are very few bands that people buy the albums the day they come out, and those are almost without fail your favorite bands.  Buying an album the day it comes out is something a band earns, over time, and the list is short.  For me, Radiohead, Spoon, the Shins, maybe Iron and Wine.  That's probably it.  Smashing Pumkins lost it a while ago.  Collective Soul used to be on the list, but for whatever reason they aren't anymore (I do have the new album though - Collective Soul isn't my number one band anymore, but I still own every studio album they've ever produced.)

It's a trust issue, really, is what it comes down to.  I remember when In Rainbows came out, and they'd announced that you'd be able to buy it online for whatever price you wanted, a guy on the radio (a real obnoxious one who not coincidentally is no longer on air) said that Radiohead fans would buy anything Radiohead put out.  Thom Yorke making noise on an oboe for an hour; anything.  I remember thinking at the time that it was true, to a degree - I can't think of a band with more fans who'd buy the new album, sight unseen - but that it wasn't the point.   Over seven albums, they've earned it now.  It's not so much that they're a known quantity, but I trust them not to put out crap.

I love Queens of the Stone Age, and was excited to hear they have a new album coming out.  Based on that, I'd probably have bought Them Crooked Vultures no questions asked.  But I heard some of the songs, and didn't fall in love with them, and I remembered that Dave Grohl was involved, and that Foo Fighters have not earned, for me, what QOTSA have earned.

This is why I find it hard to get excited about New Releases.  Vampire Weekend has a new album coming out, but I'm not jumping up and down because I know I'll approach it with trepidation, listen to one or two songs (I already do like "Horchata," though) and slowly make up my mind.  This is how I treat old albums that I'm just discovering - why should it be different with new albums?  I'm still not sold on Dirty Projectors.  I've bought half of The Idiot one song at a time (I just barely bought "China Girl").

Still, new Spoon in January.  That, I'm excited for.