Can there be anything more fundamentally disappointing than the slow and grittily dawning realisation that your favourite band's new album is crap?
You will have launched yourself at the case, put the CD into the nearest player and thrown yourself into the listening with gusto and enthusiasm, but only the most die-hard fan will allow their mania to disillusion them into believing that the objects of their affection are still good, that they've still got it.
Onto this cold and dusty plain dawns a misty light of realisation; that the other album or albums are all you have, and you have to go back to them now.
Do you know the feeling?
Readers blessed with either stamina or a high pain threshold might recall that a number of my website taglines last year came from the debut album of a band called Athlete; Vehicles and Animals. And god, don't I love that album.
I have listened to the follow-up, 'Tourist' about six times now, and that realisation has dawned on me. It's good, with more than a few of the sorts of touches that made me love their first album...but it's not that good.
And I feel so disappointed that instead of just saying 'Ho hum, that's that then', I want to BLAME somebody, I want to email the band with a stern "OI!".
Come ON, members of the band Athlete. You could clearly have done better. I mean, for starters, recording the album in New York. BIG mistake. You'll have had more distraction outside that studio than in, say, Skegness. Or Bognor. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about here.
You can't send your butler out for a packet of crisps.
I'll make no bones about it; I like a couple of the songs, but there are tunes on the album which wouldn't be out of place in the background at my local supermarket, and they regularly play that dirgey ballady song by Daniel Bedingfield, so that's no idle comparison.
I'm disappointed, Athlete, but I'll buy the next album if there is one. Y'know. Just in case. You could grow back.
Taking all of this in mind, I am now going off to trim six weeks' worth of beard growth, no doubt with shaking hands.
Brace yourselves for a disappointment.
Daniel B'dingfield has made it to the supermarkets of NY?! Not a bad a achievement, even if his music has gone distinctly Celine Dion recently.
the only things i know that make up for that are when you listen to a cd of someone you hate and it sucks, much like i did with 50 cents new album 'the massacre'
GARBAGE (with the exception of two songs)
If you cross your eyes and stare at the cover long enough, it starts to look like an upright vacuum cleaner.
Some people are so demanding.
I could have sworn there was one in there anyway, but now I come to look, there isn't.
Ah well.
See, more disappointment. For me, the mere suggestion of an upright dyson was enough.