Just what is PWKPW?

What I ponder today is if I would be so lenient with an artist that I didn't know the previous work of. For instance, among my first CDs was the REM's Monster, which I purchased shortly after it was released. This was a great, rocking album, but not particularly like most of their other work either before or after. That album led me to explore their earlier work, which I appreciated for its carefully introspective quality and well-crafted songs. I even felt like I understood their follow-up album (New Adventures in Hi-Fi), although many critics didn't. From there, however, my relationship with them has gone downhill. Up left me feeling down, and Reveal seemed to have nothing hiding behind the synth-drum drone... and yet still I own both albums. That said, I may someday revisit these albums and discover they're much better than I currently give them credit for... but at the moment they remain on my shelf more as a testament to my appreciation for REM's amazing earlier work.

There are any number of artists who, to paraphrase The Who, "get old before they die" and continue putting out music long after they should have stopped. Often there is a monumental event that any fan (or former fan) can point to as the end of the "good era" - the artist sobers up, has a child, "goes commercial", a member leaves the band, someone dies, etc. For any one band there might be a few of these instances - Pink Floyd alone can probably fit into most of these, sometimes more than once.

The question is, when do you stop buying new albums by an artist that no longer fits your musical tastes? Do you give them a mulligan and forgive a few lousy albums, even if they keep putting out what you consider slop? At what point do you decide that their past brilliance and your appreciation of that past brilliance has run out? Similarly, since your tastes are probably changing as much as your favorite artists' styles are evolving, at what point do you break up with a formerly favorite band that just doesn't "do it" for you any more?

That is where PWKPW comes in. The question being asked here, is if I knew nothing of this band and heard their music for the first time with this shiny new album, would I have purchased it? In my case, I certainly would have purchased New Adventures in Hi-Fi. I probably would not have purchased Reveal, but knowing REM's history and my appreciation of them, I can't picture my music collection as complete without it.

There's obviously a sibling to PWKPW here - Purchase If Bought New Today. This would be looking at my past music purchases (Monster, for instance) and take the evolution of my musical tastes into account, and decide if I would make the same choice to buy an album today. This category of musical review is much less likely to appear on the site since reviewing old music isn't very common, but perhaps that's a niche that needs more exploration. First impressions certainly aren't everything in opinion, even if it's what you generally are stuck reading.

So looking back at Reveal and Monster, will I feel the same way about them next year? Will I feel the same way about future work by REM? Will I buy another new REM album? We'll have to see when the time comes.