There's been a recent trend in the music business that needs to be addressed.

Long-idle bands have been coming back and releasing albums, and it seems like it's all happening at the same time. Is there something about 2008 that made bands think, "It's time to dust off the leather pants?" Despite how appealing that sounds, the results were a mixed bag. Some bands that needed new albums finally delivered, while others made unwelcome reappearances reminiscent of villains in horror movie sequels.

For fans of some groups, the reunion trend is good news. The Verve, the Britpop band that released the smash "Bittersweet Symphony" and then promptly crumpled under the weight of the lawsuits that accompanied it, left plenty of unfinished business behind. It's taken 11 years for the group to try to deliver on the promise of Urban Hymns, but it needed to be done. The jury's still out on whether the album is worthy of its predecessor. If anything, at least the new album provided me with some assurance that the guys in the band weren't bankrupted and left homeless by their many legal battles, which is what I'd assumed when they dropped off the map.

It would have been better for a few other groups to leave music to the youngsters. New Kids on the Block comes to mind. This was a group that was in the right place at the right time. That is to say, the musical climate of the early '90s was what gave the Kids a chance to be relevant. So this year, when Donnie Wahlberg and company decided to give it another go with The Block, they ended up just sounding exactly like what they are: a mediocre boy band 20 years past its prime. The album was putrid. This is exhibit A in the argument for preventing one-shot throwaway groups from attempting to grab another 30 seconds in the spotlight.

Meanwhile, fans have been waiting for bands like Pink Floyd to reappear for as long as those bands have been gone. Why is New Kids on the Block allowed to release another album while Roger Waters and David Gilmour still feud? Some dream reunions did come to pass, though. The Police cashed in magnificently on years of anticipation this summer with a mega-successful tour, but Sting and company skimped on the new music. AC/DC and Metallica both have new albums coming out this fall, but neither band was technically broken up.

In closing, if Axl Rose was waiting for a sign from above, something that would let him know the time was right to release Chinese Democracy, maybe this is it. The album would fit in nicely with 2008's wave of new releases by old groups. The mythical album's release date has become something of a joke, akin to "when pigs fly": "Will Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Elvis Presley form the supergroup I've always wished for? Yeah, on the same day Chinese Democracy comes out." Even the album's title seems like a nod to its own unlikely release. But Axl, this might be your last chance. Who knows how soon this trend will end?

After all, no matter how bad it is, Chinese Democracy still has to be better than The Block.

-- Andrew