A New Way to Evaluate Albums?

If great music is generally the product of emotional circumstances, should I be researching the personal lives of musicians ahead of their albums? Could the list of recent tenants at a Palm Springs rehab center be more instructive than the review of some pretentious alt-snob, who cares less about good music than he does his “street-cred” at the Sunset Strip tattoo parlor he frequents? I’m not saying that I’d only look for negative situations, yet I would argue that in most cases they do present the more emotional circumstance. I’d be nearly as interested in the rocker who’s had a baby and looks to take it down a notch for a gratifyingly sappy ballad. Then again, I’d avoid the album released just after the lead singer of my favorite band marries an empty vessel of a blonde pseudo-super-model. Buyer beware. Give me an album from the guy who needs to be propped up in the studio with a broom handle and duct-tape, or even the guy who's on the verge of stabbing himself through the heart outside his girlfriend's apartment (rock on Elliott Smith).

I’d love to graph the results of a rigorous study of this theory, but I’m sure I’m too lazy to read through all that crap in Rolling Stone, err, Variety, err, People.