I have an app on my Mac, 'Release Reminder' which you can fill with a list of your favourite artists. Every now and then you can start it up and it spews out a list of new (and re)releases by those artists. Which is very useful.
There's very few artists that I will go out and buy brand new albums from. In the rock/pop world it's Stina and probably Anja Garbarek. For the rest, even people I really like, I'd rather check their latest out first, which is easy nowadays with Spotify etc.
I tend to find an artist I like and then try and get hold of their back catalogue. I don't really give a toss about following fashions.
The only one I'm really looking forward to is MutyaKeishaSiobhan. I tend to pick up older albums cheap now, there's not a lot in the current rock/pop music world that interests me at all. I'll always check out new stuff by old favourites like Radiohead, Polly Harvey, Bjork, but even they've somewhat lost me with their last records.
Ice, you were the one most tender with the rivers.
You, the roof of the waves, layer after layer after layer ...