Smashing Pumpkins – Zeitgeist

Having waited for this album for so long, I find it completely necessary to give it a thorough review, no more, no less. I’m not going to meander for set amount of long winded paragraphs or give it just two cents and leave it be. I remember looking at the website that was billycorgan.com for so long, when it was just a shriveled remnant of what was left of the artistic endeavors of our said celebrity himself. And then I remember reading the add in the newspaper straight from Billy Corgan, about reforming the band. This excited me on many levels. Possibly my favorite band reuniting, with the hopes of a new album and tour? Wonderful. I joked to myself, that I would be sitting by my computer monitor for years, as the seasons reeled outside my window. What is most unfortunate is that this actually happened. I figured it would be worth it in the end, to finally hear this album. What severely disappointed me was the absence of James Iha and D’arcy Wretsky in the group, who were replaced by…I don’t know, faceless pawns. I still held onto some hope that this album would truly be good in the end and justify all the pain and anxiety that preceded it.

Alas, my friends, I am at the pinnacle of disappointment. While this album should have kicked ass to hell and back, it just doesn’t cut it. The clues all add up. The fact that James and D’arcy are gone were the death spell, for sure, and this album has none of the spirit that the original lineup had. It proves that Billy and Jimmy are not all that is required to be the Smashing Pumpkins, and only half of the puzzle just doesn’t cut it. Another discouraging clue was the album cover, which is just as cheesy as most of the music has ended up being. Which is the albums problem. About half of it sucks horribly because it tries to be revelatory and meaningful. Not that previous Pumpkins albums weren’t, but none of them preached anything. Personal sentimental value came with the previous albums, and this is packaged with nothing but poor production. It just doesn’t sound right. The guitars are too buzzed over, and in no way beautiful like they used to be. And Billy’s voice sounds almost timid despite the fact that he is screaming. This is a generic album. Freeze-dried. And it feels just about as personal as The Future Embrace. And we all know how…goddamn impersonal that album was.

I don’t want to make it sound like this album does nothing right. To be fair, the first five songs are killer. Tarantula is a decent single, but unfortunately the weakest out of the albums good songs. In any case, it was probably worth it just for the awesome timing of the cover of the single, which is a scantily dressed Paris Hilton. You all know what happened a couple of weeks ago. It was pretty much the most ridiculous situation our fair nation has seen. Paris Hilton gets let out of jail for a day and you would have thought that some building blew up or the president was shot at. What felt like every channel on TV had faint blurred photos of Paris Hilton and rumors abash the screen. Paris Hilton is not a national crisis. This is probably part of what Zeitgeist is trying to say. Something about how impersonal our nation is, or has been since 9/11, or maybe just how downright ridiculous the country is now, or at least the people in it. The day that Mudhoney got political, people thought the world was going to spiral out into the endless abyss, but they had no idea that someday, for gods sake, the Smashing Pumpkins would get political. In any case, the first five songs are great. 7 Shades of Black is a great, almost dirty metal riff-fest, and a personal favorite. The rest are all more than great and probably could have stood as singles. But everything from track six onward is, in a word, cheesy. Billy Corgan seems to have forgotten that on his last release, he had a song that unnecessarily ended with a “z.” Starz is not the only song that has a dull and generic hook that just doesn’t really stand tall at all. Even the albums attempt at an SMP epic is flubbed pretty badly with United States. The rest are simply not worth mentioning. Except maybe for Neverlost and one other one, maybe. It’s a bad, horribly shaky album.

For those of you who skipped to this last paragraph to see how I felt about the album in short, the bottom line is, Billy Corgan has lost his edge. It makes sense though. When I think about it, the Pumpkins albums have actually gotten progressively worse through time, the only exception being Machina II which was probably better than Machina. Which really means nothing considering the first four were all so utterly fantastic that they could only be chosen between from personal preference. Using the word “worse” in their wake is a bit of a crime. Machina is the only one that stuck out like a sore thumb, because it was marginally worse than it’s predecessors. To put it plainly, when you listen to Zeitgeist, you will start to realize how great Machina is. And I mean that, sincerely. I can’t stress enough how good the first five songs are. But they really just played their best cards first. Everything else is graced only by scattered quality. The theme is tired. It’s poorly produced. It’s really only worth it to fans. Insert witty aphorism here.

Smashing Pumpkins – Adore

For my fourteenth birthday, I recieved two gifts from one of my best friends. One was a specially ordered bag of my favorite flavors of jelly-bellys; peach, green apple, and blueberry. The other was this album. I have fond memories of sitting on the floor of my room, leaning against my dresser, gorging myself with jelly bellies, and staring at my stereo, trying to come to grips with Adore. It’s not an easy album, that’s for sure. There is a reason that this didn’t sell. Maybe not a good reason, but a reason nonetheless. And it’s true, the album sold very shitty, and yet when you ask a rabid Smashing Pumpkins fan which of the bands albums they hold most dear to them to this day, a good chunk of them will tell you that Adore is that album. Which is actually very strange when you think about it, considering the grandiose of the bands previous albums. The truth of the matter is, no fans or even casual listeners were expecting anything remotely close to this. So it caught them off guard, and they flipped a shit. They called it gothic techno bullshit and then that was over, the Pumpkins were “going downhill.” And yet now so many years later you would be hard pressed to find a fan that doesn’t, well, adore this record.

The album even starts out with a song that fans would probably be a bit jarred by. It’s quiet guitars and steady non-intrusive beat build a sweet melody up into a pretty tune, and consequently disassemble it progressively. While this is not a strong structure that fans could really be THAT disturbed by, by that point it was the most vulnerable song that the band had written, and it would have most likely made a listener who was expecting something in particular feel confused. And at that, they would feel even more confused when the pulsating sexual bass kicks in after the warped synth beats in Ava Adore. While this is a song that the openminded listener could understand, you have to understand how weird this was at first listen. Most fans found this a disturbing shift to electronica. After all, the band had started to use the instrument that had helped the band almost ten years prior to this, the drum machine. And because of this previous experience, they actually know how to use one. Ava Adore is something that fans of the earlier albums can understand but maybe not completely appreciate.

To appreciate this album, it helps to understand the circumstances under which it was crafted. The band had just gotten done harvesting the fruits of their third album, Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, and had secured their position in the rock history books. Their first album, Gish, showed an artier more dream-pop side, while Siamese Dream is a one two arena-rock anthem punch to the face, decidedly a crowd pleaser and a stray from pretentious art-rock, so says Billy Corgan. Mellon Collie is a massive two disk smorgesborg outlining pretty much every other aspect of the band that listeners were begging for. It delivered with flying colors after an anticipated wait, and although people may call Billy a dick for deeming it “The Wall of the nineties,” that’s exactly what it is as far as popularity goes. During the touring of Mellon Collie, the bands touring keyboardist died of a drug overdose while getting high with drummer Jimmy Chamberlain. Jimmy was promptly fired, and the tour was finished with replacements. Tensions rose between the remaining band members… D’arcy Wretsky and James Iha founded Scratchie Records (which is still around and kicking today) and Billy Corgan speaks of the bands stress and turmoil during this period. Billy’s mother also died, and his wife divorced him. Make no mistake, this was a very painful time for the band. Even though the record sold abysmally, the fans still ate it up, and the band finally proved that there was, in fact, no need to prove anything else. Playing the roles of rock troubadours, the band embarked on a massive world tour, dressed in gothic clothes and makeup, playing gigs in, as you will hear as legend by any commentator, extremely strange places. Namely, the back of a truck, an art museum, and other such small venues.

By this point in the bands history, it would have been absurd not to create a record of this stature. To be sure, this is the Pumpkins most open album yet. You can see D’arcy’s tits in the liner notes, for christs sake. You can hear the fighting, the grief, and the turmoil in the music. And yet most of the music is serene while it is painful and sad. This was really the first album where the Pumpkins did not care one bit about image or mainstream appeal, and it just happens to be the depressing one. Once again, there are great similarities to the bands previous work. The song Perfect would strike listeners as familiar, holding many similarities to 1979 in instrumentation and mood.

One thing I really feel that I must mention is what some people think of as an “ego problem” that Billy Corgan possesses. People seem to forget that frontmen have a duty to put themselves in the forefront and be the star of the show, and when there isn’t a party-crazy drummer or a wild guitarist, who else would you give the spotlight to but the main songwriter? Really, the man doesn’t have as big of an ego as some would like to think. It is a tad overinflated, but not dangerously or disturbingly so. For that reason, the music video for Ava Adore probably features more of the rest of the band than many of there other videos, even if it has Billy out in front for most of the entire thing. There was clearly an emphasis on the fact that a member of the band was gone. Many of the songs have a very light, airy atmosphere, but this is still the work of a band in any case. There is not so much an emphasis on the individual so much as there is on the songs, save maybe To Sheila and For Martha. If there is one album where stress does not get in the way, it’s Adore. The stress affects the music, and you can really feel it, but it doesn’t get in the way, at all.

To name highlights of this album is a bit silly, and choosing favorites is extremely difficult. The singles, Ava Adore and Perfect, will be the songs that fans of the previous albums will like. There are some quieter more story-based pieces as well, namely The Tale of Dusty And Pistol Pete and Once Upon A Time, both of which flutter with airy beauty. There are some fast more electronic based pieces too, Appels + Oranjes and Daphne Descends. The standout track to me, personally, is also the most distinct and individual on the album. Pug is the most seductive and sexual song the band ever (or “has ever,” if you will) made, and it oozes fantastic guitars and a killer beat. The album also has an epic that fans will love, For Martha, near the end of the album. The end of the album. It’s fantastic, and it will even knock the most prepared person off of their feet. The home stretch of the last three or four songs is something that really needs to be heard to understood, and Adore leaves on a better (albeit sadder) note than any of the bands other albums. Weak songs are few and far between… In my opinion, there is only one, and it’s not even really bad enough to be worth mentioning or anything. Don’t worry about it.

This is not an easy album. You probably will not like it at first. But the more you try to wrap your head around it, the more it opens up and presents itself as being just as beautiful as any of the bands prior work. If you won’t take anything less than a Mellon Collie killer or an album full of anthems, you may be a tad disappointed, but please do not let this one slip though your fingers. In short, it is the album you hate to love. No matter how much you will try to stray yourself away from it, you will surely come back to it. Unfortunately, Billy Corgan says it like it is in Daphne Descends when he whispers “You can’t resist.” The more you put into this album, the more you will get out of it and the more great it will be, just as great as many of the Smashing Pumpkins other essentials, even if it takes a fuck of a lot of jelly-bellies.

Smashing Pumpkins – Machina II

Considering the Pumpkins could have damn well just charged us for their last album, or even not have released anything, there is really no reason to complain about the bands final release, Machina II. It would be a bit inappropriate to call it an album though. As far as hard copies go, Machina II is actually a series of four vinyl albums released in extremely low number. Originally, the copies were given to only close personal friends of the band, but after a little thinking, the band simply decided to give all of the tracks away free on the internet, I believe at first on the website of the Metro, where the band played their final show (unless I’m hallucinating. If I am, let me know), and file-sharing was encouraged. The remnants of the band (really everyone except D’arcy) toured with the material on the vinyl, and I guess the rest was history. As far as style goes, the band has only changed so much since the Machina/The Machines of God era, but what modifications to style have been made are only good. The organization may be a little shakey, but hell, considering it didn’t cost fans a dime and the material is great, this was more than a proper send-off for the pumpkins.

First off, don’t even think about acquiring any of the original vinyl. Very few were made, and those that were made are now collectors items. If you are going to acquire this material, it will almost certainly be off of the internet. BUT DONT FRET! I’m not trying to encourage file sharing. But if the band was nice enough to let it circulate freely on the internet, there really isn’t much more that could be said against this kind of acquisition. The problem is, though, when there isn’t much of an official release to go off of, sound quality can get to be an issue. The first issue of the music on the internet was sped up a bit, which isn’t good, and then there are places where the sound quality isn’t as good, etc. I won’t refer you to anywhere, but do some research before you make a download. It will save you some grief.

At any rate, the music comprises of three EPs and one LP. Although most of the material is original, there are some alternate versions thrown in, bonuses or scraps, if you will, which are of course appreciated by the fact that they come from the band alone, and no less for free (and who doesn’t like free songs?). The remixes are mostly disposable though, and only the alternate version of Heres To The Atom Bomb that closes the LP is really great. It’s an interesting way to finish off the bands final release. In a way, it is an appropriately emotional and special track, but not sad by any means. More curious than anything, the track ends on more of a warm note, like there is still more to come. Like a coda, in a way, referring back to everything else. But beyond that, the other remixes and alternate versions of Machina/The Machines of God songs are tracks that even hardcore fans will only listen to a few times.

It could be said that the new material is a fair bit more raw. It’s pretty goddam obvious that Machina/The Machines of God was the bands worst album. It had a fair amount of great songs, but at the same time it faltered due to it’s gothic tinge and wave of self-importance. Machina II keeps the sophistication of the sound and changes the songwriting, keeping the tunes more warm and beautiful rather than tragic and stressed. You can now hear washes of electronic metallic guitar drenching the songs in beauty, but not in any pervasive way. Unless, of course, you don’t crank this at high volumes. If you don’t, the vocals seem a bit drowned. But when you are a band that isn’t under contract, production may be a bit of an issue. Which isn’t to say the production is even bad, but simply not up to par with the bands other work. It would be unfair to not note that most of these songs are almost built for nighttime, in an urban setting too, because it seems pretty stressed from some of the later tracks that this album is an embracement of urban culture.

There are some short rockers, which provide the steel edge needed to get the listeners adrenaline flowing. The strangely named Cash Car Star is the band simply making a punk/metal song with more attitude than morose detailing or anything that grasped The Everlasting Gaze. Glass Theme is almost fun. No, it IS fun. It’s totally got a punk rock attitude, and it completely sheds the pained attitude and lyrics for a more playful and hard hitting theme, as exemplified by the lyric “I’ll be by the pool,” and “Everybody knows I’m fast/I’m fast.” And then there is the explosive rendition of Jame’s Brown’s ‘Soul Power’ which damn well might knock listeners of their seats in order to make them rock out. These three tracks almost pose as landmarks on the album. They are all fast, fun, and completely drenched in adrenaline.

But all of the tracks on this album, like the album itself, are surprising treats. James Iha even has one of his numbers included, the sparkling and endlessly beautiful Go. It might just be the best thing that Iha has contributed to the bands body of work, which is truly saying something because The Boy is damn well a top ten track. Then there are other little bits and pieces like the interesting synth bit Le Deux Machina and alternate versions of Cash Car Star and Glass Theme. But the truth of the matter is, the album holds many of the bands finest moments in original material. Vanity could be easily considered one of the bands best, and Real Love, also included on the bands Greatest Hits compilation, is a true knockout, almost screaming single at the top of it’s lungs. Real Love would have been a perfect closing track, but that would just be too depressing and if there is one thing that the Pumpkins don’t want to do with this album, it’s depress the listener. The first Machina got all the sappy stuff out of the way; this is an ass kicker with a lot to say.

Most everything here is able to be appreciated. You just have to work at it sometimes. White Spyder is an example of taking production a tad too far… The melody and chords are completely drowned in a metallic fuzz, and this could have easily been toned down for a greater effect. Inossence is almost discouragingly simple, and needs to be given second and third chances to truly understand. But for every fault there are twice as many victories. The pretty Let Me Give My World To You is a true winner, as is Saturnine and Slow Dawn. The majority of the album is spent in lazy but appreciable soaring songs as opposed to the pained struggle of the collections predecessor.

I could really go on about this, but to be honest, it’s not necessary. Theres no reason to not have this ‘album,’ especially if you are a fan. But this isn’t something to introduce to a new listener, as it is very much the tail end of the bands career and not exactly an easy intro. But it keeps on growing on you. It’s damn well better than Machina/The Machines of God, and just as good as the likes of Gish or Pisces Iscariot (albeit in a completely different and almost uncomparable way). The songs say everything that the first Machina was sort of nudging at, but that album almost seemed like a task, and a bit forced into the direction of a ’sendoff’ album. These songs, however, are fun and happy more often than not, and if you can look at this as ‘Machina II’ and not just ‘the Pumpkins last album,’ then suddenly the mood is much more to be heard. And as if this wasn’t enough, it’s free. What are you waiting for?

Smashing Pumpkins – Bullet With Butterfly Wings (EP)/Zero (EP)

There are few bands that I have seen that have more B-Sides than Smashing Pumpkins. It’s actually kind of ridiculous. The band actually only made one b-sides collection, and that was released right before Siamese Dream and was named Pisces Iscariot. For the record, the band also has a lot of really really good b-sides. During the span of the Mellon Collie era, the band released quite a few EP-single thinies. I’m pretty sure there were five. If I’m right and there were five, I think they were for Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Zero, Tonight Tonight, 1979, and Thirty Three. I could only grab a few through the library, but what I got I was very pleased with. I have to say, for one of my favorite bands, despite the fact that fans have a reason to be angry about the silence as of late, they can surely be satisfied by such a huge amount of songs that float around on EPs, Singles, bootlegs, etc. The band almost invites people to become obsessed, because there is so much to be obsessed about.

The Bullet EP is pretty good, if nothing else because it captures the band in all sorts of different states. More than half the disk is covers, which is kind of cool, because the band doesn’t actually do a whole lot of covering elsewhere. But yeah, the title track is obviously golden. A real classic of radio, and probably the bands most popular song. …Said Sadly is also a really good song, and was actually written by James Iha, the bands guitar player (well, along with Billy Corgan). He has always sort of been my favorite pumpkin, for some reason. Yeah, Billy is always up there writing stuff and singing and playing guitar, but once and a while you get a knockout almost folky or country performance from James. I have Let It Come Down, his solo album, and it’s really good. I might do a review on that later. It’s just that good. Anyway, this is a duo with some girl. Doesn’t really matter who she is. This might have faired better on Mellon Collie than Take Me Down. It would be a better transition into the next disk, I’m sure of that. It’s a beautiful song, but hey, most of the stuff he writes is good. Just very calm and country-ish. I have to admit, it’s sort of a guilty pleasure to listen to this kind of song, but I can’t help but grin when I hear it.

Clones (We’re All) is a happy cover, maybe the best on this disk. It plugs along at a very happy pace and features a lot of the signature guitar effects of the band, with this little quick chords in the background. Billys voice is in really good shape here, and I think that’s great. I mean, I can see why this was left off of Mellon Collie, because it is just kind of built like a b-side is ususally built, but it’s still just so good. That’s the kind of thing that I mentioned before about SMP. They have such a vast number of b-sides and outtakes and live stuff that it’s hard to keep track of. Some of the best b-sides aren’t even on EPs or singles. But this one is very good. A Night Like This has James on vocals again. It’s okay, it’s kind of got a quiet more minor thing going on. And I really admire the drum part here for some reason. The drums are always so essential in SMP tunes, even if they are simple.

Destination Unknown is a very electronic song. It kind of progresses in the same way that Clones does. I like it, but not really that much. It gets weird later on. And Dreaming is very very good. It has both D’arcy and Billy on vocals. I kind of like D’arcys voice. The lesser known knockout track on Gish was Daydream which also had her voice, and that was just fabulous. This is sort of a trance inducing electronic song, and I like it a lot.

The Zero EP is pretty good too. Of course the title track is phoenomenal, probably my favorite SMP song ever. Billy Corgans sneering voice works perfectly to make this the most grindingly tough song the band has ever made in my opinion, and even makes the song a little sensual, if you can believe it. But no one would ever buy a Smashing Pumpkins EP for a track that is already on an essential album. God is a good one, yes. It is sort of like Zero in some ways. It seems to be in the same key, or at least have simmilar ideas, but with that comes some kind of sacrifice. Even if you have the same ideas as Zero, it’s impossible to be better than Zero. So it doesn’t really fall flat on it’s face, but it fumbles. The entire “God” lyrical score gets old after a little while, but it’s catchy and a fan favorite.

Mouthes of Babes is okay. It’s got a typical progression, but the tune is sort of more trudging. It’s good though. But not really that great. It just seems like nothing that can’t be heard on Mellon Collie. But the real standout tune here is Tribute To Johnny, basically a tough and glorius jam session. No lyrics here, and that’s good. The dueling rhythm and solo guitars make this essential material, and a song that easily should have been on Mellon Collie. It’s honestly enough to sell this EP, at least I think. I mean, it’s just really really good. When I get into my oldschool Nintendo mood, I always whip out Battletoads for GB, and this is by far the best tune to play that game to. You just feel like you want to put on a cape and go around fighting crime and riding a motorcycle when you hear this. The gritty guitar riffs later on are gold.

Next is Marquis In Spades. Basically just another Mouths of Babes, really. Not that standout. I’m not even going to give this one more than a few sentences, because it’s just not standout. It’s good, yeah. I mean, it’s great. So is Mouths of Babes, but they are simmilar and not really that individual to get that much attension. Pennies is also another gem. This probably deserved to be on Mellon Collie too. But it almost seems out of place here. To complement the anger in the other tracks? No, this is way to gentle to be on this EP and a switchup would have been good, but honestly, no one cares about how an EP “flows.” They care about the actual songs on the EP. And this is just fantasticly beautiful. Even the lyrics are touching. It seems like even though Billy, or more likely his fictional character, has moved on from a relationship, he still shows respect and reminisces gently. “I always loved you so/especially when you go/all the world must know.” That’s just classic SMP, and the most classic SMP is the quieter stuff that has more room to move.

Pastichio Medley is sort of tacked onto the end of the EP as a little bonus to fans. But it’s hardly necessary, even for the most hardcore of fans. It is basically snipits of what seems like fifty or so SMP b-sides and outtakes that never made it onto any EPs or albums or anything. Most of them just seem like jam sessions with names, but that is okay. The fact that the band could put a least a name on any given jam session is a good sign that they cared enough about their own music to at least put it somewhere. So maybe if you are really really hardcore into Smashing Pumpkins, this might be a little bit cool, but also useless considering you can’t really find more than a few of these tracks, if any, anywhere else. So it doesn’t really satisfy. I would have much rather had a full length high quality b-side than this, and I’m sure there was enough at the time to spare one, or at least a full version of one of the songs presented here.

Scaling the SMP library for bad songs is hard enough. But searching it for bad b-sides is admittedly harder than you would think. Yes, if you dig deep enough you will find lower quality stuff on Mashed Potatoes and other collections, but the band just had a solid career, and that even shows in their lesser known songs.

So what of a Smashing Pumpkins reunion later in the year? Billy Corgan is killing me, man. I’m trying to be patient. It’s not like I have staged any protests or anything, or even done anything more than mutter to myself about how Mr. Corgan needs to, at the very least, keep the fans posted more. I know something is going on. I have heard rumors that Billy has signed on to a major label as SMP, and the new site up at smashingpumpkins.com is official enough to let us know that Billy is at least in some sort of contract. But the waiting is always the hardest part. Beyond that, the fact that James Iha and D’arcy Wretsky may not be involved hardly constitutes this as a reunion. Actually, as a friend of mine said, it doesn’t AT ALL. It’s really more of a get-together. Of course, I am excited whenever Billy creates music, but I think his ego and attitude tends to get in the way of what people think of him. I’m sure everyone would be less annoyed if he was on better terms with people other than Jimmy, and if he was keeping us posted more.

Aaaaaanyywaaay… I’ll be pleasently suprised either way. The only ways I would not be pleased with the situation are if he ends up not releasing anything at all (very unlikely) and if he releases utter crap, and knowing Billy, this hasn’t even really crossed my mind.