Smashing Pumpkins: Fresh Fruit or Rotten Veg?

My opinion on the post-MACHINA Pumpkins stuff basically amounts to Zeitgeist = nay, Oceania = yay.

In fact, I'd go as far as saying that the only thing I miss on Oceania is Jimmy Chamberlin's drumming. It'd be silly to suggest that Oceania is in any way comparable to the first three (proper) Pumpkins albums, but it's extremely far from being a total disaster like Zeitgeist was.

Man, saw this thread revived and was hoping Corgan was up a tree again.

Well this'll do it

As part of their Smashing Pumpkins reissue drive, EMI are to give The Aeroplane Flies High a second crack of the whip – and they’ve gone well beyond the call of duty.

As is to be expected, EMI’s reissue will feature remastered versions of all 33 of the album’s original tracks. In addition, the reissue will feature a frankly intimidating 90 lost demos, live recordings and alternate versions spread over five CDs. A sixth disc will features an assortment of live recordings from 1996′s Mellon Collie tour, and a supplementary DVD documenting a concert recording in France also makes the cut. The package will also include track-by-track annotations from Billy Corgan (which, given the number of tracks, is basically a novella’s worth of material) and liner notes from David Wild, all enclosed in a 46-page book.

Tracklist:
CD1: Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Bullet with Butterfly Wings
…Said Sadly
You’re All I’ve Got Tonight
Clones (We’re All)
A Night Like This
Destination Unknown
Dreaming
Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks:
Movers and Shakirs
Germans in Leather Pants
Millieu
Jackboot
A/Ab/E/B/F#
Rings
Ugly
Blaster Caster
Little Ditty
Verily I Say
New Waver
The Groover
Ravi Revi Roo
On The Loose
Slurry
tracks 8 – 22 Recorded at Gravity Studios, Chicago, IL, March 15, 1994 – March 16, 1994

CD2: 1979
1979
Ugly
Believe
Cherry
The Boy
Set the Ray to Jerry
Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks:
Tonight, Tonight (acoustic version/instrumental rough)
Jupiter’s Lament (billy solo)
Zero (8trk demo)
Marquis in Spades (8trk demo)
Have Love Will Travel (8trk demo)
Infinite Sadness (siamese outtake)
1979 (acoustic)
Aeroplane Flies High (acoustic snippet)
Take me Down (instrumental)
Star Song (dat mix/vocal rough)

CD3: Zero
Zero
God
Mouths of Babes
Tribute to Johnny
Marquis in Spades
Pennies
Pastichio Medley
LP ONLY: 7. Pastichio Medley (with fades)
Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks:
By Starlight
Set The Ray to Jerry
Mouths of Babes
Cupid de Locke
Galapagos
To Forgive
Lily (my one & only)
Here is no Why
Tracks 8 – 15 Recorded Live at the Double Door, Chicago, IL, February, 27 1995

CD4: Tonight, Tonight
Tonight, Tonight
Meladori Magpie
Rotten Apples
Medellia of the Gray Skies
Jupiter’s Lament
Blank
Tonite Reprise
Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks:
Stumbleine
Ugly
Meladori Magpie
God
Love
Pissant
Hello Kitty Kat
Special Winner’s Song
I Just Wanna Make Love To You
Tracks 8 – 16 Recorded Live at the Double Door, Chicago, IL, February, 21, 27, 28, 1995

CD5: Thirty-Three
Thrity-Three
The Last Song
The Aeroplane Flies High
Transformer
The Bells
My Blue Heaven
Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks:
Silverfuck (live 7/10/96)

CD6: Live Inside the Dark Globe
Where Boys Fear To Tread Cleveland, Ohio 7.3.96
Zero
San Francisco, California 2.7.96
Fuck You / An Ode To No One
Stockholm, Sweden 4.10.96
X.Y.U.
Los Angeles, California 2.3.96
To Forgive
Washington, D.C. 1.6.96
Thirty-Three
New York City, New York 1.11.96
Tonight, Tonight
New York City, New York 1.11.96
Lily (My One And Only)
Washington, D.C. 1.5.96
Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans
Cleveland, Ohio 7.3.96
Jellybelly
Gent, Belgium 4.6.96
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Los Angeles, California 2.3.96
By Starlight
Buffalo, New York 7.2.96
Bodies
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 7.5.96
Silverfuck
Copenhagen, Denmark 4.9.96

Deluxe Edition Concert DVD:
Malsaucy Lake, Belfort, France, July 4, 1997
Glimpses
Where Boys Fear To Tread
Eye
Tonight, Tonight
Transformer
Thru The Eyes Of Ruby
The End Is The Beginning Is The End
By Starlight
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Muzzle
1979
X.Y.U.
Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans
The Aeroplane Flies High (Turns Left, Looks Right)

Holy shit!

Oh my! Yes!

You know, with all their vast, intricate, wandering, lofty, melancholy fantasias, I always found them to be weirdly analogous to c. 1900 children's book illustrations (most obviously those big, deluxe editions of Poe's Tales Of Mystery & Imagination).

Which is to say, regressive and stationary, stuck in a space bounded in by bourgeois domesticity and bourgeoise adolescence, and spoiled (I think) by the singer's voice.

Yeah, Poe's country ballads were AWFUL.

As is most of my input when I really ought to be asleep, I'll admit

stoked for "the groover", "rings" etc. would kill for a full length "knuckles".

bah forgot those are both on the gravity sessions stuff already in circlations.

s

I was drinking-the-kool-aid when i preached the oncoming release of Siamese Dream as a follow-up to the hopeful promise of Gish, and re-coursed my allegiance to Billy every album there-after; he sucked as soon he shaved his head (yet, still wimpish in comparison to Sampson).

Isolated guitar track for "Zero." Pretty awesome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn0NiiAfAjc

was jus thinkin i love the outro to bullet a lot

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/4146/p52n.jpg

I got the Mellon Collie Vinyl remaster set recently and it is very, very nice. It sounds great, but unfortunately, Billy Corgan's voice is pitched at a frequency that really highlights the fact that my speakers are somewhat broken and in bad need of repair.

So he's announced two new albums and debuted a new site and whatever okay

http://www.smashingpumpkinsnexus.com/

Oh...did I mention the photo and font?

http://static.wixstatic.com/media/e56f8f_17e8789345fe49abad7c766c6ceb116d.jpg_srz_p_955_305_75_22_0.50_1.20_0.00_jpg_srz

Lol & smh

all i have to say re everything

baaaha, that's awesome. Someone should make a history of alarming things Billy Corgan has put forth over the World Wide Web. Remember when he was going to make a tech-noir sci fi animated cyber-series?

grumble….yes….. ugh

why billy

WHY

LOL amazing. Takes me back to Livejournal in the year 2k.

Billy Corgan in "dresses like a gothic kite" shocker.

Is that font Papyrus?

Thank God this guy is finally releasing some new music.

oh billypaws, from that same new site:

Smashing Pumpkins lead singer Billy Corgan pulls back the curtains on the pro-wrestling world as he takes over creative direction for the independent wrestling company Resistance Pro. Produced by Left/Right, LLC; Executive Producers: Banks Tarver, Ken Druckerman, Billy Corgan and Ghen Maynard.

He needs to just stop messing about and do a collab album w ICP already.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttD9DAmCCeI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3nO33J_3lY

banner week for billy

http://gawker.com/behold-billy-corgan-on-the-cover-of-paws-chicago-1580238738

http://www.smashingpumpkinsnexus.com/#!LYRIC-BIRDS-ON-THE-HORIZON-SP-ALBUM-UPDATE/c7ba/EC613E98-6DB4-45A7-A55F-2C2201BC7E16

So does anyone apart from me think that Oceania is actually a very good record? I was all prepared to hate it after being incredibly disappointed with Zeitgeist, so it's been quite a surprise to me that not only am I still listening to it, but I'm enjoying it a lot.

Love that Paws cover. He looks so happy!

I liked Oceania quite a bit and it is, by far, the best Pumpkins 2.0 release. Still won't even compare it to anything in the original ruh though.

praise the lord!
mike byrne is OUT
or,
as billy put it,
"like Elvis,"
HE HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

Asked by MusicRadar if Byrne would be drumming alongside newly-recruited percussionist Tommy Lee on the band's forthcoming Monuments to an Elegy (slated to arrive sometime next year), Corgan responded, "Mike, like Elvis, has left the building." The reason for Byrne's departure remains uncertain; when pressed for more details on the circumstances of the split, Corgan repeated, "Let’s just say that Mike, like Elvis, has left the building.”

lol

Sorry folks, I liked his drumming.

He's left the building... ELVIS

i like picturing Billy taking great satisfaction in preparing that quip and then being completely flummoxed when there was a follow-up question.

Why do they want to know so much about Mike? Well, I've got this bit I can run by them again...

is it possible that monuments to an elegy is their best release since mellon collie?

i've liked all of the new songs to varying degrees of like.

still, no

it's really good and easily the best of Pumpkins 2.0 but, no, let's not get crazy

I had such low low expectations for this, but it turns out that Corgan limiting himself to 3-4 minute pop song format + more synths + Tommy Lee on drums = surprisingly, a good result

“Now, he and I didn’t necessarily get along. But I like to sing his praises, because he really was that talented. I like to think the world with him would have been a better place, and I like to think a lot of the crap music that followed wouldn’t have existed if he had been around to criticise it. Because he had the moral standing to slay generations with a strike of the pen.” Although they didn’t get on, did Corgan, then, look up to Cobain?

“No. In the purest sense of the word, we were competitors. He and I were the top two scribes, and everybody else was a distant third.”

Everyone else.

Everybody.

Kinda pathetic how wedded this guy is to the 90s angst rock dream, for all the big ideas he seems so narrow in focus in other ways

It's easy enough to get in physical trouble with tools as it is.