Smashing Pumpkins: Fresh Fruit or Rotten Veg?

there's a little third person in the interview. "If young Billy had gotten the credit he deserved, when he deserved it, then things might have been different. Bands might have lasted longer, more tickets might have been sold."

there's a little third person in the interview. "If young Billy had gotten the credit he deserved, when he deserved it, then things might have been different. Bands might have lasted longer, more tickets might have been sold."

― christmas with the canks (some dude), Thursday, December 18, 2014 3:48 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Jesus christ, that part of the interview! You can always trust Corgan to come up with some imagined alternate universe in which Corgan is the fuckin' Jesus of music and manages to singlehandedly save rock for future generations to enjoy. I'd be more outraged of the audacity of this nonsense if I didn't realise it was merely business as usual for Corgan... and I say that as a fan.

*of=at

Also:

Why not make an EDM record?

You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.

You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.

It's like...he's been...HURT...iNNNNNN...I...I can't say it.

the core, the electronic dance music

Xxp Tbf Turrican, it did say [laughs] after that.

This is a perfect Corgan-being-Corgan interview and I wouldn't want it any other way.

pure gold, this one

I still haven't heard the new Pumpkins record yet, but I do wish he'd held onto the Oceania line-up.

The new record is even better than Oceania. I give it three stars!

love the interview.
much more fun to read than the usual.
so, in honour of billy caring and sharing, i have dug out 'the future embrace' for the first time in years.
i give it three stars !

Tommy Lee >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Mike Byrne

Oceania had better high points and I liked some of the guitar epics on there, but this is most definitely a consistently better record. But I wish he'd hold on to a lineup long enough to let them gel a little.

At this point, I'm just hoping that he delves into more bizarre collabs - Buck Dharma on guitars and Mike Portnoy on drums for the next record.

yeah i feel like Corgan is a spent force as an auteur but he could still do good stuff in a more collaborative environment. Zwan probably spooked him off from ever doing another supergroup or anything like that again, though.

Tommy Lee >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Mike Byrne

otm, drumming on the new record is so tasteful

Zwan probably spooked him off from ever doing another supergroup or anything like that again, though.

agree.
and its a shame, cos take all the personal crap/history etc out, and its not that bad an album.

The Zwan album is a great power pop record.

Zwan's single best moment imo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMQEZx9PqSo

the unrecorded/unreleased zwan material is pretty much 100 percent better than what made the record but of course it is

there was one song on the Zwan album i really loved but skimming it now i can't even figure out what it was or if i still like it

Wasn't most of Zwans live material written by various members of the band? The album is basically (completely?) Corgan penned tunes.

jesus, i/mary star of the sea is iirc written by the whole band

I’m not on trial here, OK? I’m not on trial.

the people's corgan

brilliant.
glad to see zwan is getting some love given the shyte that the album attracted.
it's a gorgeous summer glam/power pop groove.
and yes, i suspect i am in a crowd of one, i watched the dvd film that came with it (watchable after a few glasses - could be interesting watching it when sober !), and still have the sticker set that was hidden in the cd sleeve.

and yes, i suspect i am in a crowd of one, i watched the dvd film that came with it (watchable after a few glasses - could be interesting watching it when sober !), and still have the sticker set that was hidden in the cd sleeve.

crowd of two. always found jimmy the funniest

but yeah there are a bunch of snippets of great songs on that dvd that are just never gonna see the light of day

crowd of three. I really loved the whole Zwan period.

blimey - this is an unexpected outcome.
i seem to recall an outpouring of hate on ilm re that whole album/period.
just dropped the zwan album on the playlist, and i would say it still sounds good.
i suspect they all fell out and now hate each other, but i care not, as it sounds lovely, and there are some cracking songs.
whereas 'the future embrace' i got bored with quite quickly. such a cold disconnected album.
then again, its probably the way he wanted it to come across.
after all, the cover art implies a total alien disconnection groove a la his best mates release : 'mechanical animal'.

'Lyric' and 'Ride a Black Swan' are my two big favourites from the Zwan record.

Yeah, was always good with Zwan -- saw their second ever show, before Paz joined, and generally loved most of what I heard. Not that I think it'll ever happen or could but if a reissue series somehow resulted in a comprehensive Zwan box I'd get it.

"glorious' and "chrysanthemum" are great songs and seem to like be linear progression from machina etc.

I recall a friend who saw em live at the time telling me that their set was mainly songs that (a) weren't on Mary Star.. and (b) were better than the songs on Mary Star...

Yeah, I heard similar reports from friends who saw the pre-release Zwan shows. I also remember that the Djali Zwan, the acoustic incarnation that also had Ana Lenchantin on cello, put on some tremendous shows. I have a few bootlegs lying around somewhere. The blues numbers that Pajo and Sweeney really got into were p cool, iirc. The True Poets of Zwan, the guitar epic version, was more where the album ended up.

Lyric, Settle Down and Honestly are probably the best songs Corgan wrote after 'Adore'. The Zwan album was a four stars album imho.

All downhill after that though, and fast. New record is yet another "I reinvented myself! Oh no wait I am a parody of myself'-record. Three stars is too much.

no it's pretty good imo! not a reinvention just the most explicitly he's been synth rock since the solo record. i'm a big fan of "anti-hero"

Anyone who says this is a three star record lacks the brilliance to recognize its brilliance. Four stars or bust. Unless it is a five-star scale, in which case, five stars. Because four would scan too much as as three. Or just to be safe, let's call it an A+. Though of course, that implies anyone other than Corgan is qualified to even review this, let alone canonize it, so best to just defer to his taste and judgement and give the Smashing Pumpkins en tot A+/five-stars. Except Zwan, which gets A++/six stars, because it was underrated even more than more of his perfect stuff, with the exception of "TheFutureEmbrace," which failed to payoff on the promise of the single from "Lost HIghway" ('Eye?"). Unless that made it to the album, in which case, A++/five-stars!

Xp

Really? I'm willing to give it another spin based on that BradNelson, but what I heard first time round didn't bode well. Still, I will probably never drop this freak. He's meant too much to me in the lol teenage years.

same!

I think I prefer Oceania to the Zwan album. There, I said it.

i never really got over how the opener of oceania is a false "cherub rock"

Oh, 'Quasar' (the opener) is one of my least favourite tracks on Oceania without a doubt. But the album more than makes up for it with 'Panopticon', which fucking rules.

I mean, 'Panopticon' basically pushes all the same buttons for me as any classic Pumpkins track does... also, when the guitars come crashing in on 'Pinwheels', and the instrumental at the end of the title track.

zwan is his best stuff since siamese imo. interviewed him for that album and he was a total needless douche, rest of band were really very cool and nice. new album is... quite dull? I mean, its fine, it sort of sounds like classic pumpkins, but i can't remember any of the tunes now, and i listened to it a bunch to review it.

i gave it 3 stars. obviously. probably deserved 2 and a half though.

My friends' 3yo daughter this morning while listening to Smashing Pumpkins: "We need to take good care of these songs because they are old-fashioned."

?!?!? Amazing.

Hang on, this interview is done by the same guy who did that NME piece on Morrissey, isn't it?

Well, they're playing live on the BBC red button now. The rhythm section is Brad Wilk from Rage Against The Machine on drums and Mark Stoermer from The Killers on bass. Yeah.

Having heard the latest album, I don't think it's good as Oceania.

Another day, another interview, another "dude, no" moment:

Q. Sure, but at least some portion of the audience is going to be there to hear the records they liked 15 or 20 years ago. How do you feel about that?

A. I don't care. That's a nostalgia-sentimentality-based business that I am not a part of. It's like saying because one movie company makes cartoons and another company makes movies, I'm in the cartoon business. I feel like people lump me into the cartoon business, and I don't want to be in the cartoon business. It's very simple: You've got two great artists, two great histories, still making great music. We are going to go out and kick ass as good or better than somebody in their twenties or thirties or whatever. Either believe it or don't – but if you don't, then you will miss something that you rarely see, which in this case will be three hours of really powerful music. I mean, there is a point where you can't apologize for that, or you can't really explain it to someone who's got their head up their ass with a selfie stick.

Q. That's quite an image.

A. Thank you. I am a published poet. (Laughs)

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/billy-corgan-on-touring-with-marilyn-manson-and-battling-nostalgia-20150605