Smashing Pumpkins: Fresh Fruit or Rotten Veg?

flappy you hear this yet

i listened to Oceania again and my opinion didn't change - it's ok and has some solid songs but could have really used some of the more tightly constructed pop songs that the new one has.

still really enjoying the new one, even Solara is growing on me. it really does feel like a continuation of the Machinas in both style and quality, just less blurry and with strings replacing some of the whirling synths

i'm also a huge fan of Silvery Sometimes revisiting the vibe of 1979 somewhat because 1979 is such a perfect song that it was a bit of a shame he never mined that vibe more, like Perfect came close but that had been it until now

Brad - I have. First thoughts no surprises: Billy's vocals are too high, Jimmy's drums are too compressed, and I can barely hear James. "Marchin' On" is an amusing flex, bringing out his "Glass' Theme" style growl for the first time in years. Silvery Sometimes is still my favorite, but tbh I liked the songs on Monuments more. am I the only one that'll take Monuments over Oceania, Z, Teargarden, and this? Recycled Pastichio Medley riffs, short songs, some nice psychedelia a la backend of MCIS, and it's short like this one. As with all Pumpkins releases I'll like it more with time.

I think one thing that makes it feel uneven and aimless is that is literally a collection of 8 potential comeback singles.

and of course... it's WAY. TOO. LOUD!!!!!!

but it's good, and I'm more happy the band is doing well more than anything. this encourages reissues and vault stuff, and they still kick ass live, so I feel good about the whole thing. honestly I'll take one out of eight at this point, and like I said, more will grow one me with time.

xp I feel like "try try try"had a bit of that "1979" feel too.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-smashing-pumpkins-shiny-and-oh-so-bright-vol-1-lp-no-past-no-future-no-sun/

oh fucking come on

easy target

i've seen a lot of people elsewhere claim this is their worst ever album, worse than zeitgeist and i'm just totally baffled by that assertion

every SP album except Gish has had mixed reviews and a vocal contingent of fans that hate it only to come around years later. imo it is the worst one, just at the moment.

I mean, case in point:

At least Monuments had the oddity “Drums + Fife,” a little fillip featured the titular instruments and something like a statement of purpose: “I will bang this drum til my dying day.”

Drum + Fife, now an overlooked gem. Give me a break

it's a good review though tbh

Lead single “Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts)” feels mercilessly whittled down from a more interesting song—the ticked eighth notes uncannily resemble a group of people counting the seconds before they can walk away from each other.

I liked this line:

...2014’s Monuments to an Elegy had a similar woolly blankness, a self-erasing anonymity that seemed to proceed from the assumption that if Corgan stood as still as possible, maybe no one would notice him on the radio and kick him off.

xp lol just copied that bit to post here

This and the SKM review from a week or two ago confirm for me the previously sketchy assertion that the 'Fork has rediscovered its love of pans.

i just think that it's weird they panned this one, out of all the chances they've had before, they weren't even this mean to Zeitgeist at the time

idk that “silvery sometimes” paragraph is just kind of a projection that yields an easy joke, which is i guess has been the official writing style of the internet for a while now

weird to read this alongside jayson’s evenhanded review of oceania from a few years ago

I think he's right about the lyrics, though. I'm not a huge fan of Oceania but at least he was writing more meaningful/less nonsensically obtuse lyrics. That whole album is about his mom and his break-up with ... (I forgot her name, not trying to be funny, Veronica something?) Ogilala had this problem but every song had at least a couple great vocal / lyrical hooks (Processional & The Long Goodbye, Aeronaut, Half-Life).

of course he's right about the lyrics

but like even when billy's lyrics are meaningful they're not good. "silvery" was one of the first times i haven't cringed at a single line in a sp song in... over a decade

yeah, i don't like most smashing pumpkins lyrics, so I appreciate how they kind of melt into the background here. "she stabs the empty clock" excepted. that's a real decision of a lyric.

Oceania lyrics are similar, but they annoy me more because of the songwriting and production.

Silvery is great. he was never a great lyricist but when he's on he's on, he can sell a line like "It's a long way / it's a long way to get back home" and save the song.

and more than most I think intent and context is crucial to everything Billy does. Ogilala is remarkably relaxed & clear-headed, Oceania has an emotional arc, Monuments is an interesting conceptual exercise (songs meant to mimic a perfect version of a band that never existed), Zeitgeist has the late Bush era paranoia / political angle. here, he is singing about nothing. he may not be a great lyricist but it doesn't matter as much when he means it. the Shiny songs were all written with a broad commercial conceit in mind, and I'm struggling to find anything to connect to. if I can't get down with the production, most of the songwriting, or what he's singing about, what's left?

i don't understand how monuments is an interesting conceptual exercise but it seems what this record lacks for you is a conceptual framework

songwriting is p easily the strongest thing going here

also i prefer billy obtuse to direct 100000000000 percent of the time

it's been almost 20 years since he dragged a relatively meaningful and resonant album out of his personal life (machina, which isn't exactly great lyrically in itself) and everything since then has been whatever (zeitgeist's bush-era paranoia appears on, what, 2-3 songs total? i'd prefer that he sang about nothing on that record). all i care about is good songs at this point; this record has several good songs

(i guess ogilala is a pretty solid "personal" record for billy but there are multiple reasons that album feels unprecedented in his catalog)

Oceania is a breakup record + more stuff about his mom. That was only 6 years ago. and it's not the lack of conceptual framework, Ogilala didn't have that either, I'm not into the songwriting here. that's the most important thing to me too, and Silvery is the only one that's stuck with me.

Oceania is a breakup record + more stuff about his mom

i know! i didn't say machina was the last time he tried to drag a meaningful and resonant album out of his personal life

i don't understand how monuments is an interesting conceptual exercise

it's a better meta idea than Machina imo: Billy goes OK, you think SP was like this, I'll make a record that acts as an homage to that fictional band or idea of a band that you think we were. which results in the emptiest lyrics of his career, recycled MCIS riffs, a purposely bland and faceless persona, shiny shiny pop rock production, and exaggeration everywhere. it's a taunting record - "Run2Me" sounds like a parody of their electronic songs. this isn't post-flop excuses, it's baked into the record. and besides all that, I do like the songs more: better riffs, tighter songwriting, simpler everything.

impossible for me to read "run2me" as anything but earnest, it's also not a very good song

xp ha fair enough... "Pale Horse" gets to me now, I think for all its faults Oceania was emotionally resonant and meaningful

Monuments is anything but earnest - compare Run2Me to The Spaniards (similar lyrical conceit) - the latter is so much more heartfelt and invested. on Monuments he continually just repeats these pop ciphers.

xp ha fair enough... "Pale Horse" gets to me now, I think for all its faults Oceania was emotionally resonant and meaningful

― flappy bird, Monday, November 19, 2018 12:13 PM (three seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i guess i don't think oceania is entirely successful at communicating that feeling, and it's mostly bc the lyrics are really bland and i spend the whole record trying to ignore them (which is why i can't see monuments as a deliberately blank exercise, it just continues the trend)

i guess that sounds kinda contradictory but i think it's possible for something to be invasively bland

does billy even sing the word "lover" once on the new one? what a relief

there's no way he doesn't. I'll check. that would honestly blow my mind. yeah, that replaced the "dropped consonants" as his most annoying vocal/lyrical tic lately. ruins the chorus of Aeronaut tbh

Billy's lyrics have never been particularly strong, there was the occasional decent moment throughout the classic albums but he's always been much better at conveying feelings through the music than words.

so I'm really not noticing that Oh So Shiny has worse lyrics than anything post-breakup - maybe it does, but that's never been why I love this band, and when the music is pretty close to a return to form it's pretty easy to ignore for me

No "lover", but "Seek and You Shall Destroy" has "brigantine" (which I only ever remember from a Stone Roses song) rhymed with "libertine" and "Elohim", which is very Billy but would be more interesting if the song were better.

https://i.imgur.com/JAftJqf.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/zXPxfFO.jpg

:O

oh yeah I noticed that right away. heavy Triumph of the Will vibes with the huge banner over the arena here for a month before they played

https://i.imgur.com/fj7YniC.jpg

I can't believe I didn't vote for To Forgive in the poll

I've had a couple of listens to the new one and as much as I enjoy it, it feels like kinda a missed opportunity. It feels much more low key than the work of a "reformed" Pumpkins should. It's telling that even though Jimmy and Iha are on this, it mostly feels less like a throwback to 1991-2000 Pumpkins and more like a continuation of what's been put out under the Pumpkins name since Billy decided to resurrect it. I think Oceania was a far better collection of songs, and I'd even rank Monuments to an Elegy higher.

they played Dross tonight

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-smashing-pumpkins/2018/the-sylvee-madison-wi-7397229d.html

plus a lot of Shiny songs

oh and Heavy Metal Machine

Cool

'Heavy Metal Machine' was always one of my least favourite Pumpkins songs 1991-2000. Bit of a bitter swipe at Cobain in the lyrics, too ... ("If I were dead/would my records sell?")

https://www.guitarworld.com/news/billy-corgan-paint-color-actually-changes-the-sound-of-a-guitar

I have to admit the Captain Marvel trailer perfectly captures 1995 pic.twitter.com/nfM92vLHa8

— pixelated no longer too early for a christmas name (@pixelatedboat) December 4, 2018

more like perfectly captures an ilx post from last week

xpost

By that logic he should paint his scalp different colors between songs.