Smashing Pumpkins: Fresh Fruit or Rotten Veg?

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.

holy shit nick fury is flappy bird, it all makes sense now

Close but no

holy shit samuel l jackson is flappy bird

Warmer

Seriously it's obvious, Billy Corgan is the real Nick Fury.

holy shit billy corgan is samuel l jackson

check out the big brain on bizarro.

erasing eXcLaMaTiOn pOiNtS ilx

panda show
trees and balloons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFLD0tFwNSk

Excruciating performance on Kimmel yesterday.

I heard, what song?

They did "Silvery Sometimes" and "Knights of Malta." Billy without a guitar, shuffling around the stage like an early 2000s Ozzy Osbourne and looking like Marlon Brando in the Island of Dr Moreau. James took a solo and had some weird malfunction. I don't know. I like "Silvery" fine but it's not a show-stopper. Billy -- what can I say. I don't mind him dressing like a circus ringmaster in drag but I just...don't get it.

billy regularly going without a guitar is pretty easily the worst thing about the current incarnation of the band, his stage presence without it is so weird

otm x2

"we're gonna make this ha-pun!"

what, Billy?

disappointment

he's disenchanted the romantics

After hearing the new album a couple more times, this is increasingly becoming a "So long Billy and thanks for the memories" type of situation for me.

only 18 years late!

Well, not really - the band were inactive for 7 of those years and Billy put out the actually really great Zwan album in that period.

There's been Oceania and to a lesser degree his solo record, but otherwise it's been a very frustrating decade to be a Pumpkins fan. He's put out a lot of music in the last 11 years that just doesn't cut it.

billy regularly going without a guitar is pretty easily the worst thing about the current incarnation of the band, his stage presence without it is so weird

Maybe he's trying to compete with the overwhelming charisma of Jeff Schroeder.

Haaaaaaaaaaah!!

Zwan reissue(!): https://consequenceofsound.net/2018/12/billy-corgan-nine-projects/

oh god the prospect of a new SP best-of is....not a good one, for many reasons. pls stick to the Machina and Zwan reissues billy

we will get one of these projects in 2019 if we're lucky

Holy shit! He found the yellow Gish Strat!!!!

After 27 years, Billy Corgan has finally reunited with his "lost love" guitar stolen in 1992. The story behind the reunion is even crazier than you think https://t.co/HBNXG81Mlc pic.twitter.com/OpuBmATQb4

— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) February 6, 2019

Was just about to link this. Amazing story.

“If you look at Billy, he’s very stoic,” says Heiche, who coordinated the reunion. “He doesn’t give a lot of facial expressions. But he looked down, and as she opened the case, he looked at it for a second and froze. Everybody was dead silent. And he goes, ‘That’s it.'”

crying

He slowly opened the case and froze. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s my hair.”

I'm not really a fan of this band, aside from a few minutes here and there, but I've had "Quiet" stuck in my head all day. (I had to look it up because I didn't know the title and don't have a copy of "Siamese Dream.")

will he be paying James the $20,000 reward he offered in 2009 for the instrument? “She didn’t want anything,” he says.

oh ffs buy her that hot tub at least you cheap shit

NO
https://www.rollingstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/billy-corgan-guitar-portrait.jpg

Billy The Pimp

maybe he did buy her a hot tub but doesn't want to brag about it

or he didn't know about the hot tub before the story was published

Truly, a hot tub time machine.

my man wearing a coat made out of weed

The coffeeshop at my work has been playing a Pumpkins song lately that I can't identify; guess it's one of the new ones? They usually play very mainstream/familiar stuff.

Does he say lover a lot

Ha ha -- I'll have to listen more closely next time I get a small light roast

Btw -- I saw them play in Detroit, and searched to see if maybe it was *that show*... but no, it was Nov. '91 (opening for RHCP, with Pearl Jam).

So guess I saw him play with that guitar!

Yeah, I would have too -- late December 1991 club show with Hole.

July 1991 in Northampton, MA, hardly anybody there. I remember a short set, they were restless afterward and Billy invited us back to their hotel for drinks. We said no!