Smashing Pumpkins: Fresh Fruit or Rotten Veg?

I'm trying to discern if "Transformer" and "The Bells" have any Lou Reed going on

"transformer" is def a glam rock move

“the boy” was written by james iha tbf

Ahhh

“medillia of the gray skies” is a killer bside too

Ah, on the tonite tonite EP as brad mentioned

OK, I'm adding "Ruby" into my MCIS playlist (I can haz cred now?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW7qkjCiKXo

Lol so he ditched the "Shiny and Oh So Bright" continuing volume conceit already, even though he's keeping the similar artwork?

that would be extremely in character of him, cf. oceania being a part of "teargarden by kaleidyscope"; the day for night project

oh yeah, this is one artist that needs to stop announcing grand plans

The one thing Gerard Way is always going to have over Billy: when the former comes up with ideas for grand schemes he actually DOES make comic books and TV series out of them.

Who are some other artists who reached dazzling, dizzying artistic heights with a singular, indelible sound for a 3-4 year period... and then fell way, way, way, all the way down but kept on trucking (and somehow garnering attention) for literal decades, like Billy Corgan? (Bonus points if they, too, also became reactionary lunatics in the process, too.)

Van Morrison?

the working title for the new album was Shiny and Oh So Bright vol. 2 & 3 but completely unsurprising that billy got bored of that already

lots of mid/late 70s and 80s van rules hard

Van Morrison had one last massive hit in the late 80’s. Will Corgan have a “Maria” in him?

Corgan’s career trajectory in the 21st century does fascinate me, though. His unbelievable hubris and ability to make an ass out of himself constantly is awe-inspiring

i used to be a little boy

and two more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFYaUYce8jY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-yos6keKvQ

"wrath" is excellent imo but as established in this thread i'm a fan of synth-pop bc especially when the hooks sit right ("death from above," which is zeitgeist-era, is one of my favorite songs he's written in the last two decades)

i should adjust my language for other ppl's expectations: "wrath" is good for sp mk 2

Underwhelmed by these new tracks.

More enthusiastically, there's a new Jimmy Chamberlin Complex album/ep 'Honor' out and it sounds great.

Dare I say that 'Anno Santana' is probably the first SP song (Zwan excluded) in 20 years that sounds really good? I dareth.

I haven't heard that one yet, time to check it out!

Full tracklist floating about. I can't be the only one slightly disappointed to see a 72 minute Pumpkins record without a 9 or 10 minutes plus epic anywhere. Although I'm sure my hopes for any good "Silverfuck" style jam are long gone.

1. "The Colour of Love" 4:24
2. "Confessions of a Dopamine Addict" 3:14
3. "Cyr" 4:03
4. "Dulcet in E" 3:22
5. "Wrath" 3:46
6. "Ramona" 3:48
7. "Anno Satana" 3:50
8. "Birch Grove" 3:17
9. "Wyttch" 3:44
10. "Starrcraft" 4:10
11. "Purple Blood" 3:19
12. "Save Your Tears" 3:31
13. "Telegenix" 3:23
14. "Black Forest, Black Hills" 4:42
15. "Adrennalynne" 3:42
16. "Haunted" 3:11
17. "The Hidden Sun" 3:24
18. "Schaudenfreud" 3:02
19. "Tyger, Tyger" 2:50
20. "Minerva" 3:33

xpost

I think it's a bit meh. Oceania had a few really great songs, so I wouldn't say it's been a totally fallow 2 decades. (I also thought "Tarantula" was killer at the time, though my enthusiasm has waned over the years.)

yeah those very uniform track lengths are weirdly dispiriting xp

"adrennalynne" and "wyttch" lmao

i maintain that shiny & oh so bright is the only time they've occasionally sounded pretty good post-reunion

Mellon Collie was released 25 years ago today! Happy birthday. I was 13 and it opened up a cool world for me.

Billy announced a few things in a video yesterday:
1. He and Jimmy are in the studio working on a 33-song "sequel to Mellon Collie and Machina," the third in the "trilogy of stories involving a single character [ie, Zero, Glass, and now a third]". It's an "opus", "rock opera", etc.
2. Currently mixing Machina. Tracklist (minus extra cuts?) is "in the neighborhood of 50 to 51 songs".
3. They had planned to announce a "MCIS-themed" arena tour -- "a night built around that period of music...with a narrative arc...celebration of that time period...something with a conceptual base." Plan is to do that when possible.
4. Cyr (20 songs) is the next album, then the MCIS-Machina sequel, then the third Shiny album (10 songs) after that.

the mellon collie/machina sequel album will absolutely not come out in anything resembling the form described. either he'll completely scrap it or repurpose whatever they're currently working on into a completely different project before too long

also "the third shiny album"? what's the second? what turned into cyr was originally supposed to be volumes 2 & 3 but i figured he'd just completely given up on whatever the concept was there as usual

also the machina/machina ii combined reissue being ~50 tracks just for the album itself sounds nightmarish lmao. not that i have any confidence that'll finally come out either. how long has it been in the works now?

Fwiw he did describe Cyr as the 2nd part of the Shiny series.

It's an "opus", "rock opera", etc.

Love the "etc." here :)

I was sure to be the first in my local record store early morning to pick up MCIS. It came out on the 23rd but my local started selling it at Saturday the 21st already. Spotify's 'we're dumping the album here on Friday' just doesn't compare to the trve Release Day of yore!

if they’re mixing it i’ll bet the machina reissue comes out. the more songs the better imo

rest of those projects sound like billy’s usual bullshit

hoping that someone accidentally lost the masters for "heavy metal machine"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NcVNOWjv1E

(this album's gonna be so weird, i don't really get where bc's going with any of it)

("wyttch" sounds kinda cool anyway)

I keep forgetting we still have another full month before this thing comes out. I am really excited for the Machina era stuff, less hopeful about another massive rock opera being any good.

oh shit, i just realized, "wyttch" is totally bc's attempt at writing a blue öyster cult song. pretty good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcMR8JXnYgw

this is probably the song from the new record that's easiest to ridicule, it's zwan-esque in mood, but i... fucking love it. my favorite song bc's written in ages. the chorus is perfect

the whole first half of the record is basically out now, and i'm finding myself... really liking it? ugh lmao being a smashing pumpkins fan in 2020 i clown myself

yeah i feel stupid about it but i totally love this legit followup to thefutureembrace

lmao i fucking love this record

chorus of "starrcraft" reminds me of the anniversary

holy shit "save your tears" is the best pumpkins song i've heard since machina

I think Weezer and SP might have similar post peak hit miss ratios

idk i think weezer's white album is actually pretty comparable to their peak material, while sp have never gotten that close to their own higher peak.

ugh lmao being a smashing pumpkins fan in 2020 i clown myself

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson)

i feel exactly the same. still have to hear the new one, is it any good? 'shiny and oh so bright' didn't win me over, but i really enjoyed corgan's cotillions, surprisingly.

its way too long, it needs jimmy drums, but its... pretty good

i thought jimmy was on this one

I like the background vox and harmonies on this one, surprisingly

i'm sure he's on it but you would never know.