Smashing Pumpkins: Fresh Fruit or Rotten Veg?

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

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

jimmy played all the drums on the record

the record is def too long but i am so thrilled i don’t actively dislike any of these songs. they’re also all stuck in my head constantly :(

songwriting-wise i think it’s even stronger than oceania, and the production lacks depth but it comes super close to the adore sound anyway

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

― it bangs for thee (Simon H.), Friday, November 27, 2020 6:48 AM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

made me wonder if billy’s been listening to a lot of later leonard cohen records

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7rvQBrL5A8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-Ht9_BA15M

these are my two faves

oh god i also really love "the hidden sun," the synth hook on that one is out of this world

Man, I wish I could share your enthusiasm Brad. There are indeed some big hooks and I was hoping for more out of a return to the Adore/FutureEmbrace sound, but I'm just not enthused after a first listen. The synth work feels really lazy (the really repetitive line in "Wrath" being one example that stood out), the backing vocals feel really out of place and I just cannot fathom bringing Jimmy back for him to imitate a drum machine for an entire album. It's not terrible, but it's not very good either, unfortunately.

lol listen, i already know that i'm alone here

i think the complaints about jimmy are silly though. as a drummer i think changing the emphasis of your playing to suit the texture of the song is... very difficult and admirable. also the moments where jimmy's regular pumpkins style breaks through really pop

I suppose that's fair, I guess I just really miss monster RAWK kit-bashing Jimmy. I guess we get some hints of that on say, "Wyttch", tho.

"Cyr" is growing on me -- just watched the Tonight Show clip and it isn't...so bad? Speaking of Jimmy, the guy looks like a million bucks these days.

He does look great, I'm really happy for him!

Listened to about half of this last night. I don't usually dip much of a toe into modern Pumpkins stuff, but I felt like I had to give it a try after reading an excerpt from Gerard Way's interview with Corgan in Alternative Press (you have to actually pick up a print copy of AP to read the whole thing, and I'm not certain where to even find it these days).

Anyway, I'm not floored by it, but still think it's pretty good. Really like Billy taking us back to the core, the heart music. I also think the background singers are great - reminds me of Leonard Cohen or something.

I do wish that it had more depth, more interesting little details. Everything seems to be very straightforward and immediately obvious. Also agree with those above who say that this may not have been the best use of a Jimmy Chamberlin. And when I took time to follow along with some of the lyrics it was like, what are you talking about?

I don't know - I'm definitely going to finish listening to it and will probably listen again. Makes excellent background music at least, and that's not a bad thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ascLZN2iyZg

i do hope he continues writing songs like this one in particular

(purple blood)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prI0dKB51Tw

haha whoa this is kinda rad!

Well that seemed really good to me, and I haven't vibed with anything Pumpkins since Adore.

https://www.nme.com/news/music/the-smashing-pumpkins-machina-ii-rework-is-finished-and-will-have-at-least-80-songs-says-billy-corgan-2867160

Really ready for this one!

Every one of those 80 songs is going to be a 20 minute compilation of the riffs from 80 completely different unreleased songs.

i'm wary of what, if any, newly-recorded old ideas are gonna appear on this, mostly bc unless billy brought flood in, it's not gonna sound good lol

still very psyched

not that machina or machina ii sound good either but they sound better than nu-pumpkins

yeah in my head his attempts to make all these songs cohere sonically will be....less than optimal

i would also like a cd transfer of the og machina ii recordings bc it's been vinyl rips for twenty years now, come on bc. according to this news though i don't think i'm getting that lol

Machina would have made a great instrumental album.

you know what song rules? “slow dawn”.

yes

Machina would have made a great instrumental album.

I would actually really like to hear the all SPs albums vocals-free

who wants (the) honey(ed vocals of william corgan)

So apparently “Eye” was Corgan trying to do a Dr. Dre type of beat for Shaquille O Neal to rap on top off in a collab with them.

I don’t know if that was a popular piece of trivia but yeah I can definitely hear the Dre influence and would have loved a SP rap collab in the 90’s.

So a new 33-song rock opera, titled Atum that is a sequel to Mellon Collie? There was a time when I would be excited about this, but uh... not now, particularly the "produced by Billy Corgan" part.

https://pitchfork.com/news/the-smashing-pumpkins-announce-new-album-atum-a-sequel-to-mellon-collie-and-machina/

As of now, only available in a $225 vinyl version, or a $499 autographed version, due out April 2023. Billy certainly knows he has diehards willing to drop cash at a moments notice.

I'll hold out for the streaming.

Gotta squeeze every last drop out of the fresh fruit

New single is horrendous, but that’s par for the course with 21st century Pumpkins. Chamberlain’s drumming is so rote and boring on it

Yeah, probably the single biggest crime Corgan continues to commit is having Jimmy fucking Chamberlain in his band and refusing to let him off the leash. It's awful.

For all his hullabaloo with artwork, song titles, huge albums, gaudy videos...the songs since Oceania have been sooo uninteresting. At the very least the guy used to be bursting with ideas.

the other new song ("butterfly suite") is much better, uncoincidentally it sounds a lot like cyr (see evidence above of me liking cyr)

Didn't realize there was a second one out there, I'd only heard "Beguiled".

I didn't hate Cyr, but I'm also not interested in another take on that sound.

i dislike "beguiled" and "solara" for the same reason, they are both anchored by very boring riffs

besides which corgan already wrote a late-period pop-metal song that both of those tracks wish they were, it's called "glow" and if it isn't particularly good at least it actually gets stuck in my head

The songs themselves will be drip-fed to fans on a weekly basis, however, with frontman Billy Corgan launching a podcast, Thirty-Three (named for the total number of songs on ‘ATUM’) to explore the story behind each track.

oof, come on

Didn't realize there was a second one out there, I'd only heard "Beguiled".

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, September 20, 2022 7:58 AM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

it leaked, i guess? i thought it would hit streaming with "beguiled" but it didn't https://www.reddit.com/r/SmashingPumpkins/comments/xibg95/butterfly_suite_2022/

Thanks!

i maintain that shiny & oh so bright vol. 1 was actually decent (even though "solara" sucked) & pretty easily the most worthwhile thing corgan's done since zwan

& lol he is releasing one song a week but not even in tracklist order? "beguiled" is in the middle of act 2, this is completely baffling.

i was an oceania denier for years but it's easily the strongest post-pumpkins mk 1 record

Maybe he can actually finish this project, unlike Teargarden.

it's already done so little risk of that

haha, yes, that was my point

it is billy though so i wouldn't completely put it past him

I wasn't there, but apparently they were pretty solid last night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Faqxbmj6sIg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMlb3UEA4MI

lol