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Review: Paramount Room
We're a bit mystified that anyone is paying attention to the new Billy Corgan solo jawn Smashing Pumpkins album. OK, not really. Though Corgan has been largely written off as a joke in recent years, there is no denying his influence over the direction music took in the '90s. He led a band that appealed to everyone from gloom and doom goths to mainstream Abercrombie & Fitch-lovers by playing the disaffected heartstrings that lay within every teenager. Some blame him for the commercialization of the Alternative Nation, but we feel those folks are just griping because Corgan had the gall to reach for superstardom while admitting that was his goal all along.
The real reason Corgan has fallen so far out of popular opinion is because when he stopped writing compelling music, he blamed his fan base for no longer "getting" him, pulled a Ziggy, and broke up the band.
It certainly didn't help that he announced the resurrection of the Smashing Pumpkins on the same day he released a solo album that was, to put it kindly, abysmal.
Much has been made of the fact that half of the original band isn't included in the reunion, but let's be honest; Corgan played just about everything on every Smashing Pumpkins disc except drums, and live neither James Iha or D'arcy Wretzky were exactly what we would call assets. No one seems to remember that the Pumpkins were a particularly terrible live band and all the magic (and we will grant there was some magic) happened in the studio.
So that brings us to the new Smashing Pumpkins album, Zeitgeist, that drops next week. It sounds like, well, the Smashing Pumpkins. At the same time, it sounds pretty bereft if the old inspiration that made Corgan's over-the-top theatrics stomachable in the first place.It ain't bad, it ain't good, it ain't ain't ... it just is. Corgan is no longer the hungry, ambitious, angry young man out to make every schoolyard bully that ever gave him a wedgie crawl up to him and lick his boots. The fire just isn't there. Instead we get a collection of songs that sound an awful lot like The Smashing Pumpkins without ever convincingly escaping the long shadow the band originally cast.
Corgan wanted to change the world, and he did, so it's not surprising that his re-entry into music under a familiar brand name should feel slightly washed out this time around.
Image from Smashing Pumpkins website.
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I wouldn't say they were a particularly terribly live band. They were a very hit or miss live band, but when firing on all cylinders, they could put on a hell of a show, because of exactly the attitude you talk about in this article.
I saw them 12 times from '96 onward, and a few of those shows were stellar, a lot were decent, and a few were pretty bland.
That said, the two shows I saw with the original lineup were two of the best shows I saw.
I saw them a bunch of times and was struck at just how mediocre it all sounded. I'm glad you had some good experiences with them though.
Mediocre I can understand more than terrible.
Jimmy's drumming alone could at least keep the show from being terrible, no matter how phoned in the rest of the show is.
"It ain't bad, it ain't good, it ain't ain't ... it just is."
That is the worst written passage to ever appear on chicagoist - and that's saying something.
#3, I agree that Jimmy's drumming is nothing short of incredible. You've got me there.
#4, so noted.
Come on, Chicagoist -- you don't have to be embarassed for liking the Smashing Pumpkins. You'd love that shit again if it was brand new..
I never claimed to be embarrassed for enjoying the Smashing Pumpkins in the past. And anyone on a nostalgia trip will probably enjoy the new one.
They were one of only a few important rock bands from the 90s...very original and recognizeable sound. I don't think the, as you say, disaffected posturing (embodied most dramatically in 'grunge') has held up or will hold up very well for most 90s rock bands but the Pumpkins definitely had their moments. I look forward to checking out the new stuff.
If this was a new band called The Remembrance Column, and someone told you their first album sounded exactly like the new Smashing Pumpkins album, you would be pimping the shit like no tomorrow. Hell, they might even get their favorite fruit beer mentioned on the Beer of the Week!
I actually just attended one of the North Carolina shows this week. It was actually pretty good, but I never felt their lives shows were terrible, quite to the contrary I absolutely loved their live shows, so long as it was in a small venue. This Asheville show was great though, almost 30 songs, over three hours long, played in a 900 person venue all for 20 bucks. All this being said, I don't think Corgan has written a great song since MCIS (with few exceptions) and I wish they'd just play Siamese Dream straight through at these shows, but I guess that's what the 90s were for.
I saw them live about 5 - 7 times, but all Gish or prior. Places like the Avalon in Chicago and Trito's in Champaign. They were very, very good live. Corgan's singing isn't great, but it is better than Chicagoist's writing any day, any day, any day.
i'm embarrassed to say i saw 'ziggy' and thought of the sad, bald, embarrassing cartoon character .... oh, right.
I want to know why they're not playing a single f'ing show in Chicago. Normal?! It's like Billy's afraid to come here. He better be saving himself for some 3 day New Year's Eve blow-out or something.
Is this album as good as their classics? No, but it does justify why they are back. Unlike many reunion acts in the past who have put out an album or the other alt acts who try to keep releasing (Chili Peppers!!!!), this record is far from being an embarrassment.....actually, it's pretty exceptional. Probably won't be in my top 10 for the year, but definitely in my top 20. Just my opinion, but this record doesn't sound like 1995....we'd have another "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" if Billy was trying to go after the jaded youth again. We don't have that on this album.
#13, I seem to remember them doing much the same thing when Siamese Dream came out, skipping Chicago and playing ISU.
It's interesting that both the Pumpkins and Wilco seem to be two Chicago bands that seem to avoid playing here even though their fan base is huge.
And #14, if this album was truly a progressive move on Corgan's part, it'd be dominated by the synths and strings that have been creeping into his work since Adore. In fact Machina was a backlash against the fact that it didn't seem people wanted to hear a softer, introspective Billy. And when left to his own devices on his solo disc, he went right back to the Adore-era sound.
Listen, I stand by what I say. The album is a solid disc that will please fans (myself included) of the Smashing Pumpkins. At the same time it both reminds us what a one-man show the Pumpkins always were, and that while one can replicate the sounds that made them great you can't really draw from the same inspirational well to deliver something as moving as well.
Didn't they play their Siamese Dream record release show at the Metro? I was about 8 or 9 at the time, so I can't say for certain, but Joe Shanahan always brings up that concert when he talks about the pumpkins.
I can't think of a time when they've ever avoided Chicago, and Billy has spoiled us in the interim - Zwan played those open-mic nights at Hideout before their first official shows, plus their five-night stint at the Metro, Billy's five-night recording studio sessions plus Metro show, that Yahoo! thing he did where they let fans watch him rehearse for the Future Embrace tour & then he took them out for hot dogs, the Future Embrace record release party plus two nights at the Vic, etc.
I'm hoping they are planning a surprise for the Metro's 25th anniversary, but more likely than not I'll be trekking out to Normal, I suppose.
I am still completely against this reunion, though. To make such a grandiose exit (a little over 6 months between the announcement and last concert), only to reunite 7 years later, is pretty ridiculous. In order for this to have worked, they would have had to put out an album that would outshine the rest. I will say I like Zeitgeist. Well, it's better than Machina at least. But the album is not solid enough to warrant the reunion. And there are laser beams coming out of Billy's eyes in the Tarantula video. I just can't get over that.
Also, I think James and D'arcy were integral to the band. James musically, D'arcy not so much - but at least she called Billy out on his bullshit. Plus James was the personality of the band.
"Corgan wanted to change the world, and he did..."
Seriously, WTF?
Having a wide audience does not mean you've changed the world - in fact, the wider your audience, the more you must appeal to an accepted, average view world. "Look at me, 1995, see how alternative I am!" doesn't work any more, if it ever really worked at all.
Corgan didn't change anything. He is merely a musician - with a big ego and questionable taste - who got a lucky break over a decade ago by preying on the same confused teenage angst from which grunge (and the mainstream music industry in general) had already profited.
#17, by that I meant that Corgan took the steps made by Nirvana and Pearl Jam and all the other suddenly successful Alternative nation-types, shrugged off their fears of success and money, and went full-bore for the public's jugular. Judging by the resulting album sales, and yes, his cementing of the Alternative Nation as no longer being so "Alternative," I'd say he had a pretty big hand in the current musical landscape.
And when you're reading piece of rock criticism I trust you realize that when we make statement like "change the world" we don't mean it at a Genghis Khan or Spanish Inquisition level, right?
"Also, I think James and D'arcy were integral to the band. James musically, D'arcy not so much - but at least she called Billy out on his bullshit. Plus James was the personality of the band."
Don't agree with that mainly because enough stories have gone around involving Corgan handing tapes to Iha and D'arcy and said "learn these parts." It's really hard to tell Iha's influence given that he hasn't released anything on his own since the initial break up of the band and his '96 solo album sure as hell didn't show how he contributed to the band. That said, the work horses of the band are the ones who are now in it.
Do you think Iha or D'arcy would have ever agreed to wear those crazy white robes?
At the very least, they kept Billy in check.
"At the very least, they kept Billy in check."
Fashion wise, I totally agree. :)
I don't know, I thought I wasn't going to like this new one, the single sounded a little too mainstream, a little too "We're going back to our old sound/this is the next Zero." But after listening to it a few times, I'm still in. I liked Future Embrace (except for the title and the Bee-Gee's cover) and loved Zwan and electric Pumpkins. This could be an example of Corgan being past his peek, with too much of an interest in commercial sales, but there is still enough prog to keep me interested (any other old Genesis fans here catch his nod to The Waiting Room on United States?).
Oh, and if it's not 1995 anymore, someone please relay that to the commercial rock stations. I love Alice in Chains as much as the next guy, but it is time to move on, and if I want nostalgia, I've owned all the discs for years now.