Unintelligible Whispering
If there's one thing I think Billy can still do right, it's acoustic numbers. Going back to the old SP days, sadlands demos etc - you could really hear the magic already present in his early acoustic sketches. And stuff like Stumbleine and the Zeitgeist title track speak for themselves. I'm pretty excited for this. Heck, there's acoustic takes on some MTAE stuff out there I'd actually listen to.
Last edited by Shadaloo; 08-10-2017 at 05:51 PM.
Active Member
Billy's acoustic stuff is great... when spread out amongst non-acoustic tracks. But a whole album of Billy with just his acoustic guitar? Eh, I don't think I can handle that. Especially the Billy we know today. I don't think we'll ever get 90s Billy greatness ever again.
The Future Embrace was meh. Like Oceania, the uninspired drums ruin it. Oceania could have maybe been great with Jimmy on the drums. But the drums are dull and lifeless on Oceania and for me suck the soul out of the songs. Billy uses the same 3 drum presets on The Future Embrace that it becomes distracting and the songs seem to meander. Oceania starts out alright, but quickly loses steam and just feels sterile. I think Oceania is probably the only post original SP album he has done that had potential if he had a real band in the studio with him with a proper producer. I also read that the young drummer Mike Byrne at the time doesn’t really drum on Oceania and the acoustic sounding drums were programmed.
Adore was the perfect balance of acoustic and electronics. But he has James and D'arcy there. I just really hope this solo album is more than just Billy and his acoustic guitar. Something more like Adore could be great.
Unintelligible Whispering
Have you got a cool million? Then why doncha head on down to BC's Reverb shop, now open for business!
I mean, those are obv. placeholder prices for the major items, but I'm amused. Most of those guitars are going like wildfire.
Throbbing Member
some of these are not overly priced actually, especially since owned by mister BC.Originally Posted by Shadaloo
Unintelligible Whispering
Oh yeah, I'm just joking around. If I had 6K lying around I'd snap up a ZG guitar like that, and no foolin'.
I really do hope these will go into hands of people who'll appreciate them and maybe use them to create their own cool stuff.
she/her/hers
$30,000 for an alesis sr-16? seriously? like, i get that it was used to make the drumbeat on 1979, which is cool, but you can get a new one for $150. i just don't understand why the fact that it was owned by B.C. inflates its price 200x.
Administrator
Oh, so you're saying you're gonna buy the rest of unsold Siddhartha records instead? Those money won't earn itself you know.
Unintelligible Whispering
Album's out Oct. 13th, brief fall tour
Early access tix to upcoming tour available if you buy a the album with it. I might head to Toronto.
After one listen to the song, I kinda dig it. Not totally acoustic. I'll let it simmer a bit.
Last edited by Shadaloo; 08-22-2017 at 09:28 AM.
Administrator
Uggghhhh why the need for the new moniker? How do I scrobble thissss???
Song sounds like something written for Oceania and recorded on piano instead of a rock band format.
Active Member
Is "WPC" his new moniker?
Is Ogilala part of the Teargarden project? Is it an album within an album within an album within an album within an album? Or is it something new? Is "WPC" Billy Corgan's Chris Gaines-like alter-ego or is an artistic statement, protesting the zeitgeist, post-modern industrialization, Niche-Schopenhauer post-WW2 Military Industrial Complex of Donald Trump's America? Or is Billy being ironic and is Ogilala actually a statement that is pro-post-modern industrialization, Niche-Schopenhauer post-WW2 Military Industrial Complex of Donald Trump's America?
Unintelligible Whispering
Tracklist:
Zowie
Processional
The Spaniards
Aeronaut
The Long Goodbye
Half-Life Of An Autodidact
Amarinthe
Antietam
Mandaryne
Shiloh
Archer
Amarinthine (spelled differently?) and The Spaniards are the two new tracks SP performed on the In Plainsong tour.
This album is already better than MTAE and Teargarden and I haven't even heard it
Active Member
I actually am really looking forward to hearing this. Betcha Pitchfork already has their 3/10 review written.
Unintelligible Whispering
He's actually been going by WPC for a few years now. Doesn't make a big thing of it, but I guess he prefers it to Billy. He was selling WPC trucker hats out of the ZuZu's store not so long ago.
Active Member
Not feeling it. I think it's because the vocals, I just get no feeling from them. I think Billy is too focused on sounding "good" and "perfect" that he forgot that it needs to sound sincere and from the soul. I just don't hear that with this. You listen to older acoustic Billy only songs and you feel like he's leaving a piece of his soul on tape. Fragile and imperfect. It is those idiosyncrasies that made those songs what they are. It wasn't about sounding perfect and clean. I feel that sterile-ness sucks out a huge part of this track's heart and soul and honestly most of the later Billy material suffer from this. They end up sounding like Billy going through the motions.
Banned
Just what every Pumpkins fan wants...another William Patrick Corgan solo album.
Judging from the song titles, I bet this lands firmly between the schlock rock of Oceania and his lame tea-time synth noodlings.
This guy does nothing for me anymore. Classic Pumpkins reunion or GTFO
Active Member
When he had an editor (the other members of the original band) or good producers he is incredible. But ever since the Machina days he hasn't had one and it's been very apparent IMO.
Active Member
Weren't the first two albums just Billy and Jimmy? Digging the new song. Frankly, his only work I wasn't that into was ZWAN and Teargarden.
Active Member
Active Member
Aeronaut's vocals are everything I've not liked about Billy's singing style over the last decade, wow. It's so rare that someone completely captures what you don't care for so thoroughly.
Spaniards is a great song, but I'm worried it'll get lost in translation to studio. A lot of recent Pumpkins songs haven't been half as good polished and recorded as they are live. What someone said above about sterility is a great term for it -- there's a sense of not allowing any room for personality, charm or grit. Billy's current vocal style of that weird stuttery pausing he does between syllables and the hard annunciation on "ih" sounds grates at me, and not in that good way that his vocals on things like Mellon Collie might.
Also it's good to hear him continuing the lovers drinking game -- if you took a sip every time he sings that word you'd die.
Unintelligible Whispering
ZG->TG->Oceania->Monuments To A Eugoogly being precisely those places where he's been surrounded by nothing but yes-men and allowed to do the first thing that crosses his mind. I tend to think one of the reasons Oceania is as palatable as it is (your mileage may vary, of course), is because it's him actually trying to buckle down and do a 'traditional' SP album in response to nobody giving a shit about Teargarden.
I'll be the last guy to say "He's still got it", but he's been a case study in fucking shit up when it comes to laying down studio cuts while still writing a fair number of decent songs. There's a lot of great stuff that came out of IAGW, and I kind of wonder if a big reason I don't love stuff like Gossamer and 99 Floors as much as I do is because they were never committed to an album, and just allowed to flourish live.
IMO The Spaniards and Amarinthine are good songs - I'd say Spaniards is actually damn great. If he manages to make it sound like crap on the album I'll be disappointed - but not surprised. The vocals are a lost cause - that's a foregone conclusion - but I hold out hope the songs will at least be good.
Last edited by Shadaloo; 08-23-2017 at 05:07 PM.
she/her/hers
i've had the worst fucking day and this just made me giggle incessantly. thank you so much. <3
Active Member
But Oceania IS part of Teargarden. An album within an album--remember?
I would definitely rank MTAE over Teargarden. At least MTAE sounds polished, fleshed-out--and there's some great stuff on there, imo, i.e., "Drum and fife" and "Dorian." Billy never should have released TG--it's dull, meandering, forgettable. And the 11 $50.00 EPs that stopped after the second one? What was that all about?
Unintelligible Whispering
The first two albums were Billy and Jimmy in terms of performance, yes, but D'Arcy and James still had input.
*Slams button* What is "Bullshit Corgan said to save face over his failure of a release", Alex! (That's why he stopped after vol. 2 and two songs into 3 - nobody cared and nobody was buying.)
Corgan has never explained the Teargarden 'concept' beyond it being 'inspired by the Tarot'. I want someone to find some concrete lyrical or musical link between any Oceania and Teargarden track. I've tried and come up with nothing.
And the reason is this - there's no connection because there's no real concept. TBK is just a bunch of unrelated songs with no overarching theme whatsoever. TBK was literally just him shitting out whatever came to mind. It was an experiment in putting out free music with the option of purchasing a physical version. .
I actually want one for some fucking reason. Maybe just the sheer ridiculousness of it all.
But for all that, I'd still take one song off Teargarden over Monuments any day. Song For a Son has more emotion and heart put into it than the entire fucking processed, factory-churned pile of soulless shit that is MTAE. God, I hate that record.
Last edited by Shadaloo; 08-25-2017 at 11:38 AM.
Active Member
Truth is, American Gothic was the one, true Pumpkins album. Everything else were, pre and post-albums within albums. Still like MTAE, but your post made me laugh. ETA--I was joking about Oceania being an "album within an album." know it was dumb.The first two albums were Billy and Jimmy in terms of performance, yes, but D'Arcy and James still had input.
*Slams button* What is "Bullshit Corgan said to save face over his failure of a release", Alex! (That's why he stopped after vol. 2 and two songs into 3 - nobody cared and nobody was buying.)
Corgan has never explained the Teargarden 'concept' beyond it being 'inspired by the Tarot'. I want someone to find some concrete lyrical or musical link between any Oceania and Teargarden track. I've tried and come up with nothing.
And the reason is this - there's no connection because there's no real concept. TBK is just a bunch of unrelated songs with no overarching theme whatsoever. TBK was literally just him shitting out whatever came to mind. It was an experiment in putting out free music with the option of purchasing a physical version. .
I actually want one for some fucking reason. Maybe just the sheer ridiculousness of it all.
But for all that, I'd still take one song off Teargarden over Monuments any day. Song For a Son has more emotion and heart put into it than the entire fucking processed, factory-churned pile of soulless shit that is MTAE. God, I hate that record.
Last edited by GulDukat; 08-24-2017 at 10:25 AM.
House Always Wins
Not digging any of this "solo" stuff if I'm honest.
Active Member
I really liked Oceania. I felt like that was the album that he finally took his head out of his ass and actually took outside input. I can't listen to most of his other stuff post 2000. Oceania is probably the only one. I'll be fine if I never zeitgeist ever again or the TG stuff.
Banned
My problem with Oceania is that it sounds like a force-job, where he's self-consciously trying to make a classic Pumpkins record with not much of a clue what made the classic albums legendary. A lot of it just sounds like the same song over and over again: Inkless, Glissandra, Chimera, Panopticon, etc.
It also has some of his most cringeworthy songs of all time on it. One Diamond One Heart being the worst offender. There's also that one song I remember that's like 10 minutes long but keeps changing course because it can't figure out what it's trying to do.
Pale Horse is amazing though. He manages to bring the old BillCo out for one stone-cold gem, at least..
Active Member
I think the complete opposite. I feel like it's probably his least forced thing since 2000. Thought the band had a good chemistry and he let loose a bit and let things happen. I think it was a fluke though since he immediately reverted back. I don't mind Monuments, but it's definitely lacking it areas.
Stubby Member
I could never get into MTAE, especially after hearing WPC describe it on Howard Stern. I am paraphrasing here, but he basically said that his entire goal was to "make an album that sounds the way people perceive the Smashing Pumpkins to sound rather than the way we really sound". Just give me some fucking Geek and Bodies with the original lineup William!
Active Member
Funny cuz MTAE absolutely does not sound anywhere near the way I, and I am sure many others, perceive The Smashing Pumpkins to sound. I actually perceive them to sound good, not sound like the gigantic turd that is MTAE. When he made that statement, I was baffled by how clueless he really is.
Sadly he had no edge nor emotion anymore. Any emotion is destroyed by terrible production and his singing having no soul anymore. All his songs sound so lifeless now. He's too much about perfection that all things that feel human are lost. Listen to the piece of shit Aeronaut, then go and listen to something like Stumbleine or Soothe. The difference is astounding.
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