Likes: 
Faceplams: So what's up with the Machina reissue?
Active Member
So what's up with the Machina reissue?
Administrator
The answer is literally a few posts above yoursOriginally Posted by GulDukat
Active Member
I used to be obsessed with lyrics. Lyrics aren't even second. It's all about the music and production to me now.
Oceania might be the best thing to come out of Billy since 2000. It's really good
RA-MEN ROPPAI
PM'ed you, bubala. The mix is a little overcooked.
Machina Box: We can all keep our fingers crossed for a September release date to coincide with the release of Machina II...
2000+ Billy: I still prefer Zeitgeist over Oceania. The stuff in-between -- "Gossamer," "Superchrist", and "GLOW" are great. And American Gothic.
Active Member
I really hope Zeitgeist gets a remaster/remix. Really needs it. That album is such a mixed bag. The mixing doesn't help.
Active Member
Add me to the list of people that think Oceania is the best thing post-breakup that Billy has done. In fact, I'll take it a step further and say it's the best SP release since Adore. Yeah, that's right — I think it's better than Machina I & II.
Active Member
Oceania is really good. After that, it was back to his boring post break up stuff
Active Member
I prefer Zeitgeist. I especially love Superchrist and it should've been on the album.
Throbbing Member
no chamberlin = no pumpkins!
Active Member
I cannot fully agree with this because I absolutely love Adore, which Chamberlin wasn't involved with, and it's up there as one of my favorite SP albums. Sadly, Shiny And Oh So Bright wasn't good even with him back on the drums. Marchin' On was okay, but the rest were forgettable.
Active Member
I'll say this again, for me, Superchrist was last Smashing Pumpkins track. The one and only track from the post original line up that matched the original band's ferocity.
she/her/hers
i have literally not listened to anything the pumpkins have released since machina II. i loved Zwan (especially live) and i liked billy's solo album (the future embrace) but i have managed to not hear anything else post-breakup.
Add Violins
Yeah, Superchrist is the one.
I saw them play it live and it absolutely melted my face off. I don't understand why they can't just crank out an album of ten songs in the same style as Superchrist. Just a whole album of dark, tribal psychedelic jams. That would fucking slay.
Active Member
Love this performance of it...
Personally, I did not like Zwan nor The Future Embrace.
Add Violins
Yeah, that's really good, but my favorites are the bootlegs where you can hear the crowd going nuts. The song generates so much crowd energy when they play it. It's fun.
bastard from blue city
I back the Superchrist love, but not the studio recording – that AOL one neorev linked above, or the one from If All Goes Wrong.
Another reunion era live gem imo is Gossamer. It may not match the intensity of the OG lineup like Superchrist did, but it does match the psychedelia and atmosphere of things like Porcelina, Glass + the Ghost Machines, even Silverfuck. Again, it's on If All Goes Wrong, and it blows my mind.
Also came here specifically to pimp Live Inside the Dark Globe from the Aeroplane reissue box. Face melting performances and, especially, maybe my favourite audio mix in the catalog – Howard Willing really outdid himself on those (and, I guess, so did Bjørn Thorsrud & Sam Wiewel on their two songs).
Add Violins
Yeah the superchrist studio recording isn't as good as it could have been. It's too bad.
I like Gossamer well enough, I appreciate the prog rock tendencies, but as time has gone on I find myself feeling like it's just a little bit on the wanky side. Not bad though.
Last edited by Mantra; 01-17-2020 at 05:33 PM.
Throbbing Member
you do have a very valid point sir and I fully agree.
Let me rephrase, no chamberlin = no pumpkins 2.0 then
Active Member
you do have a very valid point sir and I fully agree.
Let me rephrase, no chamberlin = no pumpkins 2.0 then
Add Violins
Came across this old tape of Billy doing some solo acoustic shit. Have any of you ever heard this before? I've been kind of fascinated by this tape for a few days now.
I think what most struck me about listening to this is how Billy's guitar playing used to have this dreamy, meditative style, and I miss that sound so much. It's a huge part of what's missing for me in SP 2.0. Listening to this tape, there's this kind of shimmery, inward-looking, reflective quality, and you can just tell that he was a thoughtful guy who used to spend hours getting lost in the sound of his guitar, just exploring those vibes. And I spent so much time in my youth listening to this dude play, that it almost feels like that mellow, dreamy style of guitar playing captures something about me. Which is probably a dumb thing to say, but honestly, yeah, something about the vibe of me as a human being is similar to the vibe of that guitar playing. I think that's why I can't fully bring myself to ever stop listening to this shit, even though I can't stand who Billy Corgan has become. To turn my back on this old sound would feel like a violation of my core self.
Active Member
Yes to all of this. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I can't stand what he's become, but I'd be lying if I said there weren't times I'd been a little disappointed with his snarky as hell replies to fans inquiring about songs or pretty much anything from the band's peak in popularity around the Siamese Dream & Mellon Collie eras. He seems to just assume right away that they don't accept the band as they exist today ("SP2.0") and that they're hung up on "SP1.0" can't let go of the past. When in reality, these songs more than likely hold a personal connection to these people because they're associated with a treasured memory or significant life event and they ask a question about one of their favorite songs and their hero is a huge dick about it. When I see the Instagram Q&As he does, they sometimes bum me out because of this. But then he might do an interview and seem way more reasonable, it's weird. As for the "dreamy...shimmery, inward-looking, reflective quality" you described, you head it right on the head with your description and I feel the exact same way. Well said!. I do think he managed to recapture some aspects of that quality on Oceania, which I've often professed my love for. I hold it in high regard and would argue that it holds up with their classic albums (Gish – Adore). It feels like a hybrid of Siamese Dream and Adore to me, which means lots of dreamy, shimmery, reflective vibes. I think Mike Byrne did a great job, but if I sometimes wonder how amazing it could have been with Chamberlain drumming on it.
Active Member
wow, I had to check Wikipedia to see about this because I was under the impression it was Chamberlain, it sounded close enough for me.
Active Member
He did a good job of emulating Chamberlain's style for sure. Maybe he just happens to play that way too, but they definitely both have a similar style, so I could see how you might miss that.
Active Member
Yeah I was reading his wiki and it appears that he plays that way on purpose.On August 17, 2009, he was officially named as the new drummer for the Smashing Pumpkins.[4][5] The Pumpkins were already one of his favorite bands, with Jimmy Chamberlin among his most influential drummers. Byrne's YouTube channel, which he created three years prior to joining the band, had been "MarquisinSpadez", a reference to the song "Marquis in Spades", from the Smashing Pumpkins' Zero EP.
RA-MEN ROPPAI
Have you heard any of the LiveDownloads/nugs.net releases from 2008? This show is great.
Active Member
I got all of these on an external somewhere.
bastard from blue city
Is this the official resting place of all those livesp shows? I wondered what happened.
I haven't heard the Chicago ones from that tour, but I have the two Toronto shows, and they're kickass. Probably the last tour setlist I ever gave a shit about with this band.
Active Member
Finally heard the new Billy Corgan album. Honestly, I think it's the best thing he's done since MTAE.
Dis-member
New SP double album expected this year:
https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/sm...bum-this-year/
Unintelligible Whispering
"When we got back together with James (Iha, founding guitarist), we went in with Rick Rubin and did eight songs. It was put out as a formal album, but I said at the time — and I did mean it — in my eyes, it wasn't an album. We didn't approach it like we've approached every other album we'd ever done, which is more like making a movie.
In many ways, this is the first real album (since the reunion) where we've hunkered down and made a classic, "Let's throw it all at the wall and see what happens" type of Pumpkins record. I've been working on it for over a year. It currently is at 21 songs, and we're going to release it as a double this year.
This is the first album since the album that came out in 2000, "Machina," where me, James and Jimmy worked on something for a very long time. It's got a greater conceptual base, and it's probably a wider swath of music. The last one was kind of like, "Let's just jump in, record some stuff real fast, and let it be what it is," ... so I'm excited about this, because we're kind of back in the lane of taking a risk, and trying to bring something new to the table, as opposed to just aping what we're known for."
This is it. This is what I've been waiting for, for them to finally pull out all the stops.
I liked Shiny Vol. 1 for what it was, but it sounded exactly like what it was - a bunch of old friends jamming together and cranking out a few numbers that came to mind - and even then, I still adore Travels.
By all rights, this is where they should really be able to knock something out of the park, if they can.
As an aside, BC mentioned there were two more Day For Night holdovers on this one.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote