Smashing Pumpkins to release two albums in 2015

eviltimeban

http://www.nme.com/news/smashing-pumpkins/76329

Can't wait - I thought Oceania was excellent, and most of the songs they released for free as part of "Teargarden" were great too.

I think the new band have sort of proved themselves now, so I look forward to these albums as they'll show a band more at ease with itself. If the general guideline is "guitars guitars guitars", then I'm happy with that!

Hopefully they'll tour it and play here next year as well.

The Wild Bunch

Great news

SilverScreen

I thought Oceania was decent enough. A good bit better than the Teargarden songs, which ranged from decent to below average.

Then again, decent isn't really good enough for a band that released two of my favourite albums of the 90's. I've now accepted that they (or Billy should I say) are never going to release another album on par with the likes of Siamese Dream and Adore. I could probably be accused of longing for the classic line-up, they were the Smashing Pumpkins I fell in love with after all. But Billy's continuing use of the Smashing Pumpkins name is leaving an increasingly sour taste in my mouth. He could at least get Jimmy back in the band.

I'd love to be proved wrong though, but I'm not particularly excited about these upcoming releases.

eviltimeban

I understand your feelings on this; I don't share them, but I understand them. A lot of "old" fans feel this way as well, given the fact that they grew up with those albums and with the classic line up. Having said that, we all know that Billy was / is the mastermind behind that group, that he played all of the guitars and bass on SD and most on Gish, and that it was James who actually walked away from the band causing the split.

Billy's post-Pumpkins work has been hit and miss, from the solo album to Zwan and then Zeitgiest which in fairness did have a couple of rockin' songs on it! But things seemed to have clicked with Oceania. It felt like a "proper" album by a "proper" band. The fact that it is Billy with three others is just the way it is, it won't make me enjoy the music any less, nor do I have any feelings of missing D'Arcy or James, because what exactly did they contribute? OK - I know there was some Iha stuff here and there, and D'Arcy's vocals, but they have the new bass player who can do female backing vox. So that's covered. :-)

The only missing piece is Jimmy - I really didn't like the drumming on Teargarden but for some reason, again on Oceania it just clicked.

So for me it felt like a band, and that band just happened to be called Smashing Pumpkins. Why shouldn't he use the name? Its his band to start with - he had the name before he had the band, remember.

Nor do I feel he should make another Siamese Dream - although parts of Oceania were a definite nod to that album - but I would like some more of the "chilled" Pumpkins, like Rhinoceros or Suffer or Hummer / Soma etc. With softer vocals and more spacey sounds.

But we shall see. He mentioned these albums will be "epic" - give the right production and good enough songs, these could be mega.

minusthebear

That Zwan album was seriously underrated.

eviltimeban

As was the solo album - there's some great stuff on that; MOH, Pretty Star, All Things Change...

eviltimeban

Billy Corgan is giving an essentially day-by-day report of their demoing / recording progress, quite an interesting read:

http://www.smashingpumpkinsnexus.com/

Mickeroo

Never listened to the solo album but always liked zwan, it was more Pumpkins than any of the other post Adore stuff for me.

eviltimeban

Mickeroo wrote: »

Never listened to the solo album but always liked zwan, it was more Pumpkins than any of the other post Adore stuff for me.

MOH on the solo album could've been a great Pumpkins track; it has all the hallmarks.

I really like some of the tracks off Zeitgeist, and although it took me a while to get over the vocal approach, I enjoyed that album. Doomsday Clock is a great one. I had the same vocal issue with Oceania but I got used to it fairly quickly and its up there for me with the best stuff. My favourites would be ordered:

SD
Gish
Adore
Oceania
Pisces Iscariot
Mellon Collie
Zeitgeist
Machina 1 / Machina 2

Though I think the remaster / remix project for Machina has potential - he's releasing them the way they "should've" been, a double album, and giving the Machina 2 tracks a bit of a remix (they needed it). That was due to be out this year - though not sure what the crack is now they are doing new stuff.

RikkFlair

Very interested to hear that Adore boxset