Smashing Pumpkins

Music, movies, poetry, writing, critical analysis.
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Mortis
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Smashing Pumpkins

Postby Mortis » Thu May 31, 2007 07:53

I'm just going to make myself a vanity thread here so as not to flood the blog with things that I would like to post. I think it's all for the better!

Anyway, I can't reiterate this more, I'm absolutely stoked for the band's return as of lately - I've been getting live recordings like mad and now I saw this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzHwPKXjMbU

There's a new studio clip in the video, 1:19 in, called "Doomsday Clock". Sounds like a great continuation to MACHINA to me!

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Rock am Ring

Postby Mortis » Sun Jun 03, 2007 12:05

BWBW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFHKJcnxnuI

Bleeding The Orchid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDqxyUVlk3c

Tarantula http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyv6N8BzjMk

Untitled http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbf1vBroP94

Holy crap I just checked! It has been posted in its entirety at the Zomb! xO /me downloads

Edit: Aww! It was just the audio. Sniff. There's a TV DVD release of the show at thetradersden now but I don't have an account there.

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Re: Smashing Pumpkins

Postby Smeagol » Mon Jun 04, 2007 18:12

why don't you get one then? :)
He's not heavy, he's my brother.

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Re: Smashing Pumpkins

Postby Mortis » Tue Jun 05, 2007 09:57

Ah! We talked about this in irc, actually. I don't care much for the site, that's why - though vrap (once again!) offered to lend me his account, the files finally made over to my preferred tracker (that was even running a ratio free week on top of that) before I did anything so I downloaded from there instead.

Also, likes and dislikes aside, it's not that easy keeping your ratio fixed with a connection like ours (1/512) so I find it makes sense to centralize the downloads.

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Re: Smashing Pumpkins

Postby Mortis » Fri Jul 13, 2007 16:02

I've yet to buy the record from the stores as the booklet edition was delayed a little here, so I've been listening to Zeitgeist b-sides instead.

I've mostly just listened to Stellar (available in the player) for the last week. That track alone justifies the reunion and it's also made me want to write more music - especially lyrics - myself. I'm trying to complement my 6-track ep with a few more likeminded tracks to flesh out the missing moods.

Such an amazing mood piece, not so much to be scrutinized (the lyrics are oblique as always) but to be felt.

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Re: Smashing Pumpkins

Postby Darkelth » Fri Jul 13, 2007 17:01

Wasn't there new album just released? At least they reviewed one in Valo!

"Smashin Pumpkins: Zeitgeist

On minulla ikävä tehtävä. Minun täytyy todeta, että Smashin Pumpiknisn paluukiekko on vuoden kehnoin esitys. Zeitgeist etenee Billy Corganin heavy-menneisyyden ehdoilla, eikä levyllä edes soita Smashin Pumpkins! On vain Corgan ja hakkaava rumpali Jimmy Chamberlin. James Iha ja D'arcy Wretzky jäivät ryhdikkäästi tämän pelleilyn ulkopuolelle. Heidän seurassaa on hyvä olla. *"

So just one star, though I haven't ever listened Smashing Pumpkins much, but that's The review of Valo magazine, Markku Makkonen, that is.
If you want to be happy for a day, drink alcohol. If you want to be happy for a year, get yourself married. If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, start gardening. - An old Chinese aphorism.

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Re: Smashing Pumpkins

Postby Mortis » Sat Jul 14, 2007 16:48

Though I'll freely admit that this resembles the usual sloganeering of all hurt music fans, Valo's music reviews (alongside Aamulehti's movie reviews) seem to walk a line between being strangely misguided and embittered.

There was also one reviewer who keenly observed that Smashing Pumpkins albums never drew instantaneous praise, all garnering belated critical appraisal only.

In any case I'm looking forward to hearing one-star sludge from the people that made me turn to music in the 1st place - with an album that was titled unanimously their "worst" no less :D

That said I think SP fans are a strange breed after experiencing some of the biggest disappointments a fan can. Myself, I'm happy enough with the explosive live footage and Stellar (still listening to it) even if the album turns out to be a turd. That remains to be seen :p

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Re: Smashing Pumpkins

Postby Darkelth » Sat Jul 14, 2007 19:05

Haha yeah! Pekka Eronen ftw too :P
If you want to be happy for a day, drink alcohol. If you want to be happy for a year, get yourself married. If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, start gardening. - An old Chinese aphorism.

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Re: Smashing Pumpkins

Postby Mortis » Sun Jul 15, 2007 12:38

I remember quite a few peculiarities in recent memory - at least the one-star 300 review (one that I think Armand would cite here) and two stars given to Asobi Seksu's fantastic (IMO!) 2nd album Citrus.

This week Kari Salminen (who is often criticized in Pelit-lehti, for instance) saw fit to give two stars *cough* to Children of Menin the DVD review section.

Strangely enough all this injustice is easily forgotten and I can't really think of other suitable gripes. There are a-plenty but I digress...

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Re: Smashing Pumpkins

Postby Mortis » Mon Aug 20, 2007 13:43

I finally received my limited edition book today from Fetch a Disc (Please, please don't do business with them - it took way over a month to arrive) and jumped into the record as soon as I could. This is no review, just a bit of this and that from an old Pumpkinhead.

There are two words that I think describe this album best: Sloppy and loose. Especially the vocals are too imprecise, there's none of that anal precision Billy always used to strive for. You'd nearly think he's gone soft - the mixes, too, are just plain sloppy. Why does this album sound like home recordings (though, I would say its mixing compares unfavourably even with MACHINA II)? And where's MACHINA / the machines of God's amazing treble sector and depth of sound?

Well, it's not here; As for Billy's usual calling card, the guitars, I can only describe the sounds as too thick and round. Fat maybe? This applies to the whole record, which is muddy in the middle: Jimmy's snare and toms, especially, suffer from compression and the usual sharpness and clarity is lost. I must ask, but please don't answer: Why are the drums and vocals so high up in the mix?

I guess I need more listens to get the gis(h/t) of this... for a nitpick like me (earlier, the Pumpkins were only for the nitpicks!), it would seem to be the worst album of Billy's career. The poor overall sound of the album motivates one to position this album next to Pisces Iscariot (the b-sides collection - one that I never listen to in its entirety, personally) quality-wise.

Still, the fault is not with the songs themselves: There are plenty of goods (the entire second half of the album, especially, is very strong and surprised me greatly), and most if not all of the songs are probably good in a live context. Shame about being drowned out and about on the album.

In the end, the last song (Pomp and Circumstances) really put a big dino smile on my face. That's really all you can ask for and more! :D

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Re: Smashing Pumpkins

Postby Mortis » Thu Sep 13, 2007 16:01

It's really weird... if you compare this b-side live version of Daydream (this song was originally released on Gish and sung by D'arcy Wretzky instead) to the rest of the new album, the performance is absolutely stellar.

I love the ultra-mega-nasal tone he has here, it's evocative, intimate and really just plain beautiful (admittedly an acquired taste, though...). I think most fans agree that this is a fantastic version of an old song. If he'd done the new album vocally as tightly as in this live rendition, I would've been completely, 100% sold. What's strange is that it really makes no sense to me: The live act is this tight, and the album is that loose.

Maybe I should blame the producers?

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Re: Smashing Pumpkins

Postby Mortis » Thu Jan 03, 2008 18:21

The New Pumpkins came out with a new EP called "American Gothic" - it's a semi-acoustic record with four tracks. I quite like it, much much more than it seems other Pumpkins fans are enjoying it. What's wrong with enjoying good music out of the box? This EP is out of the box, and I think Billy's realized something essential about the "nature" of music on it.

The songs have a great tone to them, much like what I aim to do with my English language tracks, but the vocals (especially doubled background vocals) once again carry a tone that feels out of character and slightly non-earnest. It's strange. I hope he finds more emotion along the way. Some of them are marred, too, by the Pumpkins past. They would work better without the "Pumpkin" groove. The good thing about these tracks is that they resemble the music they recorded between '88 and '91, before they had a recording contract.

And since the name of the EP is "American Gothic" I would have liked way more Southern Gothic tone to it! Death Rock on acoustic guitar would have been awesome. After all, Billy's definitely familiar with the goth rock genre (His first real band, the Marked was just that). I guess having Jimmy pound a simple repetitive beat is impossible, though, at this stage...
"...the public dissolves as fact and fiction blend, history becomes derealized by media into a happening, science takes its own models as the only accessible reality, cybernetics confronts us with the enigma of artificial intelligence, and technologies project our perceptions to the edge of the receding universe or into the ghostly interstices of matter." - Hassan, Ihab: "Toward a Concept of Postmodernism" (1987).

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Re: Smashing Pumpkins

Postby Mortis » Fri Feb 15, 2008 02:55

The Pumpkins are coming out with a new video for the song "SuperChrist" (a tacky title, is it not). The song will also be released on a limited edition Guitar Center compilation on March 1st. There will also be a special UK Tour edition (download-only?) of the American Gothic EP.

All these releases make my head spin and I start feeling like jumping off the train, so to speak.
"...the public dissolves as fact and fiction blend, history becomes derealized by media into a happening, science takes its own models as the only accessible reality, cybernetics confronts us with the enigma of artificial intelligence, and technologies project our perceptions to the edge of the receding universe or into the ghostly interstices of matter." - Hassan, Ihab: "Toward a Concept of Postmodernism" (1987).


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