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Post by cactusjames on Jul 10, 2007 11:14:24 GMT -5
The new Smashing Pumpkins album came out today. I loved the two signles pre released through itunes and am just now putting in the album. Out of all the reviews I've read maybe 4 or 5 were bad and I read like 60 of them. Pick it up if you like the Pumpkins or if you want to hear some of the samrtest social commentary in music in years. Or, check em out on Letterman, they were on last night and will be on tonight.
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$heriff Tom
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Groom ba ya ya ya
Posts: 16,173
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Post by $heriff Tom on Jul 10, 2007 11:25:53 GMT -5
I saw nothing but excellent reviews, but its not my style so its wasted on me. But this is the most critically acclaimed release I can remember in years, for those of you on the fence.
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Post by cactusjames on Jul 10, 2007 11:31:39 GMT -5
Even the most die hard fans love it, despite how driven it is by politics and religion.
Btw, Tom, that's a cool sig pic, is that the new chick thats in development in OVW or someone else? I've never seen a camel clutch applied like that.
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$heriff Tom
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Groom ba ya ya ya
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Post by $heriff Tom on Jul 10, 2007 11:43:26 GMT -5
Thats a shot from Shimmer. The "puller" is Lacey, she is an Indy stalwart who also works with Ring of Honor. Apparently she was backstage at the last TNA tapings with her tag-partner Rain, and they are collectively known as the "Minnesota Home-Wrecking Crew." Lacey is a wise-ass, she actually jawjacks with the fans, and is known to spit water all over them.
The other one is Daizee Haize, who also does stuff with ROH. You'd like her, the "Haze" part of her gimmick is a nod to pot-smoking, she is quite free with that chitter chatter.
Shimmer is the Ring of Honor of womens wrestling, where its billed as an "athletic contest" and not a "modeling show." They can go.
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Post by cactusjames on Jul 10, 2007 17:50:30 GMT -5
So I just ran through the album a few tims throughout the day a few things stick out to me. The album is almost the best of both worlds, the whole Machina/Adore thing Corgan did but with real drums this time, mixed with the hard rocking/dream pop thing they're known for. It's also odd because while it's a throwback to some of the old traits that they were known for, it still sounds different, like a brand new band. There's at least 5 songs that have single wirrten all over them, including the one "Tarnatula" which already has a video running. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. As long as you don't fall into the group of "I hate Corgan's voice", I think this is an enjoyable album for pretty much anyone whos a fan of heavy riffs and baselines.
I'm know for only doing 4 stars in movie reviews, but with CDs I like going 5 so I give this album an unbiased 4/5 stars. And on a side note, there's four different album covers cause 3 of them have an additional track not found on the others, and the red one is the original 12 cut album. I don't know if it's cause they want more money or what. I don't think it's for money but I don't know why else that'd be. In any event 1-12 or 1-13, I like it all and def think it's best thing to come out in a long time.
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$heriff Tom
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Post by $heriff Tom on Jul 20, 2007 7:04:46 GMT -5
LOL - so here's a negative review of this from blabbermouth.net - this is one of a bunch of negative reviews I have seen coming in for this all of a sudden. The reader-poll has this hanging at 5.2 out of 10, thats not good either.
With every rock band under the sun seemingly reuniting, it was only inevitable that founder/songwriter/frontman Billy Corgan would reassemble the SMASHING PUMPKINS, one of the most highly acclaimed alternative acts of the Nineties. Since splitting up the band in 2000, Corgan has failed to achieve the same success with both another band project (ZWAN) and his own solo effort, making him confront the reality that his own name was linked inextricably to the group he formed in Chicago in the late Eighties.
The problem is that Corgan wants to have his cake and eat it too. While resurrecting the PUMPKINS name, he has not brought back the band in its entirety — only he and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin appear on this album. Although guitarist James Iha and especially bassist D'Arcy Wretzky did not play a large number of their own parts on the previous five PUMPKINS albums, Corgan has dispensed even with the facsimile of a fully-reformed band on the album and has hired anonymous side musicians for the touring lineup. In other words, this is less a band that another Corgan project operating under the PUMPKINS banner — which the band arguably was all along.
Even more grievously, however, Corgan doesn't sound very interested in actually making a SMASHING PUMPKINS album. The harder-rocking stuff on "Zeitgeist" — and whatever you might have thought of the original PUMPKINS, they had an ability to make some pretty thunderous noise — sounds tossed-off and half-baked, as if Corgan took the first ideas he had and turned them quickly into songs just to get it over with. "Doomsday Clock", "7 Shades of Black" and "Tarantula" rattle by, distorted and muddy-sounding, without even the kind of hook that made, say, "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" or "Cherub Rock" into instant classics.
It's the album's second half where things get interesting, only because Corgan strays from the straightforward heavy rock and explores different areas — which you start to think is what he wanted to do all along. The nine-minute "United States" is a bombastic, multi-part epic, mixing titanic chords with softer, more progressive passages, while "Bring The Light" is a melodic, shimmering, gorgeous pop-rock anthem that channels one of Corgan's biggest influences, QUEEN. The album's last three tracks — "(Come On) Let's Go", "For God and Country" and "Pomp and Circumstances" — all go further in this more melancholy, textured, progressive-pop direction, and also feature some of Corgan's best, most inspired vocals.
Speaking of which, the man's voice has always been an acquired taste — you either accept his plaintive whine or you don't. But at least on "Zeitgeist"'s more melodic cuts, he sounds more sincere than on the heavier material, where he just seems bored. The rest of the playing on the album is competent without being outstanding, although Corgan does pull off some Brian May-style solos that are a nice, nostalgic touch.
In the end, "Zeitgeist" seems like an album that's divided between the commercial expectations of what people want a SMASHING PUMPKINS record to sound like and where the band's guiding creative light wants to go with his own music. When he embraces that fully, Corgan is at his best, but the results could disappoint fans that love the crunchy, metal-based alternative rock on which the PUMPKINS first made their reputation. The result is a schizophrenic album that is neither a glorious return to form nor a bold reinvention of a beloved band.
- Don Kaye
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Post by cactusjames on Jul 20, 2007 18:44:05 GMT -5
This guy is a douche, sorry they're still not writing songs like Bullter With Butterfly Wings, Disarm or Cherub Rock anymore. And Iha and D'arcy weren't involved cause A) Corgan did most of the shit on the first 5 albums, they didn't really add much, and B) D'arcy is a heronie addict and Iha is an asshole so Corgan has no need to speak to them let alone have them make money cause of him. To me, the band nose dived when Jimmy chamberlin got booted for Oding, then he used the fake electronic drums that sucked, with Chamberlin back on drums, it gives it the hard rocking feel, not some techno/house music dogshit.
Bottom line is the band is different then they were in 95 and the music will be too. And as far as commercial rock goes, what album is better than this? If the new album gets only a 5.2, then it's 5.1 points better than other shit thats out there now. And the fact he calls the album schizophrenic means he didn't listen to it, the songs and lyrics make total fucking sense, instead of being introverted in his writing, he directs his anger outward, it's not some fucking mystery if you actually listen the album. Critics are assholes.
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