Tribune: http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2007/06/the-official-re.html

Ashville: http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770628067&theme=SMASHINGPUMPKINS

not super gushing or anything, just mostly positive with some criticizms weaved in as well to help keep things grounded.

I guess I never though of the different CD versions as a "business move". I can respect that a little more.

funny you should say, because most cynics have been complaining about the business aspect of the multi-release almost exclusively.

i kinda find it hard to believe that its billys decision to release the cd in this fashion. i doubt he had any input at all. it makes the indie hipsters bitching about this look really stupid.

as if indie hipsters needed any help in looking stupid.

i kinda find it hard to believe that its billys decision to release the cd in this fashion. i doubt he had any input at all. it makes the indie hipsters bitching about this look really stupid.

Nah, I think ultimately he has control over everything.

i kinda find it hard to believe that its billys decision to release the cd in this fashion. i doubt he had any input at all. it makes the indie hipsters bitching about this look really stupid.
We're talking about Billy here. Of course he had control over it.

Greg Kot's Tribune article is right on (Though, I don't see the link between SP & Fall Out Boy). Although none of us fans want to admit, Billy didn't simply bring this band back 'cause he "misses his hopes & dreams" or whatever the hell he said in the Tribune article two years ago, but you come to the realization also that he brounght it back because obviously it puts him back in the mainstream. Money is probably another reason for him also; as a friend of mine recently asked me jokingly after I said SP was comin' back: "What did Billy do, smoke up all his money?" A funny question, but it has some merit to it (I'm not concluding that Billy's doin' drugs, you can go discuss that on the Billy On Heroin thread.)

A good point that Kot brings up is Billy is now focusing his musical energies outward, rather than inward. No longer is he goin' to make deeply emotional, personal songs like "Disarm" and "Mayonaise," but now he's singin' about "the end times" and how shitty the world is perceived through the news. Some SP fans can't deal with this change, and thus aren't goin' to listen to the new stuff, which in understandable. I like the new stuff, but of course it doesn't "hit me" the same way, emotionally, as the great albums Gish, SD, and MCIS did. It's not easy to admit, but we have to face up to the realization that never again will we see an SP album that can compare to SD & MCIS.

(Another thing I liked in the Kot article: I like the nickname "Smashing Pumpkins Mach II" better than "SP 2.")

well for some reason, i see the record label making this move. not to say corgan disagreed, but I doubt he was like:

BC: I have a great idea warner, lets release multiple special editions of zeitgeist! this way, more records can be sold and you wont drop me like virgin did!

WB: great idea! we would never have thought of that!

rofl

I dunno... "I Don't Mind" has struck me pretty hard emotionally. I think this Zeitgeist thing is just another phase. SP never really did the exact same thing twice. Just 'cause Billy's making a... errr... political/not-so-personal album now doesn't mean he'll never again write about his inner-most feelings.

It's not easy to admit, but we have to face up to the realization that never again will we see an SP album that can compare to SD & MCIS.

Or alternatively we have to get used to the fact that we will never be teenagers again, and music will never call affect us in the same way now as it did then. We've grown up.

I like the nickname "Smashing Pumpkins Mach II" better than "SP 2."

Yeah, it would be fine, except that Billy said the band was Smashing Pumpkins Mark 4 at the gig in London! They should be keeping track...