Quote:
Originally Posted by Dust and Ashes
Anyway, all of that was to answer your statement about what a "good" SP album sounds like.
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See, you can tell me that "guitars make a good SP album" and while I'd generally agree they're a major part of what we consider a good SP album to be - it's not an absolute, especially when I refer to 'this day and age'. You've got people out there that like the more techno-oriented or danceable songs; It's still weird to me that nowadays more people seem to like TBITEITB than TEITBITE. I wouldn't call Adore a guitar-focused album for the most part, but I love it. Some folks like Dorian. My point would be nobody can agree on what makes SP good a lot of the time, and that's nothing new. I don't think there's been much of a consensus since Adore came out and Bill branched out his sound.
What made SP tops for me during their heyday was Bill's ability to craft imagery and his aim to provoke emotion through sound, and that was through a combination of expressive lyrics, good or interesting production choices, and a wide variety of instrumental choices. 1979 sounds nostalgic the first time you hear it. In The Arms of Sleep evokes late nights, ticking clocks, longing. Bill wrote Disarm specifically with the intent of creating something heartbreaking and beautiful to hurt people who hurt him, and it worked.
See, I think the opposite about his lyrics, or I once did. I think Corgan USED to be a good lyricist - a lot of his lyrics leaned on the juvenile side because oftentimes he was trying to illustrate childhood feelings through the lens of young adulthood, and he was really, really good at that. He's been awful in recent years because his lyrics have devolved into overwrought poetry with little prose, he's been on autopilot, and he's older and might be struggling for something to say at all.
And right about now is when someone shows up and says that they love SP mainly because Jimmy's one badass motherfucker of a drummer. No consensus, I say.