Corgans fall from grace is simple: The reason why is:

[fuzzyroes]

He's an artist who needs to be working with a GREAT producer. He CAN'T be the one calling the shots.

By now it's clear that BC on his own can't create timeless, classic music. I'm not trying to belittle the guy, theres been lots of music that he's released that I enjoy, he hasn't lost his knack for songwriting, but theres something missing


It's been argued long and hard that the loss of atmospheric brilliance to the sound is due to the departure of James and Darcy.

But it's more probable that Billy and JC had the good fortunes of working with world-class Alt-ROCK taste makers in Butch Vig and Flood and Moulder. Billy's a great song writer but he's rough around the edges. He needs the help of people to soften the those edges.

Corgans got a great knack for melody, no doubt. But can you imagine if Corgan wrote 1979 today and released it himself? It's likely it wouldn't be half as good as the classic we enjoy today.

Everyone always debates the reason for Corgans fall from grace...Corgans potential was BIG BUSINESS back in the day, it was profitable for the labels to provide him with great alt-rock minds to take away "the suck". They would massage and maneuver him into making good artistic decisions.

If Corgan shelled over a good chunk of money to Vig and gave him the creative freedom to tell him what works and doesn't, SP could make something relevant again. But in BC's mind, he's this musical savant that doesn't need any advice

[Ram27]

I think the incredible disparity between these two versions is telling of something like this.





I think as well Billy at this point is overthinking things a ton, desperately trying to be cool again

[fuzzyroes]

Originally Posted by Ram27

I think the incredible disparity between these two versions is telling of something like this.





I think as well Billy at this point is overthinking things a ton, desperately trying to be cool again

Ahhhh, I generally relate to your vibes ram, but in this case: Pomp is probably my favorite song on Zeitgeist. It just hits the spot and I love the atmospheric qualities, and how it builds with the passionate guitar work, it's just great.

The first time it hit me I was just laying out in the sun on a beach, meditating listening to pomp, feeling fully connected with it and it just hit the spot completely

[bigoltitties]

double post

[bigoltitties]

Originally Posted by fuzzyroes

He's an artist who needs to be working with a GREAT producer. He CAN'T be the one calling the shots.

By now it's clear that BC on his own can't create timeless, classic music. I'm not trying to belittle the guy, theres been lots of music that he's released that I enjoy, he hasn't lost his knack for songwriting, but theres something missing


It's been argued long and hard that the loss of atmospheric brilliance to the sound is due to the departure of James and Darcy.

But it's more probable that Billy and JC had the good fortunes of working with world-class Alt-ROCK taste makers in Butch Vig and Flood and Moulder. Billy's a great song writer but he's rough around the edges. He needs the help of people to soften the those edges.

Corgans got a great knack for melody, no doubt. But can you imagine if Corgan wrote 1979 today and released it himself? It's likely it wouldn't be half as good as the classic we enjoy today.

Everyone always debates the reason for Corgans fall from grace...Corgans potential was BIG BUSINESS back in the day, it was profitable for the labels to provide him with great alt-rock minds to take away "the suck". They would massage and maneuver him into making good artistic decisions.

If Corgan shelled over a good chunk of money to Vig and gave him the creative freedom to tell him what works and doesn't, SP could make something relevant again. But in BC's mind, he's this musical savant that doesn't need any advice

Yes. It comes down to taste. Billy is one of the most creative songwriters of his generation and is extremely prolific. But we know what happens when he's left largely to his own devices in the studio (the rose march, song for a son etc). I think it's been admitted as such in the past that D'Arcy was the one with impeccable taste. That was what she brought to the band. Taste is actually a very underrated commodity. You can be creatively stagnant but have great taste and play an absolutely vital role in a band.

The reason the Pumpkins were able to create such an incredibly large amount of high quality music was because 1. They had an incredibly prolific and gifted songwriter and 2. They had someone else in the band that understood what was good and what was shite. I can imagine that Billy probably begrudged D'Arcy for knocking some of his lesser ideas, but its clear that he respected her judgement. Perhaps I'm overplaying D'Arcys role here, maybe sometimes it was James, or Butch, or Flood or Jimmy who played this role, but from an outside perspective, purely speculative, that is my take on why the quality of Pumpkins recorded output has declined in recent years.

[Ram27]

Originally Posted by bigoltitties

Perhaps I'm overplaying D'Arcys role here, maybe sometimes it was James, or Butch, or Flood or Jimmy who played this role

FWIW it was Jimmy who told Billy to write lyrics for Ruby and put it on MCIS

Flood and Butch are good producers and I'm sure are integral to certain things, but Flood didn't want 1979 on MCIS and Butch didn't like (I think it was Set the Ray?). I remember reading something about him telling Jimmy to not switch between the hihats and ride during the verses of Cherub Rock


________

But either way, it also seems Billy just doesn't seem to write stuff like Ruby or Porcelina or Hummer anymore. Jimmy said in an interview recently about how they challenge each other to write better songs, and that there's a stark contrast between songs written with and without him involved.

...then again, Zeitgeist was pretty bad

[fuzzyroes]

@bigoletitties: Yeah buddy, you're totally right...

Billy originally had a team around him contributing their thoughts and opinions regarding the groups sound and of course he later cut everyone loose so he could finally do things his way and it all turned into a sopping pile of dung... Heck, it continuously went in that direction after MCIS. Billy had all the power and the reigns to do things his way and he kept on making destructive decisions.

I was watching that "Rock Icons" program and he says Adore was "career suicide" and that it was the decision that crippled his career... But he forgets to mention the "machina mystery", glass and the ghost children, the band wearing dresses, it was misstep after misstep, dumb decision after dumb decision.

And then he conveniently follows up his deep, emotional SP work with a sunshine and lollipops band with songs about "let's rock!" and wonders why people roll their eyes and don't give a shit.

Every step since MCIS has been a self-destructive career decision. It's convenient now to blame it all on adore, but every decision following MCIS was worse and worse

[FoolofaTook]

wtf r u talking about bro?

recording To Sheila was a brilliant decision. One of the best tSP songs ever!!!

and recording Home was strikingly senescent

[Forgotten Child]

I totally disagree.

Oceania and Monuments are not ruined by the production, they actually are well produced - most of the songs anyway.

RTB, the man who produced A Night at the Opera, sounded promising and even so, the final product is not actually good, is it?

The thing is, Billy is trying to get his music played on the radio, and he's trying too hard to write some kind of pop music, dumbing down his songs/lyrics, but at the same time he doesn't want to sell out. I mean, he doesn't know what he's doing, he's lost with this middle-of-the-road kind of music, and not a good one.

What he needs to do is to discard the idea of making music for the sake of making music. He's discarded anything that sounded really genuine and personal. He has this strong idea of what fans want from him as the smashing pumpkins and he is so wrong about it it's unbelievable.

No producer will be able to change it.

[in stereo]

I agree that production is a big problem. I was just listening to Machina and then MTAE, and I couldn't help but notice how there is absolutely no atmosphere to the music on MTAE like there is on Machina. Sure, the guitar tones still sound great on MTAE, but the vocals are way too high with no reverb. Just remixing the damn songs to have the vocals lower in the mix would help a lot. I'm not sure why Howard & company are mixing the damn records like a pop album. There is absolutely no reason to have Corgan's vocal sitting on top of the music. It basically ruined Zeitgeist and he's continued with this mixing style with MTAE. With all his money, he could certainly reunite with Butch Vig and make an incredible rock record. Yes, the lyrics will be bad and the songwriting won't be as good as the old days. But just having a producer like Butch who can shape things into a good rock record would make all the difference.

And I guess Corgan won't do that because he, for some reason, always says "he won't make Siamese Dream II". And I guess there might be a few people who would troll him for returning to form. But fuck man, look at all the stupid shit he's doing to hurt his career. If he just shut his mouth, stopped doing embarrassing shit, and put out good rock records from time to time, he'd be a lot better off.

But I don't think this will happen. He's probably about to release some synth album with no drums and only Monte and Airplane Mode will buy it. And yes, I believe he would make Airplane Mode pay full retail price.

[NovaFritz]

Originally Posted by Forgotten Child

I totally disagree.

Oceania and Monuments are not ruined by the production, they actually are well produced - most of the songs anyway.

RTB, the man who produced A Night at the Opera, sounded promising and even so, the final product is not actually good, is it?

The thing is, Billy is trying to get his music played on the radio, and he's trying too hard to write some kind of pop music, dumbing down his songs/lyrics, but at the same time he doesn't want to sell out. I mean, he doesn't know what he's doing, he's lost with this middle-of-the-road kind of music, and not a good one.

What he needs to do is to discard the idea of making music for the sake of making music. He's discarded anything that sounded really genuine and personal. He has this strong idea of what fans want from him as the smashing pumpkins and he is so wrong about it it's unbelievable.

No producer will be able to change it.

The man's time has simply passed. He will never write a hit. And he has alienated his audience b/c of his ego. Even his catchy, more heartfelt songs (Being Beige) just don't have the magic... Oh well, we still have the 90s.

[in stereo]

Originally Posted by NovaFritz

The man's time has simply passed. He will never write a hit. And he has alienated his audience b/c of his ego. Even his catchy, more heartfelt songs (Being Beige) just don't have the magic... Oh well, we still have the 90s.

Agree that his time has passed. And that we at least have lots of songs from the glory days to listen to.

Disagree that Being Beige is heartfelt. It's a song created purely to try to write a pop hit, which was obviously a huge fail. I don't think he's written personal or heartfelt songs in a long time. Maybe since Zwan era.

[DaveKShape]

Billy's fall from grace is based simply on the fact that the music world changed around him and he didn't change with it. And instead of just writing songs from the heart and getting them out there to the public in an easy, creative way, he is constantly obsessed with breaking back into what he thinks the "system" is, all with the ultimate goal of being a household name again. Just an out of touch guy chasing the carrot on a stick, even though the carrot isn't even a carrot anymore.

[Forgotten Child]

Originally Posted by NovaFritz

The man's time has simply passed. He will never write a hit. And he has alienated his audience b/c of his ego. Even his catchy, more heartfelt songs (Being Beige) just don't have the magic... Oh well, we still have the 90s.

Originally Posted by in stereo

Agree that his time has passed. And that we at least have lots of songs from the glory days to listen to.

Disagree that Being Beige is heartfelt. It's a song created purely to try to write a pop hit, which was obviously a huge fail. I don't think he's written personal or heartfelt songs in a long time. Maybe since Zwan era.

I think he still has it.

Djali Zwan, Chicago Songs and Residency Songs are proof of that. For some reason, he's decided to not record them... and my guess is that he thinks those songs are not an easy-listen, it wouldn't make him popular again. What is stupid, cause he is not popular now and his credibility as a songwriter/lyricist is maculated.

[themadcaplaughs]

Originally Posted by DaveKShape

Billy's fall from grace is based simply on the fact that the music world changed around him and he didn't change with it. And instead of just writing songs from the heart and getting them out there to the public in an easy, creative way, he is constantly obsessed with breaking back into what he thinks the "system" is, all with the ultimate goal of being a household name again. Just an out of touch guy chasing the carrot on a stick, even though the carrot isn't even a carrot anymore.

I agree with this sentiment. As much as people give Billy shit for saying ridiculous things in interviews and being a somewhat corrosive personality, Smashing Pumpkins still receive (more or less) the same amount of critical respect, sales figures, and touring success as his peers (think Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, etc.) do with their new album cycles. I suppose one could make an argument that Smashing Pumpkins don't play big venues anymore, but that has more to do with Corgan's unwillingness to team up with Jimmy and James.

My point is, if you actually look at the reviews for Oceania and Monuments to an Elegy and actually compare them to newer albums from similar alternative rock bands, Smashing Pumpkins' reviews are not particularly better or worse. The fact remains, audiences have moved on (for the most part) from the type of music Billy makes.

If you actually take the time to read the reviews for Oceania and Monuments to an Elegy, most of them seem pretty positive. Many reviewers even called Oceania the best album Smashing Pumpkins released since Mellon Collie. Corgan just won't find happiness until he's a "rock icon" again; even though that idea no longer exists.

[myosis]

over here foo fighters definitely has more respect, sales figures and touring success than SP

[Ram27]

Originally Posted by in stereo

Agree that his time has passed. And that we at least have lots of songs from the glory days to listen to.

Disagree that Being Beige is heartfelt. It's a song created purely to try to write a pop hit, which was obviously a huge fail. I don't think he's written personal or heartfelt songs in a long time. Maybe since Zwan era.

I'm just really curious what the fuck happened to Corgan between the first Glass House show and when MSOTS came out

That first show was incredible. A return to form from Mellon Collie, practically.

01. Chrysanthemum
02. Permanence
03. El Sol
04. The Empty Sea
05. Glorious
06. Cast a Stone
07. Don't Let Me Down
08. Jesus, I
09. The Shining Path
10. What Have They Done to Me?
11. Sorrow
12. Never Give Up
13. My Life + Times
14. Of a Broken Heart

14 incredible songs. If he just put out the SBD of that show and called it Permanence it'd be great. But instead he kept the 3 most boring songs from that set (Jesus I, Of a Broken Heart, and El Sol), scrapped the rest, and wrote some cheesy pop songs to fill out the album. Baby, let's rock!

They played Chrysanthemum live 4 times. Four. And that's a hell of a song. One of Jimmy's best drum parts and really cool, '****' lyrics. (Can I not say ṁȩƗá ?)

They played Run2Me live 19 times. That's almost 5 times more than they played Chrysanthemum. And Run2Me is much less than 1/5 as good of a song as Chrys. (And 15 of those times billy brought back the greatest 90s rock drummer to go BOOM BOOM a couple times during the song).

_______

It's just so fucking frustrating being more excited to listen to some random bootleg from 2001 than the last 6 albums Billy et al have put out, combined.

[SlingeroGuitaro]

1979 ruined him.

Before MCIS was released he said 'this is the last guitar album. more electronics like this song 1979 is what we want to do.' 1979 then became the biggest hit the band would ever have. He worked on the song himself, the success went to his head, and he has chased that same success at ever turn ever since.

[redbreegull]

Billy Corgan is living in the past. I really think his obsession with the fans being stuck in 1993 is a projection of his own problems. He talks so much about doing groundbreaking shit, new shit, edgy shit, but the music does not speak to that. Since Machina, with the exception of TFE, it seems every release attempts to recapture the spirit of the band at its height. This of course results in every album sounding like a thin and pale imitation of classic Pumpkins. It is compounded by his obsession with being popular and influential, which is my only guess as to why every SP song is now a 4 minute verse chorus verse pop song with horrible lyrics.

[FoolofaTook]

right, which is why I switched to Boris.

[strokous]

Originally Posted by Poots

The songs are not as great, sure, but they would be fine if he gave them the old treatment.

this can't be serious

[T&T]

giving the producer all the production credit is a bit far-fetched. I'll never stop believing in the influence James and D'arcy had on billy. They were art students and must have mocked the shit out of billy constantly. As much as we blame billy for slave driving the band, i'm sure those two manipulated the fuck out of billy, silent treatments, eye-rolls and scoffs. the SP material was only better for it. They may not have brought much musical merit to the band, but they brought artistic merit in spades compared to billy's business money drive.

[NovaFritz]

Originally Posted by in stereo

Agree that his time has passed. And that we at least have lots of songs from the glory days to listen to.

Disagree that Being Beige is heartfelt. It's a song created purely to try to write a pop hit, which was obviously a huge fail. I don't think he's written personal or heartfelt songs in a long time. Maybe since Zwan era.

I don't know, I think Being Beige comes from the heart. I feel the passion in his vocals. Unfortunately the song still feels like a cheap attempt to get the easy stream.

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by T&T

giving the producer all the production credit is a bit far-fetched. I'll never stop believing in the influence James and D'arcy had on billy. They were art students and must have mocked the shit out of billy constantly. As much as we blame billy for slave driving the band, i'm sure those two manipulated the fuck out of billy, silent treatments, eye-rolls and scoffs. the SP material was only better for it. They may not have brought much musical merit to the band, but they brought artistic merit in spades compared to billy's business money drive.

I agree with this. I think their personalities likely shaped the band a lot. I mean a band is a lot more than just literally what you play with your instrument. Classic SP feels like a band, not a solo act. I do think Butch Vig had a lot to do with the band's sound in the early days as well though. After SD Corgan had "proved himself" or whatever, and probably played a more authoritarian role in the production department. At least their album production peaked at SD and has never returned to that level.

[DaveKShape]

Originally Posted by themadcaplaughs

As much as people give Billy shit for saying ridiculous things in interviews and being a somewhat corrosive personality, Smashing Pumpkins still receive (more or less) the same amount of critical respect, sales figures, and touring success as his peers (think Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, etc.) do with their new album cycles. I suppose one could make an argument that Smashing Pumpkins don't play big venues anymore, but that has more to do with Corgan's unwillingness to team up with Jimmy and James.

I think you're giving SP way too much credit when compared to Foos & PJ. They might have similarly die-hard fans, but I think Foos & PJ still draw many more average people at shows and sell many more albums than SP. I don't think that has much to do with the absence of James/Jimmy, either.

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by DaveKShape

I think you're giving SP way too much credit when compared to Foos & PJ. They might have similarly die-hard fans, but I think Foos & PJ still draw many more average people at shows and sell many more albums than SP. I don't think that has much to do with the absence of James/Jimmy, either.

situation is totally different. Foo Fighters and especially Pearl Jam have huge legions of longtime hardcore fans who feel that the artists have invested in them and actively show appreciation which cultivates loyalty. They also both (but especially the Foos) have powerful mainstream appeal.

Billy Corgan has completely sabotaged himself. He's been an unappreciative dick to the people who have spent the longest buying his albums and going to his shows. On top of this his new music fucking sucks, like really sucks. The last PJ album was terrible and it still wasn't as bad as Monuments. I would guess people who go to SP shows now are mostly a new generation of hardcore fans who are ingratiating bootlickers who only need to hear BC say Monuments as an instant classic to believe it. Even back in 2007/2008 when I saw SP a bunch of times, most of the audience was not old enough to have been listening to them in 1993. Seemed mostly like millennials.

[fuzzyroes]

Originally Posted by Forgotten Child

The thing is, Billy is trying to get his music played on the radio, and he's trying too hard to write some kind of pop music, dumbing down his songs/lyrics, but at the same time he doesn't want to sell out. I mean, he doesn't know what he's doing, he's lost with this middle-of-the-road kind of music, and not a good one.



No producer will be able to change it.

I dunno man, listen to The Future Embrace, that was an honest and pure attempt at making genuine music that wouldn't be played on the radio and aside from 2 or 3 songs it's bloody horrible. That Rock Icons show was playing I'm Ready throughout it and I was thinking: "mannnn, i forgot how much this fucking sucked"... So terrible.

[fuzzyroes]

Originally Posted by themadcaplaughs

I agree with this sentiment. As much as people give Billy shit for saying ridiculous things in interviews and being a somewhat corrosive personality, Smashing Pumpkins still receive (more or less) the same amount of critical respect, sales figures, and touring success as his peers (think Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, etc.) do with their new album cycles. I suppose one could make an argument that Smashing Pumpkins don't play big venues anymore, but that has more to do with Corgan's unwillingness to team up with Jimmy and James.

You don't think that the size of a venue a band plays factors into touring success?

Hell I saw Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters around the same time that Oceania was out/coming out and both bands packed the arena like sardines... You kinda expect that from Foo Fighters, but Pearl Jam was sold out, I had to get tickets behind the stage and even that was jam packed....... and from behind the stage you have a perfect view of the whole arena- this wasn't sold out in ghost-ticket numbers, every nosebleed seat was jam-packed.


......AND On the OTHER HAND: SP was scheduled to play the same venue that those 2 bands playrd and had to cancel the show due to low ticket sales. The radio station that promoted it mentioned that about 3000 tickets were sold in the 18500 venue at the time of the cancellation about a week before the show.That's absolutely pitiful- they even had the tickets for dirt cheap on this website called "groupon".

Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters still get their new music played on the radio and still hang around the charts. Even the critical "masterpiece" of Oceania only debuted at number 5 and fell off a cliff the following weeks.

Getting Jimmy back and doing a nostalgia tour with another floundering 90's alt-rock act is a good career choice though. Probably the first good business choice that the bands made in ages and the tour was a big success.

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by fuzzyroes

I dunno man, listen to The Future Embrace, that was an honest and pure attempt at making genuine music that wouldn't be played on the radio and aside from 2 or 3 songs it's bloody horrible. That Rock Icons show was playing I'm Ready throughout it and I was thinking: "mannnn, i forgot how much this fucking sucked"... So terrible.

That's the only example of him putting out something like that post-Pumpkins except Aegea which really is not even something that should be counted. He's worked on things which have branched off in different, new directions, but his releases always retreat back to the same formula.

[fuzzyroes]

Originally Posted by SlingeroGuitaro

1979 ruined him.

Before MCIS was released he said 'this is the last guitar album. more electronics like this song 1979 is what we want to do.' 1979 then became the biggest hit the band would ever have. He worked on the song himself, the success went to his head, and he has chased that same success at ever turn ever since.

Good point. Not unlike Sugar Ray, Billys songwriting changed once 1979 was a mega hit and he kept on releasing songs in that vain afterwords. Perfect, Try, try, try, This time, wound, stand inside your love. All songs following the 1979 type of formula, a fmormula that was unique to 1979 at the time.

Hell, I can't really belittle Billy for chasing a hit that way, bands always do it. Green Day achieved another smash hit after years without one with Good Riddance and unsurprisingly their next album is filled with acoustic songs It's what the suits demand