The Smashing Pumpkins 999 /// The Machina Cycle in 3 Acts

[amoergosum]

...interesting:




"MACHINA (999 VERSION) - A three-part fan resequence (and slight remaster) of the Smashing Pumpkins' Machina material, geared towards listenability and flow.

Note: I do not own the rights to any audio, video, or imagery in this video. All rights reserved to their respective copyright owners.

Act I
1 If There Is A God (EP version)
2 The Imploding Voice
3 Stand Inside Your Love
4 I of the Mourning
5 Let Me Give the World to You
6 Dross
7 Here's to the Atom Bomb (single ver.)
8 Vanity
9 Speed Kills (M2 version)

Act II
1 Glass
2 Cash Car Star
3 Soul Power
4 Saturnine
5 Heavy Metal Machine (v. 1)
6 White Spyder
7 Glass and the Ghost Children
8 In My Body
9 With Every Light

Act III
1 The Everlasting Gaze
2 This Time
3 Heavy Metal Machine
4 The Sacred and Profane
5 Try, Try, Try
6 Wound
7 The Crying Tree of Mercury
8 Blue Skies Bring Tears (M1 version)
9 Age of Innocence

The original Machina releases were compromised by a number of factors - band dysfunction, record company resistance, and a changing alternative-rock marketplace. The first Machina album, while still a very good record, never quite landed in the way the first four Pumpkins albums did. Simply placing it back to back with the Machina II set was unsatisfactory and disjointed. I tried after that to create a custom playlist that reconstructs what Corgan would have released as a double album that follows the Machina storyline. (An admirable attempt at such a double album, by soniclovenoize, can be found at http://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.c...) The issue with the double-album approach is that not all of the music fits tidily into the concept album structure - clearly, much of it was written after the concept was abandoned. Furthermore, the leaps in style and sonic quality are quite jarring. Albums must have a good flow and I could not find a satisfying sequence.

The solution came to me when I recently viewed the David Lynch film Lost Highway (which coincidentally features the Pumpkins song "Eye"). In that film, the protagonist's real life is dissolving, and about halfway through the film, the perspective shifts into a fantasy version of the same life - new situations, new actors, new characters - without warning. I realized that this was the key to understanding Machina. On one level, it is an autobiographical story that sincerely tells the story of the Pumpkins, their rise and fall, and Corgan, his struggles, his collapsed marriage and new love. On another level, it is a fantasy tale of the Machines of God, of Glass' mission, of the death of June. The fantasy tale, of course, deals allegorically with the real events, but in a dramatized and heightened tone. Once I made this leap, I realized the GATMOG material could be couched within the more realistic, more classic Smashing Pumpkins material, sort of as a mid-album dream sequence. With this beginning, middle, and end structure, it seemed natural to abandon the double album approach and instead structure the material as three short albums. I spent many months relistening to the material and fine-tuning the sequence. The first order of business was listenability. I wanted each mini-album to have a character and a flow all its own. A lot of this came down to an intuitive approach to sequencing built on the emotional subtext of the song, as opposed to attempting to intellectually recreate Corgan's original storyline. The storyline is intrinsic in the material and emerges in a more complex form here, in the three-act "999" version (so named because each act, in the name of brevity, would be limited to 9 tracks, short enough to fit on a single LP).

The truth is, the Machina material is so voluminous and scattered that I doubt anyone, even Corgan himself, can create a perfect album out of it. As a fan, this sequence is my favorite yet because it has the "feel" of both a classic Pumpkins album, and an experimental "Machines of God" rock opera, edited in a way that has space for both. Each act is a great listen in its own right, with Act II being a personal favorite because it covers the dark and obscure emotional territory merely hinted at by the released albums. I hope you enjoy this, with the caveat that this is not meant to be "the" definitive album. It is merely a satisfying permutation out of many dissatisfactory attempts, including the released albums. I've had a lot of fun creating this and look forward to further fan discussion about this impressive and layered body of work."

[Ram27]

looks cool. love the 'act' structures

[Shadaloo]

I appreciate the attempt but

Originally Posted by amoergosum

3 Soul Power

Christ Jesus NO

Also I believe it was confirmed that With Every Light was supposed to be the album closer before he tacked on AOI at the last moment.

[FoolofaTook]

Can you imagine spending one hour and forty minutes listening to machina?

[Mals Marola]

not only can i imagine it, i'm fuckin' doing it bitch!

[redbreegull]

http://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/asset...ge-gallery.jpg

[AveryLoren]

I absolutely love MACHINA it is my favorite era. I have listened to both albums and associated pieces an unimaginable amount of times. Back in the media player days I had more than 4,000 album plays in something like fifteen years. I have made dozens of configurations over the years. Sometimes there are reoccurring themes that I find others have implemented into their sequences. With that said, the major flaw with all of these re-sequenced listings is the flow of the album. Even this new one here fails terribly in my opinion. If There is a God is a great opener as it competes with Billy's previous efforts, but the next track completely fails to invigorate me like it should. The Imploding Voice is a cool down song at best. It doesn't carry enough momentum to be placed at the start of the album and it clashes with Stand Inside Your Love causing fatigue early in what is a long sonic journey.

The simple answer in all this is that it’s just not possible to reconfigure a double album with story and flow at its optimal performance. I've even tried to use the stripped down (from a production/embellishment stand point) live versions to sequence something that resembled continuous unity. Billy has to have something unprecedented up his sleeve to archive ultimate cohesion. Outside of MACHINA II being studio recorded with the same level of both production and technique it’s impossible to configure the material. With Billy circulating MACHINA II online and the three officially released mastered tracks from Rotten Apples/Judas Ø it all points to that not being the case. Even the official track listings we have straight from the band doesn’t offer that great of flow.

[FoolofaTook]

Mother of God

[slunken]

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/90/1a/3c/9...ion-charts.jpg

it's simple

[AveryLoren]

Based on the titles alone I think this is his sequencing of themes rather than an actual track listing.

[slunken]

I dug out my old version that I posted before

Originally Posted by slunken

This resulting Machinas tracklist is the result of over 14 years of off and on research. I've finally gotten it to the point where I feel it's worth sharing. Based off of official documents.

Act I

1. If There Is A God (full band)
2. Imploding Voice
3. Wound
4. Stand Inside Your Love
5. Real Love
6. Try, Try Try
7. Raindrops + Sunshowers
8. The Sacred and Profane
9. Vanity
10. Let Me Give The World To You

Act II

1. Glass
2. Cash Car Star
3. Heavy Metal Machine
4. Dross
5. This Time
6. Glass and the Ghost Children
7. Go
8. Speed Kills
9. In My Body
10. Saturnine

Act III

1. Blue Skies Bring Tears
2. I Of The Mourning
3. Everlasting Gaze
4. White Spyder
5. Lucky 13
6. Crying Tree of Mercury
7. Home
8. Slow Dawn
9. Atom Bomb
10. With Every Light
11. Age of Innocence

I used the chards and the white chart to construct this, so obviously it could be wrong in a few places but it came out pretty well-balanced (length of acts)

[AveryLoren]

I think it is clear from the fan consensus that If There is a God is the opener. It has always been the disc one opener for me. Disc two opener being Glass' Theme.

[slunken]

Every act needs a definitive opening and closing song. It's the songs in-between that are tough, the ones that actually try to tell a story.

Meaning, you could take off the first and last song of every act and still be able to tell the story. Those songs are only bookends.

Source: helped run the sound for a whole lot of musicals

[slunken]

Even if Billy were to reissue Machina today I don't think his given tracklisting would be definitive, in the sense that it would be 17 years removed from the subject matter. I don't think he ever had a master tracklist.

[Shadaloo]

I'm sitting at work now trying to come up with one. I've always agreed with aspects of both SLN's and Slunken's but not entirely. Can post it later with rough rationale if folks are interested.

If There Is A God works well as an opener, really well, but it's one of the ones where I've never been entirely convinced of the placement.

[slunken]

If There Is A God really doesn't even need to be included, imo. It's just an opening credits kind of song, imo. It doesn't do anything more than establish a theme, like how a lot of soundtracks will have a "theme from_____" song.

So if it were a real musical, you could pepper in different versions of it just about anywhere to re-establish the theme.

[AveryLoren]

Being the opener to a double album is really the only place for that track to belong. Much like the self titled instrumental opener of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

[slunken]

Originally Posted by AveryLoren

Being the opener to a double album is really the only place for that track to belong. Much like the self titled instrumental opener of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

pretty much, yea

[slunken]

ALSO ITS A TRIPLE ALBUM NOW

[Shadaloo]

Yeah, in all seriousness there's no fucking way this is anything less than 3 CDs based purely off of narrative directions intuitable from lyrics. There's simply too many songs.

I think Billy had a rough tracklisting in mind but he never got around to finalizing the order.

[cork_soaker]

shattering fasti've got a lot of tears
in a blood-stained jar

shattering fastshatteringfastshattering fastshattering fasti'll be by the pool

[cork_soaker]

loss of balance

[AveryLoren]

It's already hard enough to make a decent double album. I can't imagine a triple disc version. Even though MACHINA is by far my favorite era I can easily cut songs out. Raindrops, Crying Tree, Go, Let me Give, Real Love, Le Deux, Soul Power, Saturn 9, etc. I think there is a good chance at a solid double fourteen track album but that's pushing it to the limits.

[slunken]

it ultimately depends on whether you want to look at it as a stage play or the music from a stage play, which of course the latter would be more condensed/edited.

[AveryLoren]

I can see it working in a three act structure live. That would actually be a rather phenomenal live show for me.

[Shallowed]

The whole machina "story" is stupid and convoluted, and any attempt to improve the narrative of it is like polishing a turd with another turd

[slunken]

it may be stupid but it's a fable. it's not about improvement, it's about putting a puzzle together. it's not convoluted at all, at the heart of it.

[FoolofaTook]

Originally Posted by cork_soaker

shattering fasti've got a lot of tears
in a blood-stained jar

shattering fastshatteringfastshattering fastshattering fasti'll be by the pool

SHUDDERING ASS!!!1

[redbreegull]

plane with my guns

[AveryLoren]

Anyone have the MACHINA whiteboard picture handy?