Sequel to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and Machina (33-song album)

[T&T]

no one can manage BC better than BC himself. /s

[eviltimeban]

Originally Posted by dustrocck

Exactly. There's no tent pole artists anymore.

Bands which were huge like U2, Depeche Mode, Pearl Jam, now seem to have no problem accepting their albums won't be hits (well, maybe not U2), but they release it for the fans and to have some new material for the tour.

And they still sell live tickets.

He really needs a great manager.

That's true, U2 and Pearl Jam both haven't made great albums since 2000. Yet both continue to tour and tickets sell out in a flash. And both put on a good show. And while Pearl Jam fans are probably more into the band than your average U2 fan, most are there to hear the classics and will put up with the newer stuff. At least PJ change their set lists around every night.

Billy is pretty much making all his own decisions with no one to challenge him. And that's all well and good if he were at the peak of his powers and all his decisions were the right ones. But they aren't. Regardless of him thinking the Cyr single was a hit, the album was a flop.

Seriously, they needed some kind of Phil Towle-type guru to come in when D'arcy was coming back in the band. Get the four of them in a room talking to each other again.

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by eviltimeban

That's true, U2 and Pearl Jam both haven't made great albums since 2000.

I'm going to stop you right there.

[T&T]

where the viewphoria therapy clips staged?

[T&T]

Originally Posted by jm9843

I'm going to stop you right there.

your point is moot.
this was not a great album.

[GreenDogGlynis]

Originally Posted by eviltimeban

That's true, U2 and Pearl Jam both haven't made great albums since 2000. Yet both continue to tour and tickets sell out in a flash. And both put on a good show. And while Pearl Jam fans are probably more into the band than your average U2 fan, most are there to hear the classics and will put up with the newer stuff. At least PJ change their set lists around every night.

Billy is pretty much making all his own decisions with no one to challenge him. And that's all well and good if he were at the peak of his powers and all his decisions were the right ones. But they aren't. Regardless of him thinking the Cyr single was a hit, the album was a flop.

Seriously, they needed some kind of Phil Towle-type guru to come in when D'arcy was coming back in the band. Get the four of them in a room talking to each other again.

I don't know. I don't blame anyone for missing the old days but I think in a lot of ways SP has handled their longevity pretty well. The sheer amount of recording they did in SP1 and the subsequent reissues introduced tons of great music that a lot of fans had never heard before, and made the classic albums twice as good. Plus, as much as I always hope for classic guitar album from SP, I see why Billy takes the band in directions like Cyr had. While I enjoy both Lightning Bolt and Megaton, there is the feeling that that's like 'Hey Pearl Jam, we love you and your music but we've listened to albums like this for 30 years now and the whole thing feels done.' There's certainly aspects I could do without like Billy's thing about how 'Billy' is just a media construct and coping mechanism, and the click track live stuff which is definitely not cool.

[smashingjj]

Originally Posted by jm9843

I'm going to stop you right there.

lol

[Joey Goldberg]

yeah, that is some pretty funny album art

[slunken]

if it were NIN people would be having their heads put back together

[ninsp]

Originally Posted by jm9843

I'm going to stop you right there.

You serious?

[ninsp]

Originally Posted by slunken

if it were NIN people would be having their heads put back together

Well Trent could take a picture of his shit and make an album 50 minutes long of him farting and I’d still 5/5 it, so

[T&T]

should billy get trent to produce the next SP album?

now that courtney died, I suppose they can put their beef behind them to collaborate.

[houseofglass11]

Originally Posted by eviltimeban

That's true, U2 and Pearl Jam both haven't made great albums since 2000. Yet both continue to tour and tickets sell out in a flash. And both put on a good show. And while Pearl Jam fans are probably more into the band than your average U2 fan, most are there to hear the classics and will put up with the newer stuff. At least PJ change their set lists around every night.

Billy is pretty much making all his own decisions with no one to challenge him. And that's all well and good if he were at the peak of his powers and all his decisions were the right ones. But they aren't. Regardless of him thinking the Cyr single was a hit, the album was a flop.

Seriously, they needed some kind of Phil Towle-type guru to come in when D'arcy was coming back in the band. Get the four of them in a room talking to each other again.

It just ain't gonna happen. The ship has sailed for SP in the eye of the public. Billy has a weird and non-traditional rock singer voice that, while effective in his heyday, has not aged well and often sounds terrible. He wears awful outfits on stage and everything he does and says is awkward. No charisma on stage. And the band just phones in boring metronomed versions of the hits with anon Jack and anon Jeff up there stinkin' everything up with their boringness.

[Ram27]

i have no idea why they do the metronome shit

their music was written with the push/pull jazzy tempo fluctuations in mind. playing slow works on the record cause the tracks are so dense, but live, constraining them to a click is wrong

[T&T]

got to play to a click if you want to kareoke along with multi-media.

check out this hit cued up at the live show:

[gyang333]

Originally Posted by eviltimeban

That's true, U2 and Pearl Jam both haven't made great albums since 2000. Yet both continue to tour and tickets sell out in a flash. And both put on a good show. And while Pearl Jam fans are probably more into the band than your average U2 fan, most are there to hear the classics and will put up with the newer stuff. At least PJ change their set lists around every night.

Billy is pretty much making all his own decisions with no one to challenge him. And that's all well and good if he were at the peak of his powers and all his decisions were the right ones. But they aren't. Regardless of him thinking the Cyr single was a hit, the album was a flop.

Seriously, they needed some kind of Phil Towle-type guru to come in when D'arcy was coming back in the band. Get the four of them in a room talking to each other again.

A few of the big missteps with SP since 2007, touring under the "20th Anniversary" with just Billy and Jimmy. And then the subsequent years with just Billy as the original member (Zwan was more SP than SP was from 2009-2015).

Speaking of the 20th Anniversary Tour, how many people did he alienate, including promoters? Billy also went through a stretch of time where he refused to perform at festivals unless SP got headliner status.

And finally, to culminate with these bigger transgressions, look at the labels backing U2 and Pearl Jam and look at the string of no-names that have put out SP albums. You're getting smaller budgets, worse deals being cut with radio stations and promoters. The last big label that SP used was for the Oceania tour and they were booking larger venues. SP has been shedding casual fans since 2007 when they "returned" but it was just Zwan rebranded. And then Billy went on his tour berating fans in 2008, then fired Jimmy, and then disappeared from the festival circuit because of his ego. So that when Jimmy and James came back, most people have tuned SP out, and without a big time promotion budget, don't know that SP has almost all of the band together. Oh and the music has gotten worse over the years.

[eviltimeban]

Plus another aspect is just what sound people think of when they think of the Pumpkins. People know what U2 sound like, and when the average person thinks of PJ it's probably Jeremy or Alive.

But is SP 1979? Tonight Tonight? Zero? Today? All those songs sound completely different. Which is obviously a good thing, but it makes it harder to "sell" SP as a single thing, which is what the other bands have done.

Oh and No Line On The Horizon is awful. It had like one good song on it. The closest U2 have come to making a good album in the last 21 years is the one they gave away on everyone's iTunes, which caused it to get a good hiding. The most recent one was just awful shite.

I think I've played Gigaton once all the way through. I've never managed to sit through all of Lightning Bolt. Backspacer is good, but not great. Binaural isn't even that good; you'd really need to go back to 1998 and Yield for a decent PJ album!

[T&T]

Originally Posted by gyang333

SP has been shedding casual fans since 2007 when they "returned" but it was just Zwan rebranded. And then Billy went on his tour berating fans in 2008, then fired Jimmy, and then disappeared from the festival circuit because of his ego. So that when Jimmy and James came back, most people have tuned SP out, and without a big time promotion budget, don't know that SP has almost all of the band together. Oh and the music has gotten worse over the years.

SP fans were teenage idiots.
lots of them grew up.
billy's sensitive feelings from SD were wonderful and unique - but most of the fans that connected with him grew up, had kids and 'fuck it, that's life, wallowing isn't going to change a thing'.
WTF is machina about and how is that supposed to RESONATE with people? it doesn't. "I hear a voice of god and I'm losing my band". Aside from the looney "my lover died in a tragic accident" folks, most of us just seriously don't give a shit about that stuff.

[Ram27]

Originally Posted by T&T

got to play to a click if you want to kareoke along with multi-media.

check out this hit cued up at the live show:

frightening to think he's not playing guitar cause he thought it might hurt his vocals

[Forgotten Child]

[Forgotten Child]

Lots of alt rock band releasing good albums

[House of Bread]

Originally Posted by Forgotten Child

FUCKIN CRATE

[YA5H]

Originally Posted by ninsp

Well Trent could take a picture of his shit and make an album 50 minutes long of him farting and I’d still 5/5 it, so

Ghosts is a great body of work.

[Joey Goldberg]

your dad's got a great body

(r.i.p. spool of a juke)

[ninsp]

The Joy Formidable is trash
And so is the Micropenis

Nothing, in fact, rules, you jizzstain

[Funbags]

Originally Posted by gyang333

SP has been shedding casual fans since 2007 when they "returned" but it was just Zwan rebranded.

Are you insane? Zwan contained two indie guitar greats as full band members. Zwan is vastly superior to anything Billy's done post 2007.

[Joey Goldberg]

on paper, sure

[AveryLoren]

Originally Posted by ninsp

The Joy Formidable is trash

Hey their first two albums are great. Also, one of the best concerts I've ever been to. Rhydian, the bassist, noticed I was singing every word of every song and brought be up on stage. He proceed to knight me with the neck of his bass while they played a special jam song just for the ceremony. It was an awesome moment.

[Funbags]

SO ANYWAY HOW ABOUT THAT NEW SMASHING PUMPKINS MCIS PT3?!?!

[ninsp]

Originally Posted by Greatvegetable

It's going to be 53 year old multi millionare dad hoping for a charting single dog shit.

Shall we listen to Holy Fawn and leave it at that.

Better than a twentysomething uncle hoping for 1000 SoundCloud listens.