Rank the reunion albums

[Machinist]

Yes, it's one of those threads. With the addition of CYR we now have 5 or 6 albums of post-reunion material, and while I generally hate lists I'd be curious to know what you think is the best/worst of the new material.

A reminder (since you've probably forgotten a few of them):

Zeitgeist
Teargarden by Kaleidyscope (according to Wikipedia it's an album)
Oceania
Monuments to an Elegy
Shiny and Oh So Bright, Vol. 1 / LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun.
Cyr

[djzap]

Oceania
Zeitgeist
Teargarden
Cyr
Shiny
Monuments

[ButterflyBullet]

Oceania
Zeitgeist
Cyr
Shiny
Monuments






















Teargarden (look it has ONE song I like)

[New Art Rioter]

Zeitgeist
Oceania
Shiny
Cyr
Monuments
Teargarden

I listened to Monuments the other day out of curiosity and had forgotten how earpunishingly unpleasant it is

[eviltimeban]

There's gonna be differences in terms of what's viewed as "best", and what people's favourites are. That's certainly more subjective.

I'll rank mine in terms of which ones I've listened to most, and have enjoyed more than others.

1. Oceania
Certainly more pleasing on the ear than the other albums, and has a good run of opening tracks. It goes in different directions in the middle with the likes of Pale Horse and the title track (their last epic to date!), which is good, and closes out with some good rockers (ignoring the last song). I did listen to this a lot when it came out, and would happily stick it on now.

2. Zeitgeist
I quite enjoyed this when it came out; while I was disappointed with the vocals and lack of solos I enjoyed the riffs and the drumming. It at least sounded like Jimmy's drumming of old. Contains what I feel to be a few "comparable to SP 1" songs, and that period also included Gossamer and the IAGW songs, so overall the era it represents was pretty good. I guess I really like this album but in small doses of about 5 songs per listen.

3. Teargarden
Again, just because I've listened to it more. There's some excellent songs, e.g. Tom Tom, and I'm a sucker for Astral Planes and Owata. The only thing is, I really feel he should've made this under his own name, as he would've gotten away with all the variety and it wouldn't have mattered who was on drums. And he should've just recorded the 12 songs and put them out together, and not announced the whole "44 songs for free" business.

4. Cyr
I've enjoyed a few songs on this album quite a lot, there seems to be a common consensus that Purple Blood and Save Your Tears are among the best songs he's done in years. It looses points for being samey, too long, and the songs don't have time to breathe as they are crowded with vocals. Saying that, it is a nicely engineered and produced album (though falls down on the drum sound), so I find it pretty easy to listen to.

5. Monuments
I didn't hate it per se when it came out, I gave it a good few listens and enjoyed a good bit of it (One and All, Tiberius). But I find it hard to return to it as the sound is so harsh, and because it's really just Billy, with Tommy Lee, and Jeff of course. I just don't see it as a Pumpkins album. Maybe one more longer song would've bumped it up my ranking. This is the last physical Pumpkins release I've bought (the CD).

6. Shiny
While I liked Solara (one of the few), the production, mixing, and mastering of this album makes it pretty unlistenable. I have an aversion to that brickwalled / overly loud dry sound, of which Rubin is the master. It ruined the album, 100%. There could've been some really good songs there if the production was better, and more time was spent on it. But overall it was too short, too varied, too rushed, and had those "wo wo wo wo wo woooo"s on it.

(DJ Zap, we're very similar - I could easily swap around Monuments and Shiny)

[djzap]

Originally Posted by eviltimeban

(DJ Zap, we're very similar - I could easily swap around Monuments and Shiny)

Honestly, thinking about it a bit more, I reckon I would swap mine around and put Monuments higher just as you have it. There's just a slightly higher percentage of tracks I enjoy on that compared to Shiny. But when I was making my list I thought of Run2Me and instinctively threw it to the bottom of the list lol

[Ram27]

it's just so hard because there's so many different things to consider -- member back, but didn't contribute. member back and kicks ass and that's the only good thing. vocals are grating but a fan fixed it. songs are shitty on the record but great live

ughh

ZG
Och
Shiny I
Monuments
Teargarden
Cyr

[eviltimeban]

Looks like Cyr needs a "fan fix" [powers up Big Muff pedal]

[incubator]

Oceania, MTAE and Shiny 1 are all in the running for "best" as they don't have any glaring flaws, don't outstay their welcome, don't have any terrible songs and pretty much do what WPC/SP set out to do.

Zeitgeist and Teargarden are massively flawed but there's some magic and good songs. Zeitgeist is my favourite but it's hard to say it's the best when most people consider it unlistenable.

Cyr could be the worst as it's too weird, stupid, long and boring to work as a contemporary mainstream pop album but not weird or stupid enough to be truly interesting. It'd be better if it was worse, you know? Like Zeitgeist, I genuinely like it but I completely understand the negative reviews.

[reprise85]

Z
O
C
T = M
S

T is hard to place, it has good songs but also complete absolute dogshit

[New Art Rioter]

Originally Posted by incubator

Oceania, MTAE and Shiny 1 are all in the running for "best" as they don't have any glaring flaws, don't outstay their welcome, don't have any terrible songs and pretty much do what WPC/SP set out to do.

Zeitgeist and Teargarden are massively flawed but there's some magic and good songs. Zeitgeist is my favourite but it's hard to say it's the best when most people consider it unlistenable.

Cyr could be the worst as it's too weird, stupid, long and boring to work as a contemporary mainstream pop album but not weird or stupid enough to be truly interesting. It'd be better if it was worse, you know? Like Zeitgeist, I genuinely like it but I completely understand the negative reviews.

First time I've heard anyone say that about Monuments... if Run To Me isn't a glaring flaw I'm not sure what is

[LaBelle]

Zeitgeist to me still has some of the pumpkins spirit and largely works even if it's not that great.

All the other albums are different shades of the same thing, sugary melodies with repetitive lyrics under a variety of stylistic changes that don't fundamentally change anything.

Other than Teargarden which is the worst of the bunch cause it sounds like undercooked demos for the most part, even if I like some songs off it.

[incubator]

Originally Posted by New Art Rioter

First time I've heard anyone say that about Monuments... if Run To Me isn't a glaring flaw I'm not sure what is

Run2Me is good. It sounds quite nice, is genuinely funny and has one of WPCs all time best "strange lover" moments.

[Joey Goldberg]

but also it's probably the worst song he ever formally wrote & released

so you know, there's that

[smashingjj]

never heard of any of these, are you guys high?

[Joey Goldberg]

anyway

Zeit
though i don't quite like this one as much as Adore or Machina (which at the time were the "worst" Pumpkins fans could compare it to, barring Zwan & TFE) it's at least near the ballpark. everything released after this, to me, is pretty firmly in SP2 & SP2 camp only and for the most part couldn't hold a candle to The Golden Age. amazing drumming on here that actually sounds like drumming, great guitar tones (well, the leads/solos at least) songs aren't bad, they took the best ones off but put them back on by the time the Ultimate Best Buy Silver Edition came around

Monuments
incredibly underrated & overhated. this one has 2 flat-out "stinkers," sure, and then it has Being Beige which is typically a skipper for me but i can't even hate on that one too much when most of CYR exists. "Anaise" gets a lot of shit from people who only want to hear ROCK & ROLL or whatever but it's one of his most successful weird pop experiments to date, so if you don't like it, eat shit!

Oceania
yeah whatever, i don't care enough by this point to write a lot about these. Mike Byrne sounds better on this album than what they've done with JC on the last two which is fucking inexcusable. if you're considering arguing that point just take a minute to consider there's actual Oceania era nostalgia going on now. just let that sink in. it's good on a surface level but a chore to actually listen to. Celestials was uncomfortable to listen to when they premiered it on Stern (or was it O&A) that one time after a full hour of the hosts bigging Bill up as this incredible songwriter with an amazing new album. "101%" is still one of his jaw-droppingly worst lyrics, really

Shiny
3 good songs, and a couple of songs that actually worked live. but they're not live on here so fuck 'em!

Teargarden
an era, not an album, but that 2nd EP was kind of ok. there's no real reason for me to slate it lower than Shiny aside from my scorn @ lazy publications trying to call it an "album" which makes no sense

CYR
who cares

[VoxUpDoc]

Genuinely think Cyr (cut down to 14 tracks and using the -2.5db vocal mix) is one of the best releases out of this list.

I'm as unhappy about that as the next guy, but I'm digging it.

[Joey Goldberg]

i don't even think Cyr's bad so much as, when considering the album, simply going "but why?"

[brothahi4L]

They are all bland....

All similar... all 3 star records

[Joey Goldberg]

https://media1.giphy.com/media/l4pLY...vr0c/giphy.gif

[MyOneAndOnly]

they are actually all 2 star records

[MyOneAndOnly]

i've always hated the term 'reunion' to denote the shit we've been in since the aughts. We had as many original band members in Zwan and we didn't call that a reunion.

[MyOneAndOnly]

Best song released since Zeitgeist is Cottonwood Symphony. It reminds me of that brief period after Zeitgeist when bill did a number of small shows mostly alone with an acoustic guitar. Or maybe I made that up in my leaky memory...

[Shadaloo]

Zeitgeist
Oceania
Cyr
Shiny V1
Teargarden
Monuments

[SomaPhreak]

1. Zeitgeist - United States, Neverlost, and Zeitgeist are good.

2. Cyr (cut to ten songs) - Confessions, Purple Blood, and Save Your Tears are good.

3. Shiny - Silvery Sometimes and Marchin' On are good.

4. Oceania - One Diamond and Pinwheels are ok.

5. Monuments - Drum and Fife is ok.

6. Teargarden - Tom Tom is ok.

[enthusaroo]

1. MCIS - everything

2. Siamese Dream - everything

3. Adore - everything

4. Pisces - everything

5. Machina - everything

6. Gish - everything

7. Oceania - most

8. Zeitgeist - most.. missing Gossamer :/

9. Monuments - Drum & Fife

10. Cyr

11. Teargardenbykalydyscope - WTF

12. ShinyBri No Future. No Sun. - WTF

[Shallowed]

I can't stand listening to any of them

Even the best songs aren't that great

[houseofglass11]

Zeitgeist
Monuments
Oceania
Teargarden
Cyr
SosB

MtaE is absolutely not as bad as some make it out to be.

[AveryLoren]

Originally Posted by LaBelle

All the other albums are different shades of the same thing

There is so much truth in this. Reading the various personal album to album, its strange to see so many different people. It all sounds like the same blown out amateur sounding crap.

[Joey Goldberg]

you can say the albums aren't good but to say they all sound the same is stranger than a lover in the 2010s