EASE DOWN THE ROAD

A whole lot of 20-something audiophiles really wanted to treasure the Smashing Pumpkin’s reunion album, Zeitgeist, when it came out earlier this year. And if you put the already-reissued album in your computer you’ll notice that the band has added the subtitle Album of the Year Edition to their title - they too, obviously, want to think Zeitgeist is good. One listen to the album’s core 12 tracks will tell you one thing: Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin worked really, really hard on these songs - maybe harder than they have since recording their unrivaled - as far as pure substance goes - opus Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

Here’s the thing: Billy Corgan is a really intelligent, talented guy - maybe too much so. Have you ever met or at least heard of the rare kind of person who is so much more naturally intellectual than everyone around them that they can hardly function in social situations? Well, that just might be the case with Corgan, who has been making - at best - pretty decent music for the better part of the decade since Mellon Collie taught a generation how to rock back in the late 90s. Lucky for longtime fans (who will no doubt enjoy the best moments of this latest batch of songs), Corgan is still trying - probably because he has nothing else to do - to be what he once was: a bigger-than-life rock n’ roll god. He’s trying, and for a guy in his place (read: a guy walking around with a shadow the size of Africa), that’s a big deal.

After a few embarrassing public pleas to “get the band back together” with original members, Corgan decided to settle on doing what he’s always done: write every song, play every instrument, sing ever vocal and drive his loyal drummer, Chamberlin, nuts with his critiques and incessant tooling and tweaking. After initially finishing the album Corgan and his label devised a plan to sell, oh, a million or so records. This modest plan amounted to the record being released in no less than four different initial ways (all with different tracklists), clearly hoping the diehards would buy the album multiple times. Now, over six months since its initial release, Corgan and his wigged friends have released a definitive version featuring the extra songs that were spread out over the other versions, as well as some pretty cool packaging and a DVD that features two music videos and a very worthwhile making-of documentary short. (Diehards: sounds like you have yet another CD to buy!)

Upon listening to the first issue of this album I started to write a review that featured a whole lot of negative critiques and basically painted the album as a phoned-in homage to their glory days, sans the special-ness that once was. I eventually decided to let it all slide, after all, Stephen Malkmus and I had already long ago agreed that the Pumpkins “don’t have no function.” That said, Corgan and his fellow Pumpkins were one of my favorite bands in high school, so - like pretty much everyone else who sought out Zeitgeist - I was perfectly happy liking all the songs just enough to prompt me to dig out Siamese Dream for the first time in a year or more. There were moments (the lead single, “Tarantula,” for one) that had me remembering why this was once the best band on the planet, and I could absolutely feel the hard work behind every second of the album, but alas, the average moments … well … the average moments come off like a has-been treading water, fingers crossed their new scheme will ring the bell of familiarity and nostalgia.

And by “scheme,” I’m talking about more than Corgan and Co.’s dirty attempt to sell, sell, sell. I’m talking about the Guitar Hero-sounding attempt to bring back thoughts of better sounding days. Not an attempt to evolve or even perfect, but a shameless crack at being what they once were, then saying in plain words via the accompanying DVD that they were trying to give the fans what they want. It’s sad, really, that the Pumpkins - despite self-proclaiming their album the “album of the year” - have to die this way. It’s sad, but if it makes you feel better, James Iha, D’Arcy and Stephen Malkmus are all sitting around somewhere, drinking beers, laughing and probably listening to Gish. Album of the year, this ain’t; shameless final attempt to sell physical copies of albums in the digital age, it is. It’s also a waste of some pretty heroic guitar riffs.