Thread: Buff, Shake and Mo's Pumpkins thread.

OK, so I listened to Oceania, and I'm thoroughly impressed.

Following are my thoughts during the listen:

Oceania

Wow. Back to basic songwriting for Mr. Corgan, which oftentimes means brilliant.

Not sure if Corgan formulated this the way I interpreted it, but the first two songs were very reminiscent of the overdrive, power chord driven Zeitgeist album, and I thought, 'oh here we go.'

Then The Celestials kicks in and we finally get that stripped down Corgan guitar playing, which crescendos into a power-ballad type song, but it has more complexity than shallow 80s rock power ballads. I loved that transition.

That's what made Corgan's songwriting so great, early in his career. His ability to punch the overdrive button and the distortion pedal and then combine that with melodic, acoustic-driven songs to fill the void. He was versatile. He lost that on Adore, Machina and Zeitgeist. I think he got it back here. Adore was too avant garde and Machina and Zeitgeist had too much distortion. And on Zeitgeist he completely lost melody.

Anyway...My Love is Winter and One Diamond, One Heart were great. The latter was straying away from anything he's done with a synth-pop type feel.

Pinwheels was his best songwriting since Porcelina and Muzzle on Melon Collie and Mayonnaise on Siamese Dream.

I thought Oceania was the most disjointed song on the record. He tried to jam too much into a song, and it just didn't fit.

And just when I was about to comment that there wasn't any rockers on the backside of the album, he comes through with The Chimera and Glissandra. The former being the much better song.

Thought the ending was a little weak, but a good listen, nevertheless.

All in all it doesn't quite catch the magic of Siamese Dream and Melon Collie, and maybe that's me speaking as a teenager, but it is his best album since. He finally got out of his one-track mindset when it came to albums, and delivered a complete album.

:totallysnubbed:

Originally Posted by Timmy!

:totallysnubbed:

Sort of fixed.

I see nothing wrong with this thread.

Corgan's best song.

I dedicate this to Buff, Shake, Timmy, and MO....

I'm not sure, exactly, how t take Billy's opening comments in that video.

Originally Posted by MOtorboat

Corgan's best song.

I don't know why but my favorite overall Smashing Pumpkins song is a toss up between Rocket or Muzzle.

As far as Oceania, I'm glad to hear that you and I had similar reactions to our initial listenings. I was kind of in a trance as the album got quieter then BAM! The Chimera.

There are 4 songs I absolutely love on the new album that I would gladly put with his best work:

1. Violet Rays - Take the poetry style songwriting of Adore and mix it with the prog-rock sensibilities of Gish and you get this gem. A little heavy handed at times, but a beautiful song.

2. Panopticon - Not quite as angry as a song like X.Y.U. or even Heavy Metal Machine, but a reminder that when he wants to Corgan can make a good hard rock style song.

3. One Diamond, One Heart - The most unique song on the album while at the same time being familiar. Catchy hook and good songwriting.

4. Pinwheels - The song I will always stop on when skipping through songs on my iPod. I love the crescendos and backup vocals on this one as well.

Also in case you don't know MO, Oceania is actually part of the Teargarden By Kaleidoscope album he is working on. The songs were available for free on their website for the longest time, but I can't find any working links so by all means torrent it. Those are more hit and miss than Oceania was, but Tom Tom and Freak are great. They released it for free similar to Machina II which you can download a high quality version of here at the Music Archives: http://archive.org/details/machina2

EDIT: I didn't care much for the last 2 songs at first on Oceania, now Inkless is one of my favorites. This album had to grow on me a bit, but overall I was really impressed the first time I listened to it.

I have not heard oceania yet, but im waaaayyyyy behind on new albums

I bought this album back in June. Listened to it a few times, but haven't listened to it in a few months.

Corgan was on the Stern show back when the album came out. Had a really interesting interview abut his family life growing up. Just this last week they replayed it as part of the "Best of 2012" highlights. Now Mo starts a thread. Seems like the universe is telling me to listen to that album some more.

dude, shut up

Originally Posted by shank

dude, shut up

Get out.

Originally Posted by MOtorboat

I'm not sure, exactly, how t take Billy's opening comments in that video.

The last concert I went to he went off about Manning and the Broncos for 10 minutes and how excited we should be that they beat San Diego. He said its good to root for old guys.

I like the Smashing Pumpkins.