Fester's Toxic Wastebin
Just in case anyone thinks I love every album I review (I simply review albums I like -- why waste time on garbage?), I thought I'd include an album that doesn't completely suck, but is extremely average and overrated. Just to give y'all a sense of scale here at Fast 'n' Bulbous, I present a negative review, a gift from me, to you.
Smashing Pumpkins, Machina/The Machines Of God (Virgin) 6-
Like Bono, Morrissey and Robert Smith, Billy Corgan writes adolescent music. It can start out raw and edgy and speak to you in a voice that feels true. However, this status becomes ever more tenious when an artist is well into their thirties and carries the mantel or manacle, you choose, of alternative rock. Maybe Corgan's music hasn't matured with him, so be it, many a commercially successful career is spent in thrall to an idea's unchanging reproduction. Yet, Corgan's problem is that while his music is something most listeners necessarily outgrow, his singing, at least, used to sound sincerely passionate. Now on Machina he just sounds bored. On Adore artistic restlessness resulted in some fairly interesting experiments with electronica. After being all but spanked by the public and his label, the Pumpkins have sheepishly handed in their standard fare, meant to restore their rawk god status. They must have been somewhat earnest, as they hired original drummer Jimmy Chamberlin back into the fold. But they just sound tired and flat. What does Billy want? To be loved again? To make more money? To look more like Michael Stipe? Artistic fulfillment? What's all this crap about god in the lyrics? "Send the bored/Your restless/The feedback-scarred/Devotionless/You're all a part of me now." There's more, but I'll spare you. One can appreciate the spiritual fervor of someone like John Coltrane who played so fiercely to express his love and devotion to the divine. But Corgan claiming to have god speak through his music? Puh-leeze. Talk about delusions of grandeur. Let's talk about the sounds for a moment. I recall an interview in which Corgan said he was embarrassed by how bombastic and compressed their sound had become, and he intended to go for a more basic rock sound. So what was he thinking? Listen to Gish and it jumps out of the speakers and grabs you. Corgan's singing sounded like it came from a human being. With Machina all you hear is an avalanche of molasses bent on suffocating the listener, topped with the irritating whine of a crybaby who is pushing 40. On "Heavy Metal Machine," Corgan asks, "If I were dead/Would my records sell?" While the lyric is melodramatic, it's not entirely rhetorical. Yes Billy, they would and they are. Bury the rotting Pumpkins and move on.
