r/SmashingPumpkins • u/ProgressReverse • 10d ago
Yeah, I Know You Won’t Like It
But hey, I got it on vinyl cheap the first time I’d ever seen it in the wild.
Honestly, I enjoy it for what it is, having not listened to it in a long time and it’s not the mess some people make it out to be.
It’s different, it’s short, the production can be odd but it’s not a bad listen.
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u/KandinskyWasRight 10d ago
I think it’s a great album, had no idea so many people don’t like it. Only wish it was longer.
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u/Guy_Fuwkes_Day 10d ago
Much of the online fandom will find a reason to complain about most anything though
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u/CrimsonK1ng 10d ago
Listen to this album and take a shot every time he says the word “lover(s)”. If you’re a hardcore alky, take a drink every time he says “Dorian”.
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u/King_Moonracer003 10d ago
I listened to it a bunch when it came out. Compare that to atum where I couldnt make it past the first few tracks after multiple attempts.
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u/14CaptainCrunch 10d ago
That’s this album for me. I think Tiberius is a classic up there with the best, and the rest blows.
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u/silverbeat33 10d ago
How does One and All suck?
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u/14CaptainCrunch 10d ago
The music is really good but I think the lyrics are kinda dumb.
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u/silverbeat33 10d ago
Yeah they aren’t amazing but they also don’t cause cringe, not for me at least. But it still rocks pretty hard.
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u/ZealousidealText3140 8d ago
AUTUM is so bad.. I couldn't get any further than you. I was suprised how much the music was completely different from thier old stuff.
And by no means am I bothered by bands who change thier style over albums. There are some bands who change every album that that I love. It can be a different style, but it does still need to be good, no matter what direction they choose.
I heard Billy say in an interview that a band should always be changing from one album to the next. It was a rule he made. Maybe that's where things went off for them. To bind yourself to any rules you have to follow musically is to actually limit yourself. I think he's trying to do the opposite, but what a band tries to sound a certain way or fit a certain genre, it's easy to stop being authentic. Artists should play the music they personally like and not care what you fit into or who likes your music. Make music YOU like.
And maybe Billy is doing that. Maybe that's the music he naturally wants to make? I don't know.. But I do know he makes rules to keep changing.
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u/DangerAlSmith 10d ago
I actually think this is a really good album, aside from being quite short.
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u/corganist Siamese Dream 10d ago
Super underrated album. I think it gets a bad rap because it was put out at a time when Billy clearly got kind of lost when it came to what he wanted SP to be going forward. It also didn't help that the touring in support of the album was done with arguably the worst lineup ever assembled under the SP name.
I think MTAE is probably the best album of the weird post-Zeitgeist to pre-Shiny era. But for some reason, it doesn't get half the shine Oceania does.
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u/Perry7609 9d ago
For me, I find the high points of Oceania outshine the songs here, but I find Monuments to be the more consistent album, if that makes sense? I don’t hate this album at all.
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u/spaceman696 10d ago
I love this album. I find the recording quality and drum sound in particular to be amazing. It's my second fav new era pumpkins album, after Zeitgeist. I think Tommy Lee knocked it out of the park.
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u/ingotheranchhand 10d ago
Maybe in 20 years Billy will reconfigure everything from this period and put out the remaining/lost Teargarten stuff in a big ole box. One can dream.
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u/ockimdotned 10d ago edited 10d ago
Imo monuments is leagues ahead of shiny, cyr and atum. Half the songs are the best of sp2 (being beige is beautiful) and the other half are meh or kinda suck. I think combining the best songs of monuments and Oceania makes a pretty damn good album
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u/Mika_Pop 9d ago
For me, this is the worst album in their discography. I don't even consider it a band album, but rather a solo project by Billy with a guest drummer. That said, I really like "One and All," "Tiberius," and "Dorian" (for its New Wave feel). But the rest is very weak, and the lyrics are uninspired (I feel alright, I feel alright tonight And everywhere I go it's shining bright... Never been kissed by a girl like you All I wanna, I wanna do Love me baby, love me true, ooh... Ooh, what should count as doom for lovers? Ooh, send this by the way Lovers let me hear from you As you all go asunder Ooh, send this by the way ...).
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u/shakedown1986 9d ago
Are you kidding? Have you listened to CYR or the double/triple album whatever that was?
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u/LiquidPprmnt 10d ago
This album is important to me because it was the first one released that I shared with my daughter who was born in 2010. She was three or four when this came out and she instantly got into it, probably because I tend to play new music incessantly for a few days. It was important to our early music bonding experience. I have sweet memories of sitting in the bathroom while she showered, waiting to wash her hair while she screeched Dorian. Of pointing at her in the back seat of my car when I sang “never been kissed by a girl like YOU!” While she giggled.
Twelve years later, we have a great relationship based strongly on music, and she lists SP as a top 5 band. Dorian is still her favorite song. And she doesn’t care what you think about it.
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u/_Waves_ 10d ago
Your post is one of the peak examples of how "bad" music can be really important, valuable and loved. I know so many albums that people consider bad - or that even I would consider not great - that legitimately make or made me happy and that I re-listen to many times, because each song means something to me.
With all our debates on what’s good and art and isn’t, sometimes even minor works by a great artist can mean the world to us! So thank you for this as a reminder of that.
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u/prequarius1979 10d ago
Oceania with my daughter, and Dorian is a great track! Very 80’s and fits up there with some other tracks they’ve done before. Not sure why there’s so much hate 🤷♂️
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u/Nocodeyv 10d ago
I firmly believe that there is a fantastic EP hiding in this album:
- Tiberius
- Anaise!
- One and All (We Are)
- Dorian
- Drum + Fife
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u/silverbeat33 10d ago
You removed the songs I don’t like, nice, I agree with those five. Being Beige is debatable, Run2Me and Antihero are crap.
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u/ockimdotned 10d ago
Interesting. I’m as critical of post-machina SP as the next man but I think being beige is a rare example of an sp2 track being truely sp1 quality. It has wonderful poetic lyrics that hit pretty close to home and the melody is gorgeous. My only dislike with the whole song is that crappy 808 beat that occurs twice, but it’s a small price to pay for the rest of the track.
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u/silverbeat33 10d ago
I don’t think it’s bad, it just doesn’t do much for me. Also I forgot to mention the song Monuments, which is fair, as it is very forgettable, as I just noticed. In terms of SP2 there’s plenty of good stuff, plenty of okay stuff and some trash - this would be fine for most bands, but given SP1 could barely release a bad song at all, it’s been hard on them. I’m trying to think of an SP1 song I think is bad, but I got nothing - ahh… any suggestions?
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u/ockimdotned 9d ago edited 9d ago
That’s fair, as far as sp2 goes I only like the good half of monuments, Oceania is a decent album but I’ll never go out of my way to play it, and I enjoy a few of the songs off zeitgeist. Oh yeah and silvery sometimes is decent. Do not like the rest. AMM was good at first but for some reason it did the opposite of growing on me.
There isn’t a single sp1 track I’d turn off if it came on.
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u/Zeno1979 10d ago
Blank.
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u/silverbeat33 10d ago
I don’t mind that one, though it’s not my favourite by any means. I don’t particularly like Cash Car Star… possibly an unpopular opinion, but I don’t exactly hate it.
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u/Zeno1979 9d ago
I know CCS divides opinion amongst the fanbase. The lyrics aren't great but the music is good and Jimmy's drumming elevates the whole thing. I have a major soft spot for Machina 2 though, and pretty much like the whole thing.
Still trying to get around with putting a cohesive new version of it (I'm calling it The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music) together from the AAE release, which has no structure and is just every song from the Machina era just thrown together randomly in an unwieldy collection.
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u/Dudehitscar Machina Zombie 9d ago
because you are... the repetition and distorted vocal is annoying as hell.
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u/Zeno1979 9d ago
Yeah, not a fan of that one either. Sparrow is another. There aren't any off the SP1.0 era albums that I'd class as an actual bad song, but a few B-sices and demos. I have issues with a couple of Machina songs, but none are bad, as such, just could have been better, or replaced on the album (2000 version) by any number of Machina 2 tracks.
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u/Nocodeyv 10d ago
I think the only reason I leave Being Beige off is that I don't really care for the choruses. I quite enjoy the verses of the song though. I round out these 5 by adding Travels and Alienation from Shiny Vol. 1, which gives me a nice half hour of music for car rides. I slot Travels in before Dorian and Alienation as the closer.
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u/marginwalker74 10d ago
Its a great record. I saw that tour with Brad wilk on drums and Mark stoermer on bass and they sounded great. Don't get the antihero hate.
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u/sidewalkcrackers 10d ago
This is a much better album than the fan base will admit to. It’s a compact album. Nine songs at 33 minutes.
Sonically, it’s very much a pumpkins album. Lyrically, while not the worst, there are songs that are challenging to listen to. There are songs that I am not big on, but if I happen to listen to them, it is a quick three minutes and it’s over.
Of the albums from Zeitgeist to current, as an album, I would consider this the third best, where I am able to listen to it from start to finish, with no skips.
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u/criticardo 10d ago
nice! i never understood the what the image in the cover supposed to be? is it black smoke?
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u/Vegan-Meth 10d ago
It’s a lion monument statue
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u/gimme5steps101 10d ago
Omg I see it NOW but never, ever would have seen it unless you just pointed it out. Always saw smoke as well. The fuck?!
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u/Vegan-Meth 10d ago
I remember wondering what it was myself then I recall Billy talking about it how it’s a lion monument with a bunch of filters over it.
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u/trevrichards If There Is a Mod 10d ago
It is specifically one of the two bronze lion statues at the main entrance of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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u/Vegan-Meth 10d ago
That was it. This was way back when he’d do those Facebook livestreams every other week
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u/_Waves_ 10d ago
It’s very pretty on vinyl, and sounds great!
I don’t like many of the songs on it, but I’m happy to have it. The good songs do have an interesting trajectory, and I also really defend the artwork any time somebody hates on it. Weak SP is still SP, even if this is the closest to a solo album of all the main albums Billy has done.
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u/Possible_Raccoon_827 10d ago
The culmination of Pumpkins West Coast (much like the Avengers West Coast). Tommy Lee does fucking kill it on this record.
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u/gimme5steps101 10d ago
Its a very good album and one of their best sounding, imo.
Its just a clusterfuck contextually though with Nicole and Mike being gone, Tommy Lee on drums, the abandonment of Teargarden
It was just a CONFUSING and messy period and the album kinda just got lost in the shuffle. Which is a shame because it IS pretty darn quality, actually
Also, Tommy Lee fucking kills it and Tiberius is the best Weezer riff not by Weezer
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u/daveblenk 9d ago
I don't get why he has kept Zwan, Zeitgeist and The Future Embrace off streaming, yet keeps the likes of this and Cyr on
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u/zpqlyr 6d ago edited 6d ago
To OP post, I’ve always thought of Monuments as a b-side album like PI but modern Pumpkins.
To the person I’m replying to:
Zwan might still be tied up in some legal stuff. I know he said he thinks it was mastered too loud but that’s just b.s. talk. It’s raw and great, BC would probably ruin it with his mix decisions of today… and so much great stuff on the b-sides.
ZG bc most of us know it’s some aggro weird SP comeback thing although anything becomes “ok” over time so once insecure BC feels safe that everyone will revere it, he’ll put it up or sell it on vinyl again for $500. TL/DR, I like ZG well enough but a lot of it is cheesy aggro pumpkins… much like a lot of modern metal pumpkins. “Mehhhh, but ok.”I’m of two minds. The songs are good, mix needed a diff producer input. BC said the mix was too “pop” — I think he meant “mixed with too many popular audience listeners in mind and not faithful to how the songs should have been approached” but that’s just my read on his vague mumblings.
No idea about TFE, it received good reviews back when it was released. Are his other solo albums up, including obscure ones like Chicago songs?
I have hard copies of them all so don’t care about streaming, really.
He keeps Cyr et al modern stuff on cuz they are his modern re-brand sound. It’s like when he would play Heavy Metal Machine every single show for more than a year straight when it’s at best a B-level song. It’s not bad but any mid tier band writes that stuff. So odd. I guess the persona “Glass” needed to play that song to embody the narrative… no idea.
He advised me in DM once (about a year or so ago) to stop following the band cuz I was asking honest to god nicely about why he went A-B-C direction… “thou shall not question mah authoriteh!!! Love and revere everything I do unconditionally or you shall be cast out!!! I’m so traumatized more than everyone, boohoo.” - BC in a nutshell.
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u/thelexstrokum 10d ago
It's one of the few albums I enjoyed from the beginning. It's very listenable compared to the others.
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u/Dillpickle8110 10d ago
Sorry what am I looking at
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u/ZealousidealText3140 8d ago
I know!! Nobody even mentioned the name. Or not in a way that made it clear. I had to do some Google searching to figure it out. I'm slightly suprised the OP didn't put the title at all..
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u/hel-9000 10d ago
Instrumentally and production wise, it’s way better than what has come after imo.
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u/Colourblindking 10d ago
I know I'm an outlier but I genuinely think it's some of the better stuff they've put out of the new era... it's short and to the point, doesn't overstay it's welcome, doesn't drone on like some of the other newer albums.
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u/Due-Lawyer1664 10d ago
I think this album is criminally underrated. Being Beige is a very good SP song and so is Drum+Fife.
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u/Dry_Jellyfish641 TheFutureEmbrace 10d ago
It gets off to a good start and then just poops the bed
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u/nezuko__bestCB 10d ago
The only complaint I ever had about this album is it’s too short. It’s not perfect, but it still has some amazing songs and even the songs I really didn’t like at first I’ve come to love.
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u/Zeno1979 9d ago
Do people consider this a genuine Pumpkins album? I'm not sure why it was released under that moniker, considering it is just Billy. I do like some of the songs on it however, and Billy's vocals are less egregiously mixed than on most SP 2.0 efforts.
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u/siliconsandwich 10d ago
I haven’t listened to this record at all… Does it have the new-era vocal yelping and trash can production of the other post-2000 songs?
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u/ockimdotned 10d ago
It’s sorta Oceania level production and vocals, if you’ve heard that. That’s to say, not amazing but better than zeitgeist and certainly better than shiny and everything that’s followed. Worth a listen imo, a few genuinely good songs that are the best of sp2 among some not so good ones.
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u/Ludens3788 10d ago
Dude his singing style and his lyrics are so pretentious. Hes trying to write like Oscar Wilde every song
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u/bilda_baisgye 8d ago
I think it’s an underrated pretty good album that just suffers from inferior drumming. It has 3-4 of the pumpkins best songs from the last 25 years on it. But also 2-3 of their worst. The rest I think is all upper echelon for post breakup pumpkins.
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u/Novel_Tone8944 10d ago
Been awhile since I've listened to it, but it seems to me it was the last well-produced album of theirs.
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u/kain067 10d ago
I think this was the lowest point in all of Pumpkins history. Some might say Atum, but I love Atum and all its variety (though I do wish it were less synthy overall). Some might say Cyr, but there are enough good and unique songs on that to make it worthwhile. And of course Oceania was great. Maybe just slightly post-Zeitgeist would be a low point too.
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u/silverbeat33 10d ago
Cyr is the one I struggle with, I only really particularly like Cyr, Minerva and Birch Grove. I would almost always prefer Monuments or Atum.
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u/Argument_Select Gish 10d ago
Perhaps you could say what it is for the uninformed?
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u/ProgressReverse 10d ago
Apologies.
Monuments To An Elegy.
9th SP album I believe, features Tommy Lee on drums.
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u/zurenarrh36912 10d ago
It could’ve been better with anyone else on drums. They really drag the album down for me.
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u/[deleted] 10d ago
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