I'm both highly anticipating and highly dreading this. Ever since Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness, Billy Corgan has been progressively heading into a sonic realm that could only really be described as "unlistenable". Moving away from prog rock and goth pop roots into the realms of electronica and synth, each album Corgan has overseen since Mellon Collie - from the Pumpkin's Adore and Machina releases to Zwan's Mary, Star of the Sea and his own solo effort thefutureembrace - has relied increasingly on distortion, computer-generated melodies and, frankly, weird mixing. Corgan went from using distortion masterfully on Siamese Dream to drowning in it in Machina, and the synth beats on Adore and thefutureembrace came across more cold than New Order cool.
The most frustrating part for me was, given how interesting, imaginative and lush Corgan's lyrics are, why does he feel the need to bury them at the back of the song, while over-dubbing fifty fuzzy guitar lines?
Zeitgeist, the name of this latest - and frankly surprising - album, could be either a colossal triumphant (like Mellon Collie) or an embarrasing calamity (like thefutureembrace). Either way, given my obsessive devotion to all things Corgan, I'm sure I'll end up liking it. Whether that be a genuine appreciation or one I've talked myself into is yet to be seen. Oh, and when/if they tour Australia, one way or another I will be seeing them perform.
All this speculation seems a bit ungrounded really, seeing as the first single, Tarantula, has been released and I've yet to even hear it. Triple J is yet to play it to my knowledge, but I'm sure they will. I hope they will. Even if they don't, I'm planning on downloading it when I get home tonight. It'll serve as an interesting taste of what's to come, but the proof will be in the pudding that comes in July.
Fingers crossed.
No comments:
Post a Comment