With the release of the Smashing Pumpkins new album Zeitgeist, now seems an appropriate time to decide if the recent spate of band reunions have produced anything worthwhile other than piles of cash for impoverished rock star has-beens and nostalgia trips for Boomers. Lets start with the Pumpkins themselves.
Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist
If there was any evidence to suggest that Billy Corgan possessed a sense of humour, I would guess that the album title was meant to be ironic. Corgan is still stuck in the early 1970's. Punk is yet to be unleashed, layers of overdubbed guitars are reduce the sound to one big sludgy mess and the lyrics are as puerile as Humpty Dumpty but with none of the unintended humour. (Why exactly did anyone think the king's horses would be able to reassemble a human?) Not a single song has the emotional resonance of Adore's For Martha. Hell, none of them have the emotional resonance of the silly Ava Adore. And anyone deluded enough to think this reunion would have been perfect only if James Iha and Darcy rejoined should keep in mind that Corgan, control freak that he is, records every guitar part himself.
Verdict: Listen to Siamese Dream and commit a horrible act of self-mutilation to punish yourself for ever taking this megalomaniac seriously.
Dinosaur Jr - Beyond
In 2000 I had the pleasure of watching J Mascis playing with Mike Watt and Ron Asheton at the Shepherds Bush Empire in London. Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie joined the supergroup to sing The Stooges' No Fun and proceeded to repeatedly assault a guy in the audience with his mike. Macis just continued playing as if nothing untoward had happened. He may just have been feeling nostalgic for the time he bashed band mate Lou Barlow on the head with his guitar for missing a note. That and the fact that he kicked Barlow out of the band by telling him that the band had broken up and then reforming the group the next day with a new bass player may make this the most unexpected reunion of the year. Unlike Corgan, who says he didn't feel whole without the Pumpkins, Mascis and Barlow admit they have got back together for purely mercenary reasons.
And yet Beyond may just be the best album of the year. Dinosaur Jr are as loud as ever, the solos still owe the same debt to Neil Young. The group hasn't aged one bit. And songs like Almost Ready and Back to Your Heart rank among the finest in their catalogue.
Verdict: In 20 years, nothing has changed, Amen.
The Stooges - The Weirdness
No need to spend too much time on this turd. This couplet should suffice.
"I see your hair has energy
My dick is turnin' into a tree"
From Trollin'
Verdict: Iggy rhymes Dalai Lama with Baby Mama. Why oh Why?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment