[Fernando]

http://grungereport.net/?p=11851

I know this may be kind of a random article, but with Oceania coming out next month, I’ve recently been looking back at the Pumpkins’ last full length release Zeitgeist. The album was trashed at the time, in my opinion it was hit and miss album with some solid songs and some lousy songs. ‘Tarantula’ is still the best song Billy Corgan has written in the last 8 years, with ‘That’s the Way (My Love Is)’ not too far behind. The problem is you had crap like Starz, Pomp and Circumstance, Come On Let’s Go, and Neverlost on the album and songs with potential ruined by overproduction and lifeless vocals like Bleeding The Orchid and For God and Country. There were other solid songs from this era too that were far superior to songs that actually made the album. So here’s the tracklisting I would have gone with, my favorite songs from the Zeitgeist sessions that I think would have made for a solid album.

1. Doomsday Clock
2. Tarantula
3. 7 Shades of Black
4. FOL
5. That’s the Way (My Love Is)
6. United States
7. The Rose March
8. For God and Country (Acoustic version)
9. Stellar
10. Zeitgeist

‘FOL’ is a song that was written for Zeitgeist that was released for free online in early 2009 after being used in a car commercial. Some fans have trashed this song and I don’t know why, it’s got a brilliant chorus with great vocals and should have made the album. ‘The Rose March’ appeared on the American Gothic EP in early 2008 and was part of a batch of acoustic songs Corgan wrote during the Zeitgeist sessions, and this is one of the best songs Billy Corgan has written in the last decade and it’s a shame it was put on an EP that didn’t get too much exposure. ‘Zeitgeist’ and ‘Stellar’ are Zeitgeist B-sides that appeared on the many colored versions of the album. Zeitgeist is a great acoustic track that I think would have been a great bookend for the album. Stellar is another solid track that is better than much of the material that actually made the album. ‘For God and Country’ was solid as an acoustic song live, but was ruined by overproduction and synth on the studio version. ’7 Shades of Black’ may not have been the most amazing song but it’s a fun hard rock track that fits in with the hard rock vibe of the first six tracks. While I enjoyed ‘Bring the Light’ the vibe just doesn’t fit the vibe. After the first six songs then you could have had the more lush beautiful songs. I think Billy’s big problem over the last 5 years hasn’t been a total lack of creativity, but a lack of self-editing. He just throws too much music out there and he should focus on putting out albums with the 10-12 best songs from the batch he’s written at the time. The same goes for the Teargarden project, he just kept throwing out song after song (most of which were crap outside of Tom Tom and Freak) when he should have been focusing on picking the best 10-12 songs out of however many he wrote and making an album. Hopefully Billy has finally seen the error in his ways and Oceania will be a solid album. For the record I didn’t list any of the Residency Songs because Billy wrote many of them post Zeitgeist’s recording sessions. Here are some live versions and studio recordings of the songs I thought should be added to the album. The live version of ‘Zeitgeist’ makes me miss Jimmy in the band, it’s just not the same without him.

[KingBelteshazzar]

Quote

Tarantula’ is still the best song Billy Corgan has written in the last 8 years, with ‘That’s the Way (My Love Is)’ not too far behind. The problem is you had crap like Starz, Pomp and Circumstance, Come On Let’s Go, and Neverlost on the album and songs with potential ruined by overproduction and lifeless vocals like Bleeding The Orchid and For God and Country.

grunge report has no clue.

[Bountiful_Wasteland]

I'm glad someone is trying to give Zeitgeist a fair shake, but I hardly agree with his assessment http://www.smashingpumpkins.com/board_new/public/style_emoticons/default/what.gif

[KingBelteshazzar]

Bountiful_Wasteland, on 10 May 2012 - 06:21 PM, said:

I'm glad someone is trying to give Zeitgeist a fair shake, but I hardly agree with his assessment http://www.smashingpumpkins.com/board_new/public/style_emoticons/default/what.gif

yeah.

it's like - oh look, another guy's opinion about how things "should have been done". And they all say something different....usually the only things they have in common are that I never agree with most of their opinions. Lulz.

Nice that he's looking back at it though. ZG deserves more credit than it gets.

[frosty]

don't like most of it. that's never gonna change. i seem to be more irritated by it now than before.

edit: not because of your new list, fernando. sorry. it's because any recollection of that album bothers me. :lol:/>

[DeepPurple]

I dont understand the hate people have for Pomp and Circumstances. I think its a great song with a really interesting melody.

[the_farewell_party]

I don't understand how someone can say "That's the Way" is one of the best songs Billy's written in the last eight years and then go on to trash "Neverlost".

I feel pretty much the inverse of that.

[dustinberg]

How does FOL have a brilliant chorus?

[the_farewell_party]

Because just when you begin to doubt that Billy wants you to feel their love, he says "come on and feel our love" one more time and then you're absolutely certain for at least the next 8 milliseconds that Billy wants you to come on and feel his and Jimmy's love. And if you start to doubt again, the process begins anew.

See? Brilliant.

[marquisinspades]

FOL fustrates me. It's annoying because I can't help feeling there ia a half-formed classic in there just trying to get out. The guitars are great but the chorus is trite.

I don't understand the hate for Z generally. Fernando is right, Tarrantula is the best track they have done in recent history. Neverlost is beautiful. The LP suffers from a couple of bad track choices later on, but it's a fairly solid 7/10 album imo.

I will speculate that the people who don't really like Zeitgeist will like Oceania a lot more. Unfortunately I think this works the other way as well. As such I have very low expectations for how much I will personally enjoy Oceania based on the live material. I can only hope the unheard stuff is more like MLIW and less like the long instrumental wanderings of the rest of it.

Bring the hate!

[nasalscarecrow]

Bleeding The Orchid, lifeless vocals? Nah. Listen to that build up near the end. Some passion in there.

[ZivotSon]

DeepPurple, on 10 May 2012 - 06:43 PM, said:

I dont understand the hate people have for Pomp and Circumstances. I think its a great song with a really interesting melody.

I used to dislike that one, but now I think it's definitely in the top half of that collection.

[ItsSoPringles]

DeepPurple, on 10 May 2012 - 06:43 PM, said:

I dont understand the hate people have for Pomp and Circumstances. I think its a great song with a really interesting melody.

that gutair solo gives me goosebumps, the lalala's arent even that bad either. good to know im not the only one that likes that song

also it had some of the best vocals on the album for me. Even the songs i like on ZG i wish for better vocals but for this (and stellar) im ok the way they are

though i wouldnt mind hearing the multiple billy lalala's replaces with mike nichole and billy instead

[davidp2007]

I like the grey Zeitgeist (the best buy one) a lot more than the original tracklisting. Seems like a more fully formed album. Never cared for FOL.

the_farewell_party, on 10 May 2012 - 08:45 PM, said:

I don't understand how someone can say "That's the Way" is one of the best songs Billy's written in the last eight years and then go on to trash "Neverlost".

I feel pretty much the inverse of that.

My favorite songs on the album are "That's The Way", "Neverlost" and "Bleeding the Orchid", so where does that leave me? :p/>.

[dudehitscar]

If tarantula is truly the best corgan has made in 8 years then I wouldn't be a fan anymore.. I mean it's a fun song but there is zero emotional connection to the lyrics..

[frosty]

the_farewell_party, on 10 May 2012 - 09:26 PM, said:

Because just when you begin to doubt that Billy wants you to feel their love, he says "come on and feel our love" one more time and then you're absolutely certain for at least the next 8 milliseconds that Billy wants you to come on and feel his and Jimmy's love. And if you start to doubt again, the process begins anew.

See? Brilliant.

:lol:/> :nono:/>

[LostSoul]

dudehitscar, on 11 May 2012 - 07:25 PM, said:

If tarantula is truly the best corgan has made in 8 years then I wouldn't be a fan anymore.. I mean it's a fun song but there is zero emotional connection to the lyrics..

THANK you. I agree. I like Tarantula just fine, but the Oceania material definitely has the most emotional resonance lyrically and vocally of the last 5 years. Period.

Pomp & Circumstances, Neverlost, and American Gothic are severely underrated. Even with disengaged vocal performances, they somehow shine through with magic. They certainly have that 'Pumpkins' vibe more so than ALL of Zeitgeist & TbK. Come on, people defend Doomsday Clock? Over those? Please:

"Please don't stop,
Tts lonely at the top
These lonely days, Will they ever stop
This doomsday clock ticking in my heart
Not broken"

As opposed to,

"I'll lay roses at your feet,
Till you decide,
That there is something great in you"

-OR-

"Oh won't you stay
For a while
We can fail in style
I can hold your smile
For a while"

The entirety of "Sunkissed" is absolutely beautiful lyrically. Stellar as well, though the vocal performance truly detracts from it.

That said, I definitely think Zeitgeist deserves the hate it gets. People should look at it and understand that there is a potentially great record under the mess, but the execution killed off any chance of that happening. As-is, I would rank the record as a 5.5/10. Not a horrendous creation by any means, but for an artist with Billy's known songwriting & lyrical prowess, it is inexcusable. Sorry.

[Dusty]

I really like Zietgiest. I think the songs are super cool and catchy, and the instrumentation is generally awesome. Same goes for pretty much all the Zietgiest era material, except for The Rose March and Sunkissed, which blow my mind.
The lyrics to Tarantula are basically companionate to Cherub Rock, so don't completely blow them off. In Billy's own words, Cherub Rock is "Indie World Fuck Off". Tarantula is like a quasi-serious version of Everlasting Gaze (which I suppose was already quasi-serious itself). "You Know I'm Not Dead"="We are real, cause someone gave us sound....the pulse ripples, the crowd unfurls, the current starts to flow and then you're on". So at least that aspect of the song has a lot to do with thier place in the musical world, and comming back as a band, and fucking the haters. There's obviously other stuff in there, but don't ask me to try and figure it out; I'm still not 100% sure how they augment those I do understand.

[dudehitscar]

We are real cause someone gave us sound does not resonate anything with me. Sorry. Like I said.. It's a fun song but if it were the best billy could do in the last decade I would have given up on him. He's written far songs.

[Deleted User Account]

the_farewell_party, on 10 May 2012 - 08:45 PM, said:

I don't understand how someone can say "That's the Way" is one of the best songs Billy's written in the last eight years and then go on to trash "Neverlost".

I feel pretty much the inverse of that.

That's The Way is structured way cool. There's a real economy to the song, even though it's kind of all over the place. To me, Neverlost is kind of your typical Corgan smorgasbord of parts without the inspiration. I like some of the atmospheric keyboard, but overall it drags and there's no payoff. I don't think it's bad, just not great or even particularly good.

The second verse of TTW features an almost entirely different chord pattern to the first, but both use an identical melody. And then in the third verse, he switches it up again! (of course, the lead in to the chorus remains the same for the three, iirc). The third chorus "brings it home". I'd wager LOT of thought or inspiration went into the arrangement of this song. It sounds like the culmination of years of BC's "pop shoegaze" writing. The chorus is also based around the same chords as the verse. I like songs that do that (Dreams - Fleetwood Mac, Teenage Dream - Katy Perry). I'm not sure how else to communicate it. On its base level it moves me, and on an analytical level (as analytical as I get about this things anyway) it inspires me. IMO it's the best thing Corgan has written in the past 10 yrs and would enter my top ten Pumpkin songs of all time.

BTW,

"I'll lay roses at your feet,
Till you decide,
That there is something great in you"

I don't get what makes this good.

[kylekasino]

I don't look back at Zeitgeist so much as an album anymore, as opposed to an era.

With the 4 b-sides, the alternate track listings, the Glow/Superchrist EP, FOL, If all Goes Wrong, the Residency Songs, Gossamer, the AOL sessions, the acoustic version of Zeitgeist, American Gothic... it's near impossible and extremely frustrating to try and configure my perfect tracklist and have everything fit the way an album should (although believe me I have tried many times and spent countless hours to come up with various versions throughout the years). I find now I just kind of bounce around the various songs, enjoying different ones at different times.

As far as underrated, I would say Starz, Pomp & Circumstances, and Bring the Light definitely fit the bill. They get trashed way too much. I would include Orchid, cause I love that song, but I think it gets enough love around these parts.

I'd say 70-80% of the material still resonates with me in some way. I'd rate the album itself (the grey version + Zeitgeist added on as the closer), a solid 7. It's far from my favorite SP album obviously, but I definitely find it easy to look upon the era as a very favorable era, especially if you include the tours and the setlists, and especially in comparision to the bullshittness of the Teargarden era. Even if only based off Gossamer and Superchrist alone, those fucking tracks melt my face off and we haven't heard anything like that since then. Moreso the AOL sessions Superchrist. A personal favorite, alongside Heavy Metal Machine.

FOL had the chance to be a nice energy infused song, the production was improved and the passion in the vox was there, it was the redunancy of the come on's that killed it for me. After Come On Let's Go (probably my least favorite track on ZG), and then GLOW, it was like just give it a fucking rest already. Had I not heard those two songs prior perhaps my impression would have been different.

[dudehitscar]

The Come On trilogy ... Fol was by far the worst offender.

[Deleted User Account]

Bleeding the Orchid is a really cool song but wow, the chorus of Billy's in the opening never fails to make me laugh.

[Elphenor]

Sigh,

I really like FOL.

That's the way has a really cool Chord progression and all but the lyrics and Billy's vocals make it so I can't enjoy it. It's very sad.

Tarantula has fun screeching guitars but everything else about it is just lame. It's just passable for me.

Bleeding the Orchid is decent but kinda boring.

Let's not revisit any other part of that era...

[Deleted User Account]

Elphenor, on 12 May 2012 - 02:51 PM, said:

Sigh,

I really like FOL.

That's the way has a really cool Chord progression and all but the lyrics and Billy's vocals make it so I can't enjoy it. It's very sad.

Tarantula has fun screeching guitars but everything else about it is just lame. It's just passable for me.

Bleeding the Orchid is decent but kinda boring.

Let's not revisit any other part of that era...

How can you like FOL but dislike the others? FOL doesn't have shit lyrics and vocals? I take it your answer to that is no given that you like it, but please clarify.

[dudehitscar]

As much as I hate to admit it Fol has much better vocal production than zeitgeist...

[RottingApples]

ArticulateEric, on 12 May 2012 - 02:49 PM, said:

Bleeding the Orchid is a really cool song but wow, the chorus of Billy's in the opening never fails to make me laugh.

Had it been Lisa/ Ginger vocals, or even the keyboard intro from the live versions, it would have been 100x better. Easy.

[Elphenor]

ArticulateEric, on 12 May 2012 - 02:59 PM, said:

How can you like FOL but dislike the others? FOL doesn't have shit lyrics and vocals? I take it your answer to that is no given that you like it, but please clarify.

Yeah, I like FOL lyrics for the most part, they're not great or anything, but better than That's the way my love is IMO. I can't get over the part: "They say that life ain't easy. They say that nothing matters, not even your will to survive" and then the use of the word "baby" in the next line. Just... :what:/> . The lyrics are cheezy and completely lack the vocal delivery that would be necessary to make them believable. That said, listening to it again, I have to admit the chorus is enjoyable.

I think the vocal delivery in FOL is pretty good. There's some hints of BC magic in there. And I like the way he sings Feel Our Love and think it's a fun lyric to sing along to.

Yeah, some of the other lyrics are lame but its easier for me to overlook corny lyrics when they're darker such as "I've got the skull and bones, I lick the polished chrome". But when love songs have weak lyrics it becomes really cliche and not believable for me.

[dudehitscar]

RottingApples, on 12 May 2012 - 04:01 PM, said:

Had it been Lisa/ Ginger vocals, or even the keyboard intro from the live versions, it would have been 100x better. Easy.

But still a bit generic IMO.

Elphenor, on 12 May 2012 - 04:04 PM, said:

Yeah, I like FOL lyrics for the most part, they're not great or anything, but better than That's the way my love is IMO. I can't get over the part: "They say that life ain't easy. They say that nothing matters, not even your will to survive" and then the use of the word "baby" in the next line. Just... :what:/> . The lyrics are cheezy and completely lack the vocal delivery that would be necessary to make them believable. That said, listening to it again, I have to admit the chorus is enjoyable.

I think the vocal delivery in FOL is pretty good. There's some hints of BC magic in there. And I like the way he sings Feel Our Love and think it's a fun lyric to sing along to.

Yeah, some of the other lyrics are lame but its easier for me to overlook corny lyrics when they're darker such as "I've got the skull and bones, I lick the polished chrome". But when love songs have weak lyrics it becomes really cliche and not believable for me.

I got the skull and bones I licked the polished chrome is way worse than anything in that's the way.

[themadcaplaughs]

I have to agree that "Tarantula" is probably in the top 3 best songs Corgan has written post-2000; certainly the best one under the SP moniker. It was a perfect single to get hype going on the band being back together. I'd wager to say it was almost too perfect because it made the rest of the album kind of...underwhelming.

Nonetheless, I'm glad to see people are reevaluating it. I do not think it will garner quite the acclaim Adore and the Machina albums did in their aging, but those were much more dense albums with a lot more riding on them emotionally. I think as time progresses, people will see Zeitgeist, despite being far from perfect, is a solid rock record scattered with moments of pure SP genius ("Tarantula," "That's the Way," and "Pomp and Circumstances"). Hell, I'd say the fact that there is this much difference in what the best Zeitgeist song are shows that this deserves the SP name.

[Fernando]

I don't think FOL and GLOW are bad songs, but both of they sound like "This could be BETTER" and that makes them sound wors than they are.

I can't understand the hate about Starz, I think it's my favorite song from Zeitgeist right now... the guitars and drums are fucking killer. Neverlost is another pretty good song and it has the best lyrics off the album.

[oryann]

ArticulateEric, on 12 May 2012 - 09:32 AM, said:

That's The Way is structured way cool. There's a real economy to the song, even though it's kind of all over the place. To me, Neverlost is kind of your typical Corgan smorgasbord of parts without the inspiration. I like some of the atmospheric keyboard, but overall it drags and there's no payoff. I don't think it's bad, just not great or even particularly good.

The second verse of TTW features an almost entirely different chord pattern to the first, but both use an identical melody. And then in the third verse, he switches it up again! (of course, the lead in to the chorus remains the same for the three, iirc). The third chorus "brings it home". I'd wager LOT of thought or inspiration went into the arrangement of this song. It sounds like the culmination of years of BC's "pop shoegaze" writing. The chorus is also based around the same chords as the verse. I like songs that do that (Dreams - Fleetwood Mac, Teenage Dream - Katy Perry). I'm not sure how else to communicate it. On its base level it moves me, and on an analytical level (as analytical as I get about this things anyway) it inspires me. IMO it's the best thing Corgan has written in the past 10 yrs and would enter my top ten Pumpkin songs of all time.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. And a cheers emoticon :cheers:/>

[Deleted User Account]

qoqonut, on 14 May 2012 - 09:19 PM, said:

...and wow.

Hello person that is so obviously snail I can't even believe it.