The Cult vs. Smashing Pumpkins

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 8:41 am

Seems kind of funny, to my 1997 self, comparing these two bands' latest records, but here in 2007...

Anyway, these are arguabley state-of-the art hard pop-rock productions, (and without Bob Rock or Andy Wallace.)

The Cult is produced by Youth (from Killing Joke, etc.) and it really does sound clear, big and not too smashed. The songs are fair, with a couple of real good ones and a couple dogs; you can hear some stolen hooks, AC/DC and including a cool lift from the Stones' "Emotional Rescue" and the performances are good, especially Duffy on guitar sounding like he's playing on Electric.

The Pumpkins is Roy Thomas Baker producing on a few, Terry Date on a few, Corgan on a few, etc. I think the songs are better (100% than Corgan's solo wimp-out and the last one, Machina), and the album also sounds pretty good; nowhere near as harsh and smashed as the Zwan stuff. The performances sound like Siamese Dream, which is good, except Chamberlain is even better.

To me, both of these records sound better than the recent Velvet Revolver, Audioslave and Cornell, and Army of Anyone records (and I count myself a big Brendan O'Brien and Steve Lilliywhite fan, and I liked Ezrin's work on the last Jane's Addiction record)...

vapour trail · Post by **vapour trail** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 9:22 am

terry date, didn't know he was on that pumpkins record.

i liked what he did with deftones, the last album they did together

that one sounds rough, pro'bly mastered that way too.

strange at first, but good strange.

Smitty · Post by **Smitty** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 9:50 am

longtime pumpkins fan here... held on through Adore, Machina, ZWAN, his book of poetry... you get the idea.

i don't much care for the way the new one sounds. i keep putting it on and hoping that it will grow on me, and it is a little... but not much. it sounds oddly mixed and chamberlain's drums sound weird and there is singing in places where maybe there didn't need to be.

i'm not doing a very good job of describing... but the drum sounds on Mellon Collie get me air drumming like a fiend and the ones on Zeitgeist just kinda make me shrug. they're missing something.

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 10:08 am

everything about billy corgan makes me want to claw my eyes out, but jimmy chamberlin's playing on 'gish' is still some of the best shit ever put to tape by anybody, IMO....

TheStevens · Post by **TheStevens** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 3:02 pm

Smitty wrote: i'm not doing a very good job of describing... but the drum sounds on Mellon Collie get me air drumming like a fiend and the ones on Zeitgeist just kinda make me shrug. they're missing something.

Yeah, I agree, the drums don't sound that great.

daede · Post by **daede** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 3:11 pm

steve3b1 wrote:
Smitty wrote: i'm not doing a very good job of describing... but the drum sounds on Mellon Collie get me air drumming like a fiend and the ones on Zeitgeist just kinda make me shrug. they're missing something.
Yeah, I agree, the drums don't sound that great.

Probably because the songs just aren't that great. I think Chamberlain's drumming always rocked because of the way he played in the context of the song.

Lackluster songs=lackluster drumming.

This coming from a onetime Smashing Pumpkins freak of a superfan. The new record just doesn't do it for me.

mjau · Post by **mjau** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 3:13 pm

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:everything about billy corgan makes me want to claw my eyes out, but jimmy chamberlin's playing on 'gish' is still some of the best shit ever put to tape by anybody, IMO....

Dude, same here.

Vogon · Post by **Vogon** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 3:16 pm

I must say I was shocked to hear the new SP album.
The drums don't sound very solid, the BV's sound about *6db* too loud to me, and the vocal sounds like a guide track and dips in and out of the mix.
Liked some guitar sounds though.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 4:16 pm

Vogon wrote:...and the vocal sounds like a guide track....

One of the best things about it.

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 9:51 am

I kind of like some of the more 'out' things on the SP record. There's one song with filtered drums and some other things. I also think Billy didn't sing very loud and I think that's a good thing because the nails on a chalkboaard that tends to be his voice is not such a problem if he doesn't push too hard.

Smitty · Post by **Smitty** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:05 am

going to see the pumpkins tonight.

why hello, my own adolescence! is that you?

why yes, it is!

Electro-Voice 664 · Post by **Electro-Voice 664** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 4:37 pm

I really like Jimmy's drumming too, but I only own Gish and the Tristessa 7".
Are the guitars cool on the new one?

signorMars · Post by **signorMars** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 8:52 am

Vogon wrote:...the BV's sound about *6db* too loud to me...

That's what you get with Roy Thomas Baker.

I bought this album on iTunes right before my band went on tour this summer and we all listened to it the first day out. It took 3 songs before I remembered that RTB was one of the producers. The guitars are Billy Corgan-riffic. The Queen style vocal arrangements weird me out. The songs are horrible (with a couple exceptions). All the vocals and lyrics sounded really tossed off. While I can't pretend to understand the line "coil my tongue 'round a bumblee be mouth," at least it's better than "I love you every day, each and every way." Seriously... a little effort would be nice. The really long epic, atmospheric song (I don't remember the name) was pretty awesome though.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 9:48 am

Smitty wrote:going to see the pumpkins tonight.

why hello, my own adolescence! is that you?

why yes, it is!

And?

I do find the BV's kind of distracting when they are not just the chorus, as in the "doomsday" song (of which they play a snippet during the Bears' last game.)

As a matter of fact, they are kind of like the snare on that last Metallica album; not fatal, but distracting.

I have to wonder if someone was riding the straw when they set those levels...

Smitty · Post by **Smitty** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 10:26 am

seriously bummed out.

i love probably 80% of everything they've recorded, and they somehow managed to put together a set composed almost entirely of the other 20%.

they played all the new songs (yawn), the 4 big radio players off Mellon Collie (yawn), Heavy Metal Machine (why?) and Hummer (High point of the show for me). they had more than a few long, feedbacky, echoey, abstract instrumental segments between songs that sincerely lacked substance. they closed with a cover of I Love Rock and Roll, for god's sake... extra cheeseball. then they sleepwalked through Today and 1979 for their multiple encores.

to me, the show was obviously aimed at: 1) casual radio fans from back in the day, and 2) people who bought/are buying the new album. i fall into neither group.

i love the pumpkins and their music dearly, but the $50 i ended up dropping on the show between Ticketmaster and parking was nowhere near worth the experience i got (their light show was frickin' amazing, though... trumped only by Sigur Ros' a few years ago).

i am SO going to slam the door to my room now!

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The Cult vs. Smashing Pumpkins

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