It seems that a lot of bands of yesteryear are getting back together and embarking on worldwide wondertours, from the Police to Rage Against the Machine. One hopes for the purpose of furthering their creative interests, though one suspects it's for profit (for shame, Rage!). And now, to see the alterna-champs of the '90s, the Smashing Pumpkins, reform at this critical apex in "band reformation history," it comes as a surprise for some that their new album, auspiciously titled Zeitgeist, and their subsequent tour are wholly kick-ass and wildly original. Still, let's go back, as most die-hard Pumpkinheads will tell you Billy Corgan and his demons were never really gone.
Formed in 1988 by Billy Corgan and James Iha, who played their first shows with the aid of a drum machine, the Smashing Pumpkins originally spun a brand of gothic rock reminiscent of early Cure and New Order. It wasn't until Corgan added bassist D'Arcy Wretzky and drummer Jimmy Chamberlain that the group's inimitable sound first began to take shape. Based off the strength of early EPs, which forsook the punk leanings of the day for a bigger, swirling sound that mixed shoegazer and classic metal, the band released Gish, an album of arena-rock for Generation X that achieved limited success and earned the band a record deal with Virgin.
It would be at this point that the Pumpkins reached a turning point in their career. Fueled by inner turmoil, drug abuse and depression, the band slowly hammered out what many view as their magnum opus - Siamese Dream, an LP of shoegazey, alterna-rock that spawned such seminal tracks as "Today," "Disarm" and "Geek U.S.A." At the time, the band was equal parts championed and reviled by industry professionals, some of whom claimed the band wasn't so much "alternative" as it was painfully mainstream, tapping into the angst of the era. Of course, what they and many failed and continue to fail to notice is that the Smashing Pumpkins is at its core a comment on the subversive nature of pop music in our culture.
Billy Corgan, from the beginning, spun his popularity into the songs themselves, critiquing and commenting on the culture that bred the Pumpkins. This can of course be seen from the band's early inclusion of tracks in popular movies like "Singles" to the Paris Hilton adorned cover of their new single "Tarantula."
Following Siamese Dream, Corgan became extremely prolific and wrote dozens of songs for what would become their best-selling album, the double LP Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, which spawned a variety of singles everyone remembers from middle school. Following this, Corgan and company seemingly abandoned guitar-rock for the more electronica-tinged Adore, which despite slow sales, was a critical darling and is considered one of their best, most honest albums.
However, with the band imploding from within due to Jimmy Chamberlain's heroin overdose and Wretzky's replacement by Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur, the end was in sight. By the time Machina was released, the band was all but done, forced to release Machina II by means of free Internet dispersal. On Dec. 2, 2000, the band played their final show at the Metro in Chicago, where their careers had begun so many years before.
Of course, for the Corgan and Pumpkin aficionados, one knows that this wasn't the end of our champions of angst and arcane night music. Corgan and Chamberlain went on to perform in the supergroup Zwan, which saw the former Pumpkins frontman examining spirituality from a more positive but no less sonically impressive musical palette. However, the band was short-lived, with Corgan's rumored complaints of heroin addiction and poor relations within the band, resulting in a terrible implosion. The former Pumpkins frontman would go on to pen a book of poetry ("Blinking with Fists") and record an album of electronica-infused solo material called TheFutureEmbrace.
Then came the defining move in the future of Corgan's career. On June 21, 2005, the frontman put out a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune confessing his love for the city and his intention to reform his beloved Smashing Pumpkins and produce more new material. Such honesty and candor hadn't been seen in the alternative rock community before, and fans eagerly awaited until the day the Pumpkins would reveal their new band almost two years later on May 22, 2007, complete with Corgan, Chamberlain and a new guitarist and bassist.
Their new album, Zeitgeist, will be released July 10. The move comes at an unfortunate time when other artists are currently jumping on the reformation bandwagon, but it can't be said that Corgan didn't have the idea first. As any Pumpkins fan can tell you, the band was never truly gone.
Accusations of being money-hungry have always dogged the Smashing Pumpkins, and their new move to release Zeitgeist in several different versions with different tracklists is nothing new to the industry (see Bloc Party's six different versions of Weekend in the City, which music critics have conveniently forgotten). However, such accusations are answered duly in regards to the fact that every Pumpkins' album release has been an event, and Zeitgeist, with its several different and interesting versions, will be no different.
The album itself recalls the swirling guitars of Siamese Dream (with "Doomsday Clock" hearkening back to "Geek U.S.A.") and the high-vocal mixing of Machina ("For God and Country" recalls the awesomeness that was "The Everlasting Gaze"). Ultimately, the record has no right to be as good as it is, with comments on the current U.S. administration playing beside the same songs of loneliness and angst that made the Smashing Pumpkins famous in the first place. The Pumpkins have definitely always occupied a place of their own with no imitators ever sniffing their greatness.
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