Stop Five Records

you're right otto, zeitgeist is far from the best thing the pumpkins have ever done. It's so far from the best thing that it is in fact probably the worst thing they have done.

I'm not picking on you, I'm picking on billy corgan cause I know he can do better.

furthermore, just cause you have 2 of the original members doesn't mean you've become the smashing pumpkins again! GAH!

And to think, SP used to be my favorite band in high school....

oh how far have you fallen oh, day star... i mean, billy....
 

I really liked Zeitgeist. It made me happy, and that's all I ask. (Because really, come on, you couldn't pick it up with excessive expectations. I set my hopes low, and I was impressed. That's just how I roll.)

Also, agreed on Icky Thump. I love the White Stripes.
 

my question is, why would you set your expectations low? I mean, if it's a crap album, it's a crap album. Why make excuses for it?

I heard someone say that Billy Corgan went back to the name "smashing pumpkins" cause his best writing came to him under that moniker. But, Zeitgeist comes across as completely uninspired (to me anyway.)

I simply can't say it's a good album. I would say, go back and listen to siamese dreams, and Melon Collie, and maybe, you might agree with me.

This is also why, i don't particularly care for the new wilco. AND i'm probably the biggest wilco fan out of all of us! but the album sounds uninspired, it came together way too easy. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in this case, the album has no heart to it.

I know Jeff Tweedy is capable of more. In my opinion, his best works are the ones that he sets a direction for. When they came to making "sky blue sky" they just wanted to write and play songs. And that's what the record is, just "nice" songs. It's a decent listen, but still uninspired.

that's my 2 cents.
 

I don't think anyone in their right mind would compare Zeitgeist to Mellon Collie, Siamese Dreams, or any other SP release. That's not an issue.

But I also think expectations had to be (or should have been) low for this album! I mean, before anything had even been recorded, from the get-go, we knew A) they'd been broken up for what, 7 years? B) It wasn't even really a SP reunion, despite the name: Billy and the drummer do not the Smashing Pumpkins make (if anything, this was a new version of Zwan) and C) since SP had broken up, good ol' Billy had tried both Zwan and his solo stuff, both of which where not liked by pretty much the majority of SP fans.

So knowing this CD was going to have more in common with Mary Star of the Sea and TheFutureEmbrace than anything the SP put out, yeah, I definitely set my expectations low.

That being said, I liked a few of the songs from his solo CD and I thought Zwan was way underrated, so I could still appreciate this album. All in all, I think it's a solid effort.

Where I see the problem for most people is the band name. It is hard to take it seriously as a part of the SP catalogue when it isn't even really the SP. But it was a pretty smart move on Billy's part -- he's guaranteed a certain level of sales and he gets to play bigger shows again. Whether that was his goal, well, who knows.

Still, I think he pulled something descent off with Zeitgeist, Smashing Pumpkins or not.