Welcome to the pond

Remember how last week I decided to not buy the Billy Corgan solo album? Well, today I went out and bought it anyway. At the very least, this puts my indecisions to rest. I have Billy Corgan AND Coldplay. There will be no more wondering which one I'm actually going to buy because I have both.

Initial thoughts on the album:
It's not necessarily bad, but it is quite different from anything Billy's done before. At least, different from anything I've heard. I haven't heard all of Adore or either of the Machinas, so perhaps this album is closer to those albums than I am aware.

The biggest thing I have against this album is that a lot of it sounds the same. There are many synthesizers, drum machines and really distorted, anti-melodic guitars. I don't think this sound is at all unwelcome, but after five or six songs of hearing basically the same sound turned into different songs, one wishes for something different.

Basically, this album sounds very inorganic. There's a dull quality to the sounds the instruments make and it grinds against your brain after a while. If Billy had introduced guitar lines where you can actually hear individual notes, or maybe added a piano or strings once in a while, the songs would be a lot easier to listen to. The songs themselves are not really all that bad. There's nothing here with the catchiness of "1979" or "Today," but the melodies are still pretty good. Even with nothing immediately outstanding, I think Billy's melodies and vocals will dig their way into my head eventually. It's the dull, repetitive synth and guitars that hold them down.

Lyrically, Billy has never made too much sense to me. He's sometimes very hard to figure out, and that's as true as ever on this album. I'm not really a lyrics fan, though, so that doesn't really rub me as wrong as it could. Thankfully, I think Billy's lyrics will be easier to hear on here than on most of the Smashing Pumpkins albums. His vocals are mixed well and are rarely whispering or overwhelmed by the instruments. The liner notes include lyrics (and not randomly-painted handwritten lyrics such as were included in Siamese Dream!) so understanding the lyrics shouldn't be a huge problem anyhow.

One last thought - the last song, "Strayz," almost works as a low-tech ballad but suffers from being quite boring and not going anywhere! At least that's my first impression. It almost became the lone track to truly bring beauty into the mix, but I think it fails. That's really too bad. I'll listen to it more, though, and see if I'm wrong.

As long as we're on the subject of Billy Corgan, allow me to address the mainstream media for a moment. Hello, mainstream media! Did you actually READ what Billy Corgan put in the Chicago Tribune ad from yesterday? The Smashing Pumpkins are NOT yet officially back together. No plans have been made, and no band members have been officially welcomed back into the fold. All that happened was that Billy communicated his WISH to "renew and revise" the Smashing Pumpkins. No one yet knows exactly what he means, so there is NO need for you to report that the band is getting back together. You're getting way ahead of yourselves with this.