ARTIST: The Smashing Pumpkins
TITLE: Zeitgeist
WEB DEBUT: June 30, 2007
RELEASE DATE: July 10, 2007
SOUND QUALITY: 216kbps (VBR)
ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: There's no immediately apparent reason why Billy Corgan's vocals were recorded in such a way that they sound pancake-flat, but other than that,
Zeitgeist is a solid if unspectacular run through the Smashing Pumpkins' existence, complete with snarling guitars, wispy tracks that recall
Adore, and a nearly ten-minute blowout ("United States") that closes out with a pretty glorious, if bombastic, coda. The only real misstep? The unfortunate opening of "Starz," which resulted in a violent
Hear 'N Aid flashback.
WHERE TO FIND THE BEST TRACK: Nobody's posted the pretty, "Tristessa"-echoing "That's The Way (My Love Is)" yet, but for some reason people seem to have cottoned to "Starz";
Onward Charles has the MP3. (You can also stream the whole album
at AOL.)
Idolator
Surely I'm not the only one who thinks that, at this point, the whole "band releasing a new song through Guitar Hero and/or Rock Band" angle is kind of played out, even if other media outlets are willing to lap it up like it's a dish of slightly melted vanilla ice cream. I mean, the seal has been broken. People are going plastic instead of going platinum. Big whoop. If you really want to get creative with your distribution methods, why don't you go back to the wax-cylinder route? Or 8-tracks? Plastic guitars are almost... quaint at this point. Now, that's not to say that I'm not interested in the newest song by the Smashing Pumpkins, which comes out next month in a bundle with "1979" and "The Everlasting Gaze." (You know—it's what us olds used to call a "b-side.") It's called "G.L.O.W.," after all, and anyone who had a TV that pulled in crappy syndicated channels 20 years ago knows that those letters can only stand for one thing.
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