Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Billy Corgan Likes Money, Yours


So the new Smashing Pumpkins came out last week. It sold 145K in one week. That's a good 55K better than Zwan its first week and a whopping 128K better than Billy Corgan's shitstorm he called a solo debut in 2005. How Corgan and fellow Pumpkinite, Jimmy Chamberlain did it, you ask? By loving money...And ripping off their fans. Check this shit...

If you wanted to buy Zeitgeist, you could literally go anywhere. However, if you wanted bonus tracks, look no further than Best Buy for one cut, Target for a different one (the title track, no less), iTunes for another, and Circuit City for yet another. All Limited versions had different color covers than the regular red version as well.

Now here's the fucked up part...

They also put together a beautiful longbox-style book, which retails in the $22-$25 price range. Not too expensive for a Limited piece of Pumpkins history. What makes this truly a fan-fuck is that the book doesn't have a bonus track. So the SP completist will have to purchase the book, 3 physical copies of the record from 3 different retailers and the legal digital download. At a minimum and if you did this within the first week (when sales are in effect), you'd probably spend around $75 on what's basically one record.

So the question is, is Zeitgeist any good? Yes, but not Pumpkins good. The album is full of doomy rockers, pop hooks and some of the best drumming in rock, period. Not taking anything away from Jimmy Chaimberlain, he fucking rules and always has. They didn't find him in a rehab facility and sneak him out in 1989 for nothing (True story, by the way).

The highligt of the LP is the massive 9:20 "United States", as well as the album opener, the vicious "Doomsday Clock".

Is it better than Machina? Yes. Better than Adore? Yes. But that's it. This is feces compaired to Siamese Dream or Lull. I even liked Zwan a lot better. I'm curious, if this "reunion" lasts, what the next LP will sound like. Not a great record, but good enough to call it the Smashing Pumpkins.

Oh yeah, and the Independent stores got nothing extra from Corgan and Co, except a high price point at which to sell the record. Let's see, $9.99 with bonus track or $15.99 without...You do the math. Seriously, I hate math. Do it.

Here's my favoite Pumpkins song in all its brilliant glory, from one of their many sets in Ashville, NC a few weeks ago. It's an abbreviated clip, since the song is basically nine minutes long. It rules:

2 comments:

MetalBob said...

The reason it sold so many? Because it was under the Smashing Pumpkins name. The name gets more press and more attention from the casual fans that probably didn't even know he did a solo album or had a band called Zwan with Jimmy Chamberlin.

Stupid and Unkind said...

Very true. I would also venture to say that it sold well because it's not good, and it's common knowledge that bad music sells well, as a rule.