Also.. XYU

Machina is top notch as well guys. Jimmy chamberlin is an absolute beast.

I love XYU but it goes too long. It's great up to when he does the "in the eyes of the jacket" and then things get nuts but then it goes back to that slow heavy riff and it's enough already. I always wanted to edit that part back in the day. I guess I could do it easily now.

i still cant listen to Machina.

machina has two or three good songs and thats it. its where billy corgan falls off a cliff

I could write a book about Machina but it's the kind of album you have to give a lot of time. It was designed to be a double album, and when Virgin wouldn't release a double album Billy decided to give them a single album that stretched on as long as he could make it. They spent so much time in the studio (almost a year!) recording the album that they had like 30 songs (and many of these have multiple versions - like, there are 3 completely different versions of Blue Skies Bring Tears, and Machina has by far the worst of these), and somehow Billy still screwed up the final tracklist and allowed the album to be brickwalled beyond belief. (BTW, there's a pre-master of Machina out there that sounds way, way better...)

It's an absolute shame, because I think this might have been their magnum opus if they had been allowed to release a double album, sequenced it properly and not totally brickwalled / destroyed the mix. Even a properly sequenced single album with better mastering would have been great, up there with their best work.

Here's my attempt at a single album:

1. Glass Theme
2. The Everlasting Gaze
3. Cash Car Star
4. Dross
5. Real Love
6. Stand Inside Your Love
7. I of the Mourning
8. Innocence
9. Home
10. Blue Skies Bring Tears (Machina II version)
11. Glass and the Ghost Children
12. Wound
13. In My Body
14. With Every Light
15. Speed Kills (b-side version)
16. Age of Innocence

That works pretty well, but it killed me to leave off a few songs (Vanity, Here's to the Atom Bomb, Try Try Try). If you've never heard Machina II, well...it's 1000x better than Machina.

This year or next Billy's finally going to reissue Machina as one album with a completely different mix. I don't know if he's going to release both Machina and Machina II, or if he's just going to release Machina complete, the way he wanted it originally. I'm really keen on seeing what he has in store for it, because it's a lost album - Machina I is disappointing, Machina II is great but was never officially released, and there are several b-sides that are outstanding that are difficult to find now (at least, the physical versions are).

Try try try is my second favorite song from those sessions (behind age of innocence). I like the alternate version more than the studio. I may try your tracklist out

The alternative version of Try Try Try is a masterpiece. I couldnt believe he left it out from the album, its the perfect pop song he used to make back in the day.

I'm not sure what I can make of this, but it is almost definitive proof of Billy Corgan's genius / insanity.

I love the Here's To The Atom bomb on the Judas O album. Might be the last Pumpkins song I really liked. Actually that's not true I liked Glow and Superchrist.

It's so weird how this version is so different from the one on Machina II. I love them both but they're like entirely different songs. You can also say that about Speed Kills, Blue Skies Bring Tears (3 different versions! - one of them is on a demo tape though - see my bootleg mix), Cash Car Star (though the two are similar), Heavy Metal Machine (1 heavy, the other dub), If There Is A God, and Try Try Try.

Speed Kills is also drastically different - they're like 2 different songs:

Machina II:


B-Side: ???

Apparently, this isn't even on YouTube, or Vimeo, or anything. This is a more stripped-down arrangement and is one of the most beautiful things Smashing Pumpkins ever recorded. I'd post if if I could, but I don't feel like creating a video and putting it on Youtube.

what session is that untitled song from their GH on. that was the last pumpkins song I really liked.

I made your playlist. I threw try try try (II version) and atom bomb on the end because I really like the former and may like the later. I've heard Machina II once or twice but I'm not familiar with it. Machina I I haven't heard in years but that album got a lot of attention from me shortly after it came out because I loved the pumpkins and REALLY wanted to like this one.

I'm about halfway through the playlist. This was a good idea. It's been interesting.

On the positive side Jimmy Chamberlain is just a ridiculous drummer, and there are some good songs here.

On the negative side, while I don't usually bitch much about production these are some of the worst sounding songs I have EVER heard. It's like someone is smashing your face into a brick wall. They are not pleasant to listen to.

Billy Corgan is really really starting to sound terrible here. At his best he was a pretty amazing vocalist--it's like listening to a tortured angel. But there is this horrible whining quality to his voice and his performances are largely missing the incredibly variation, the rise and falls, that used to characterize his best work. He still sounds pretty good on the softer songs when he wants to. The shrieking rockers are terrible. The production is not doing him any favors, since it is flattening out someone whose primary appeal was the dyanmic quality of his voice, not its sound.

Lyrically he still has some nice lines, but we're careening fast towards spelling Stars with a z. And it's a shame, because he was a great writer on the albums prior to this.

The production in Machine is the first of many mistakes they made in studio. After that they never sounded great in studio again.

They went into the studio right before they broke up and recorded this. I'd put it at somewhere between November 18 and November 28, 2000.



Remember, Machina II is WAY, WAY, WAY better than Machina. The following songs are all top-notch Smashing Pumpkins songs:

Home
Let Me Give the World To You
Vanity
Innocence
Glass Theme
Cash Car Star
Here's to the Atom Bomb
Speed Kills
Dross

Really, the entire "album" disc of Machina II is just awesome. If they'd released that instead of Machina they would be remembered very differently. "Home", for example, is just so, so, so, so, so good.

Machina was definitely where Billy started sounding whiny. The change in his voice has always perplexed me. I really don't think its age or damage I think it's a conscience decision. A really bad decision. Striping off the effects on recent releases and shoving the vocals up front aren't doing him any favors either.

I guess now is the time to start mention bootlegs you have to download. I'll start with an obvious one:
------------------------
https://archive.org/details/tsp1997-01-08.flac16

Date: January 8, 1997
Venue: GM Place
Location: Vancouver, BC; Canada

Source: FM > DAT > ? > CD
Lineage: CD Commercial Bootleg (GM Place) > EAC > WAV > FLAC
Taped by: Unknown
Transferred by: Unknown
Keywords: Smashing Pumpkins; Billy Corgan; James Iha; Jimmy Chamberlin; D'arcy

DISC I
01. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
02. Tonight, Tonight
03. Cherub Rock
04. Where Boys Fear to Tread
05. Rhinoceros
06. Zero
07. Fuck You
08. Porcelina of the Vast Oceans -> Rocket
09. Thirty Three
10. 1979
11. Bullet with Butterfly Wings
12. Muzzle
13. Disarm
14. Thru the Eyes of Ruby
15. Banter

DISC II
01. X.Y.U.
02. By Starlight
03. Siva
04. The Aeroplane Flies High
05. Silverfuck
---------------------------------
If you like Smashing Pumpkins, this is a great place to start. I'll rhapsodize over the January-February 1997 shows later - they're my favorite shows by them ever. This is one of the best from that run, captured on a high-quality FM broadcast that ended up being circulated around the world. There are lots of highlights here - too many to list - but this has the best versions of "Bullet With Butterfly Wings", "Thru the Eyes of Ruby" and "By Starlight" you will ever hear. The latter features a 2 minute outro unlike any other performance. The guitars just cook here - if you are listening loud they'll almost jump out of your speakers. Billy's voice is really raw and he just pushes it to the limit - it's amazing he could talk by the end of this show.

One thing you'll note - Matt Walker is on drums here, so if you've never heard a show from this era a few of the drum parts will be a bit jarring. He's no Jimmy Chamberlin, but he's not bad. Just try to overlook the beginning of "Cherub Rock".

Oh, and if you've never heard a MCIS-era version of "Silverfuck", it's not what you are expecting. It's also 25 minutes long. I feel like enjoying a MCIS-era "Silverfuck" is one of those things that separates hardcore SP fans from casual fans. I think it's incredible, but of course I would think it's incredible.

Stip, this is the tour you saw them - but this show is infinitely better than the one you saw.

He went through vocal training after almost completely destroying his voice during the MCIS tour (see above). He hides it really well on Adore because he doesn't have to sing / scream over rockers, but on Machina it's really noticeable. Even on the Machina tour it's noticeable, because his vocal style has clearly changed. Since then it's impossible for him to sing like he used to, and that's one of the primary complaints I have about modern-day Billy Corgan.

Listen to the show I linked above - it's incredible, but you can see why he might have needed to get proper training after that. It's amazing he could even talk after that show.