The cardinal sin that almost every review (positive and negative) of Zeitgeist has committed so far is interpreting it strictly as a referendum on Billy Corgan and his other efforts to date. Certainly that history is significant (you can read it all here), but it is an oversimplication to simply denounce the new album as Billy Corgan’s personal hand at work, or to rehabilitate it because the same has always been true.
What ought to be interesting about Zeitgeist, and what’s been scarcely mentioned at all so far, is its conscious effort to move thematically away from the Pumpkins’ earlier work. From Gish through Mellon Collie, their emphasis was always upon self-abnegation and redemption through bitterness and love, respectively. Adore and Machina took small steps away from this with their gothic and concept album stylings (again, respectively). But nothing in the earlier catalog suggests a break as conspicuous as Zeitgeist, with its blatantly political artwork and song titles such as “Doomsday Clock” and “God and Country.” Lyrically, the break isn’t as great – even the most political songs contextualize themselves around a personal struggle (ie. this isn’t System of a Down) – but the overall effect is to situate the album solidly in a political dialogue in a way that the Pumpkins have never attempted before.
Unsurprisingly, the politics themselves aren’t all that nuanced. The album cover itself is the most striking on this front, with its Statue of Liberty drowning in red water as she faces away from the setting sun (I suppose; the statue looks to the east in real life). So we’ve got the environment debased, we’ve got allusions to war and civil liberties withheld, and we don’t have enough said about either to do much more than guess how the band votes. There is a purpose to the political content, but I’ll return to that.
It is not the only recalibration.
On the scale of the album, they have recorded eleven tracks between 3:17 and 4:20 long, and one that is 9:52. The latter is a political opus titled “United States” and anchors the album at track #7. The first half of the album is loud and aggressive, and most closely approximates the Pumpkins’ cybermetal on the Zero single. The second half tends more toward pop melodies and synthesizers (a là 1979). This architecture only becomes apparent through listening to the album, however.
On the scale of song, the band has largely eschewed the loud-soft format of their earlier work for more one-dimensional dynamics, though songs still vary considerably from each other. However, solowork is front-and-center, and Jimmy actually has drum soloes in two songs (United States and Starz).
In terms of texture, Zeitgeist certainly has its own sound. While the sound is just as layered as earlier work, the layers are easier to distinguish and more cleanly cut. This comes across most strongly in the cybermetal songs, and most particularly “7 Shades of Black.” Some of the sound effects are unique to this album. On numerous tracks, Billy’s voice has been overlain a few dozen times creating the unsettling effect of a chorus of Billys. It mostly works, oddly enough. There are plenty of electronic squicks and bloops, not unlike the mainstay of The Future Embrace, but this is by-and-large a guitar hero album. In fact, Roy Baker produced about a third of the tracks, including “Starz” and “Bring the Light,” two of the best songs. The cumulative effect isn’t a “wall of sound” so much as a cathedral during midnight in the middle of a blizzard.
The question, however, is:
Is the album any good?
Yes.
It certainly belongs in the Smashing Pumpkins canon.
If Zeitgeist hasn’t attained the spark and complexity of Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie it is musically almost on par with Adore and Gish, and has probably catchier riffs than either. It is conspicuously better than Machina on all counts.
* * * * *
To go off on a tangent for a moment, a friend of mine and I were discussing the natural life expectancy of rock bands. They seem to fizzle or decay after a half-decade or so, and we speculated on why this must be. We tried to think of rock-and-environs acts who have creatively and creatively prospered almost forever, and the closest I think we came was The Who and maybe Lush-that-could’ve-been. My friend grew up with Gish so he’s going to think I’m writing a travesty here, but I believe that we unfairly undermine our bands’ efforts when they get older.
Raw chemistry is going to be expended as a band achieves zenlike equilibrium (Pearl Jam) or rips itself apart (Alice in Chains). Passion is going to be mitigated by material success (Jane’s Addiction). Energy will be diffused into side projects (Radiohead). New tricks will be expended and the music will sound old (Nine Inch Nails). Musicians will simply get old (R.E.M., U2). New bands will appear, and they will be new and novel.
As if all this weren’t enough for our idols to contend with, we, their loyal fans, are subjectively biased against them. This is because we have a nostalgic attachment to the band’s earlier work, and especially the moment when we discovered them. In fact, we impose the double handicap of disappointment in anything that betrays the spirit of the original, and the expectation of the freshness of our first encounter.
Our teenage heroes are in an almost unwinnable situation.
What we should be doing with albums like Zeitgeist, like Year Zero or the American Doll Posse is look for positive qualities that are rare in “young” bands.
The slight-of-hand partition of Zeitgeist is supple and surprising. The day/night theme of Mellon Collie was comparatively heavy-handed and seemed to beg for an interpretation that was never supplied.
A younger politicized Billy Corgan might have attempted to route his politics through one issue at a time (perhaps one track per issue) and that would have been a pretty obnoxious album. Instead, here he manages to make the political personal, confrontationally but not didactically (“Freedom shines a light ahead. I’ll lead the last charge from bed.”)
Perhaps, having been treated to two decades of speculation and media drama, the Pumpkins will stablize internally, and focus their energies more carefully on the music they create. This, in particular, is something I will be looking for.
We don’t have to forget that he is one and not three.
We can try to find a messiah in that trinity.
And yet: Shot down, he stood, and withstood his neighborhood.
I’ll say it again: This is an exciting, arresting, unique piece of music.