Skip to the bottom if you want to know what the new song sounds like. Start at the top if you want to wallow in the pain of a long-suffering fan.

Billy Corgan is prolific, sometimes brilliant, but often erratic. His best works, Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness, were revelations to my angst-addled teenage soul. Here was someone who could take the melodramatic bullshit that constituted my inner life and, by placing a soaring guitar solo at just the right moment, make it beautiful. The fact that a man in his thirties could still resonate so deeply with an adolescent boy didn’t seem sad and somewhat pitiful until I was much older, of course. But by then it was too late; I was a fan.

After Mellon Collie, Corgan was all over the place. The ancient/future Adore was a welcome stylistic departure. But the last two thirds of Machina: The Machines of God lagged interminably, a clear sign that he was running out of steam, and by the time Machina II was released on the Internet, he had driven the once-glorious Smashing Pumpkins into a black of hole of boringness from which, it seemed, they might never escape.

Then there was the Zwan project. The rainbows and soaring birds that streamed from the cover of Mary, Star of the Sea were outward symbols of what was happening in every Pumpkins fan’s heart: here was the Great Awakening of Billy Corgan! No synthesizers! No leather dresses! No vamping! Just shimmering guitars, Jimmy Chamberlin hammering away like a construction worker moonlighting in a jazz club and an ode to … Mary the Mother of God? Wha? At some point Billy had even found Jesus, or at least his crazy half-brother.

But because Corgan must somehow destroy every good thing that happens to himself or his fans (perhaps to resupply his precious reservoir of angst) he alienated his new bandmates, slandered his old bandmates, and torpedoed the whole hopeful project. To my joy, he documented this entire process on billycorgan.com (since removed). You can still view some of his insane ramblings on The Way Back Machine Internet archive. It’s worth your time.

Is the sun rising or setting? You decide.After the synth-laden, goth pop, bald-headed fiasco that was TheFutureEmbrace, I was desperate for something that would signal a Second Great Awakening of Billy Corgan. But when I first saw the cover art for the new record, the latest Corgan/Chamberlin effort, the last best hope for the Pumpkins, I felt a horrible sense of dread. And it had nothing to do with melting polar ice caps.

It is clearly some kind of political statement (about global warming? the decline of freedom in America? both?) and most likely one that I would support. But politics is about the greater good, and since when does Billy Corgan care about anyone but himself? His fans love him because he justifies our egocentric, self-destructive narcisism, not because he makes us consider the possibility that our personal problems are insignificant when compared to the impending global calamities that could permanently alter or destroy life as we know it. What has happened to his priorities?

I’m Punk and That’s Sad

Produced by Obey Giant, it could easily be the cover of some agit-punk record. And sure enough, here’s a promotional photo of Billy, all high-contrast, wearing a hoodie. Like he’s promoting an album of Anti-Flag covers.

Actual song titles: “God and Country” and “Pomp and Circumstances.”

And then, early in May, Netphoria leaked some album art:

  • The Grim Reaper at a presidential podium. But wait, that’s not the American flag behind him, it’s a Smashing Pumpkins flag. A flag. For the Smashing Pumpkins.
  • Paris Hilton in front of a mushroom cloud but, sadly, not in it.
  • Schoolchildren giving some kind of fascist salute.
  • Satan wearing a business suit…and being crucified.

Netphoria was forced to remove the artwork. Maybe Bad Religion sued for copyright infringement.

So anyway, I was skeptical to say the least.

Today I heard the first single. You can hear it here. It’s called “Tarantula” and it meets several of my criteria for acceptable Smashing Pumpkins songs.

  1. Meaningless title
  2. Guitar solo
  3. No synthesizers

Musically, it brought to mind “Pastichio Medley,” the twenty-five minute sequence of clips from abandoned Mellon Collie tracks that closed the Zero e.p. As a teenager, I listened to this self-indulgent mess so often that I knew which clip was coming next and could hum along. I was convinced that these songs would rock so hard and petioned the sky why won’t Virgin release them? Why!

The guitar, drums and bass of “Tarantula” form a crunchy metal groove that properly counterpoints Corgan’s fragile, feminine snarl. But there’s something weird with the mix; it’s karaoke-like the way Corgan’s vocals hover above the rest of the instruments. And, though the lyrics are simultaneously existentialist and trite, at least they have nothing to do with eco-politics.

All in all, not bad. Let’s cross our fingers and pray for the best.