The Smashing Pumpkins
CYR

The Smashing Pumpkins is a very successful band that has been around for a while, and that for has been just a name and nothing else. I have no connection to their music and has not heard it before taking on this album. An album that I can see have received very mixed reviews where the more serious parties seems to be on the negative to indifferent end of the scale. CYR is produced by main man Corgan, previous albums seem to have been produced with strong producers, this one is also a massive release with twenty tracks and over seventy minutes playing time. It has been preceded by a five-part animated series of songs that we get to hear on the album, ten singles I think it is – half the album, is that an indication that they don’t care about the album but only some of the songs? The cover looks drab, maybe it is a bit overworked – but it is just boring.

Musically I would say that The Smashing Pumpkins draw influences from many different sources and that the alternative rock label is pretty good, but they find influences in synthpop and many other things as well. The sound is modern, but the variation is very small. The vocals are nasal and kind of depressing being so downbeat and lifeless – I do not think that Corgan sings well, his vocal performance is actually ludicrously bad. Add to that the lack of variation combined with long playing time it becomes a bit of an exercise in patience and ability to focus. You need to be better than me in both these regards to stomach the full album, at least if you want the songs to be more than just some distant background noise while your mind is wandering towards other things and forgets all about the music.

It is one of those albums that ended, and I didn’t notice, once I started it in the morning and then at lunch, I realised that it had been hours since the iPod actually played anything, and the headphones had automatically shut down. The mind wanders elsewhere, and I am bored with the album after three-four tracks, imagine then that there are still sixteen or seventeen tracks still remaining. I have never been able to actually listen to the entire album – but as white noise maker it is fine as it is pretty tired and soulless like white noise should be. I get the impression that the band tries so hard to be something that they aren’t, and that leads to an album that is in limbo between what they want and what they think other want from them. Maybe this impression is wrong, I don’t know their other works and they might sound this boring at all time – but I get the sense that earning money from fans is more important than making great music.

The songs aren’t really terrible they are half-okay or decent, but I cannot see that anyone would really want to listen to this. It is more like music for lifts, waiting rooms, or things like that, soulless and inoffensive, bland, perfect for pushing away silence and still not really inviting anyone to listen. If this is anything to go by, I have used my time wisely by not listening to this band – this album sure doesn’t make me want to broaden my knowledge about The Smashing Pumpkins. CYR isn’t a smashing album, and now that I have written this review I am smashing it beyond recognition.

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