On the return of the Smashing Pumpkins

Smashing Pumpkins was the "band of my youth", and when they broke up (I was a sophomore in college at the time) I felt like I had suddenly grown up somehow, as a link to my youth had vanished.

But now SP is back. Well, sorta. D'arcy and James Iha aren't part of the new lineup, apparently, but I'm not really sure to what extent D'arcy and James were in the band in the first place. I mean, there are songs where James does the vocals, and I'm sure D'arcy recorded the bass parts on at least some of their songs, and of course they played when SP went out on tour, but in terms of how much they acually contributed to the band...difficult to say. Of course, in any band you're not going to have an even split between the contributions everyone makes in terms of songwriting, but when it comes to laying down tracks, I think that generally everyone performs their part during recording-but that's probably not the case with SP, as Billy did almost all of the songwriting and a good chunk of the recording. My personal favorite album by them is Siamese Dream, and by "them", I mean "Billy and Jimmy", as Billy Corgan recorded most of the guitar/bass parts himself, it would seem.

At any rate, SP is back, and I listened to the album...and found it to be incredibly mediocre. Something about it...maybe the lyrics? just doesn't do much for me. Maybe on the surface it appears that D'arcy and James Iha don't do all that much, but really they provide a very valuable service-providing that "something" that allows the band to make good music.

I think I'd rather listen to the new Pharoahe Monch, which is pretty damn good.

"Keep sleepin' keep snorin' / I'll keep tourin' / come back and lay in the cut like neosporin"