Got the new Cyr Smashing Pumpkins and have mixed emotions so far.
First, how do you pronounce this? Is it seer or sy-er?
Billy Corgan discovered this new sounds that combines synth with female background vocals. It's fine, but you know when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail? All 20 songs sound like that, and as one critic put it, it feels like an endurance test.
I think a little variety would have been nice. I think using more guitar could have driven home a few of those riffs better, and given some songs a sharper edge. Frankly I'm not sure what James Iha is doing on this album.
The jury is still out. There are definitely some good songs and I think the whole thing may grow on me over time. I just wish Billy had not gone completely "all in" with the new sound.
Anybody else want to chime in?
Smashing Pumpkins Cyr
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BanjoPickles
- Posts: 406
- Joined: June 18th, 2015, 3:05 pm
Re: Smashing Pumpkins Cyr
I’d be happy to:
Billy Corgan is a profoundly frustrating artist. When he released Cyr (it’s pronounced seer, by the way) with Colour of Your Love, I was genuinely excited because it sounded like a fresh sound that actually worked. Actually, there were two singles that I feel are two of the best songs he has released in over twenty years: Cyr and Anno Satana. I loved both of them.
The problem with Cyr, as a double album, is the same problem that plagued Billy’s most recent solo album: it had next to no variety. Melon Collie worked as a double album because it felt like a sweeping work, and there was so much variety on that album that just as it started to remotely wear out its welcome, another killer song would pull you back in. It was the work of a young artist who seemed to write and record like his life depended on it. That album was also the right album at the right time.
Sadly, I think that the problem with the Pumpkins goes beyond one, or two, average albums. Unlike a band like, say, Pearl Jam who have matured as people and as musicians, Billy and the band’s image don’t really translate into middle age. In the 1990’s, he was an angry young man who managed to capture so many youthful emotions in his songs. At 53 years old, there is this weird distance between Billy and the audience. His songs are mostly about love but there’s a generic quality to the words, and he is still whining in interviews about how the world doesn’t see him as this great artist that he thinks he is. Much of that has to do with the fact that he confuses being prolific with being consistent. I don’t care that he wrote 200 songs in a week (an exaggeration, of course). How many of them are good? On top of that, how is the finished product going to sound? Remember how great Siamese Dream and MCIS sounded? When is the last time Billy has produced something that sounded good? Billy needs somebody like Butch Vig to hang out with him in the studio and tell him when his songs suck.
Cyr is further proof that Billy is so far up his own backside that he can no longer tell a good song from a bad one. The worst sin that Cyr commits is that it is mostly a forgettable album.
Billy Corgan is a profoundly frustrating artist. When he released Cyr (it’s pronounced seer, by the way) with Colour of Your Love, I was genuinely excited because it sounded like a fresh sound that actually worked. Actually, there were two singles that I feel are two of the best songs he has released in over twenty years: Cyr and Anno Satana. I loved both of them.
The problem with Cyr, as a double album, is the same problem that plagued Billy’s most recent solo album: it had next to no variety. Melon Collie worked as a double album because it felt like a sweeping work, and there was so much variety on that album that just as it started to remotely wear out its welcome, another killer song would pull you back in. It was the work of a young artist who seemed to write and record like his life depended on it. That album was also the right album at the right time.
Sadly, I think that the problem with the Pumpkins goes beyond one, or two, average albums. Unlike a band like, say, Pearl Jam who have matured as people and as musicians, Billy and the band’s image don’t really translate into middle age. In the 1990’s, he was an angry young man who managed to capture so many youthful emotions in his songs. At 53 years old, there is this weird distance between Billy and the audience. His songs are mostly about love but there’s a generic quality to the words, and he is still whining in interviews about how the world doesn’t see him as this great artist that he thinks he is. Much of that has to do with the fact that he confuses being prolific with being consistent. I don’t care that he wrote 200 songs in a week (an exaggeration, of course). How many of them are good? On top of that, how is the finished product going to sound? Remember how great Siamese Dream and MCIS sounded? When is the last time Billy has produced something that sounded good? Billy needs somebody like Butch Vig to hang out with him in the studio and tell him when his songs suck.
Cyr is further proof that Billy is so far up his own backside that he can no longer tell a good song from a bad one. The worst sin that Cyr commits is that it is mostly a forgettable album.