Smashing Pumpkins - Machina: The Machines of God
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Free Music Notes for Machina: The Machines of God
Free Music Review: The World shall never be the same...
Hit: 5 Stars
...without the Smashing Pumpkins. But what do they leave us with ? That's right, an album wich will take years for most of us to understand and appriciate. Machina is the Pumpkins best album. It's just so intensily difficult to comprehend before you can grasp the lyrics, the music, the music&lyrics togheter, the songs in the context of the album and then the album in the context of the SP oeuvre. If this is theire last, they are leaving us with enough to think about for next few years. I'm not going to explain my entire views on this album, because your only allowed to use 1000 words, but before everybody starts complaining that the album is to hard ( Adore/MC&IS lovers) or that the album ist to soft (Gish/Siamese Dreams lovers) to shallow, to deep, to weird, to disturbing, to BLABLABLABLA BLA, this is what I accept to be true and selfevident about Machina:1.It is the Smashing Pumkins best album: no other album had this kind of diversity. From the uncomprehendebly large metaphysical themes to the unseeably tiny of everyday love, From happy little songs to ragging rabbid unleashed beasts of terror, from cute to weird, from perfection to rubbish, from God to mother, from heartbreak to first love, from death to life and from the bottom to the top, it has it all.
2. It has the Smashing Pumpkins best music: of course there are no everghreens on this one, but the music is so complex, colourfull, divers, dark etc., that it is to be savoured, not to be swallowed and scoopped up again. These guys know how to play there instruments. Just listen, then listen, listen again, and again, and when you get sick of it, listen some more. YOU BETTER LISTEN SOME MORE! Everytime a new drop of sugar falls into your ear.
3. It has the best lyrics: Billy deals with everything this time, no subject is left untouched. Yet his approch is let is more mature then on his last albums. His poetic license has clearly not been withdrawn, the language can be difficult at times, but bluntly simple and brilliant at other ("Look ma the sun is shining on me").
4. It's style is completed and finished: the SP do not need to experiment anymore, they have done all that on all theire other albums. In this album, we hear the apotheosis of years of hard work and experimenting. Only the Smashing Pumpkins have made the ultimate crossover between electrorock and metal succesfully. It is finished, wich sadly means that...
5. This is the last album.
Free Music Review: Very Heavy and underrated Album
Hit: 5 Stars
This is a very rewarding one that grows on you. At first I thought Machina consisted only of several really catchy songs mixed with a few very weird ones and some bizzare production. After repeated listens you realize that there is alot of depth to this record, more than any other SP album. Of all their albums this one along with Siamese Dream has kept me interested the longest. You get the most mileage out of it because it is so rich and complex.
I feel that the emotions on this album are very deep and heavy, and that they express I sense of age, tragedy, anger and resignation. This really sounds like a final album, but unlike many bands it is not a fizzling out but an urgent heartfelt explosion. You can hear the anger, helplessness and resignation on The Everlasting Gaze, loss and destruction on Blue Skies Bring Tears and loss on I of The Mourning, and the inevitable demise of the band on Try, Try, Try, Wound and Age of Innocence. The theme of the myetrious and cold Machines of God comes crushing through on Glass and The Ghost Children. The Crying Tree of Mercury is full of pain and yearning while Every Light is of joy and redemption. I think this record is really about loss and disallusionment in the face of a cold and harsh universe, but then through grief comes peace and love. It's like you can here Glass (the main character) struggling with God and fate.
Despite some of the songs sounding strange at first listen and Heavy Metal Machines and the Imploding Voice being probobly unessecary (yeah the album is a little too long), for me this is probobly the most powerful Smashing Pumkins album, even if it is among the least accessible. Like Siamese Dream the songs and the sonic textures transport you to their own world, but unlike Siamese Dream this world is gothic, mysterious and eerie. Like or dislike the production you must admit that it really doesn't sound like anything else, and neither do the songs. Well, except maybe louder and noisier versions of some of the stuff on Adore.
This is without mentioning the very dense concepts and story behind Machina's lyrics and artwork. Oddly enough, according to Billy Corgan this album is an attempt to hide rather than reveal the band. Instead he reinvisions their breakup and the crash of his own ego stardom into a compelling and mysetious drama.
Not the easiest SP album, but certainly one the most meaningful.
Free Music Review: A different kind of rock
Hit: 5 Stars
Lots of people were close-minded about this album. The Pumpkins returned to rock, so everyone thought they'd be getting another Gish or Siamese Dream. Nope, sorry...you want that, then go listen to those albums. This is a new kind of Pumpkins, still epic-sounding with introspective complicated lyrics but still different. There is a sense of higher spiritual state in the music, the sound of a band whose members have come to accept each other's personality differences and work around them instead of clashing head on. Even in the midst of the most chaotic tunes there is a feeling of inner peace, of the circle closing...which, at the end of the year 2000, is exactly what happened. Although Billy has said this is a concept album, the lyrics also served as hints of the upcoming breakup (for exmaple "This Time": "This time I need to know, I really must be told if it's over, dispatch the last alarms, hand out the last few charms" and even "Age of Innocence": "A little taste of what may come, only a glimpse of what has gone.") Shame on Virgin Records for not promoting what must be the most mature album from a band who was every bit as good as the band that started the 90s revolution, Nirvana, but was for some reason never really given the credit or cultural recognition it deserved. Cheers to Machina!!! By the way, if you are curious as to which tracks are good, lemme just say this: it'd be easier to list the bad ones. "Heavy Metal Machine" drags too long, "Imploding Voice" has a main riff that just doesnt hook me like it should, "The Crying Tree of Mercury" on which Billy's voice coulda used some reworking (altho the solo is cool). Favorite track is easily "With Every Light," a surprisingly upbeat and happy tune. The rocking tracks are mostly solo-less but have a much groovier rhythm to them. The soft melancholy style tunes (like "Try try try") arent exactly intense like "Disarm" or anything before it; they represent a 33 year old man and his band, taking a moment to sit back in a recliner and relax as they look back over their long career. This band has gone thru a lot to say the least, and MAchina is like a journal full of thoughts and reflections on all they have seen. For the last few words of this review I want to say: here's to Billy Corgan for 12 years of great music, and thanks for closing it out with this fully realized, mature, epic, grand, beautiful concept album. Here's to the light!Free Music Review: A peaceful and rocking album
Hit: 5 Stars
On what's supposed to be the Pumpkins last album it sure doesn't seem like it. Starting with "The Everlasting Gaze" a down-tuned guitar song that explodes with Jimmy Chamberlin's power drumming(welcome back) and Corgan sneering "you know i'm not dead", we know Billy. A good song that was the obvious pick for the first single. The next four songs sound like forced hit singles with "Stand Inside Your Love" being the best and most beautiful. "Raindrops & Sunshowers" is a much better version of Adore's "Apples & Oranges" and sounds rather sweet. "Try, Try, Try" is a good song too but at this point you start to wonder if these songs are any different then the previous ones and that's where "Heavy Metal Machine" kicks in. It is the kind of metal that would exist today if Slayer, Anthrax and of course Metallica didn't. But they do exist and it doesn't sound very metal more fuzzy then anything else. The one song that caught me off guard was "Glass and the Ghost Children". The song goes along nicely and all of the sudden some guy is talking about pondering God. That's what the song is all about, God, this is a song coming from someone who said "God is empty just like me", but being agnostic I couldn't care less, an amazing song though. The album ends nicely with a song entitled "Age of Innocence". This album, while still sounding like the Pumpkins, is fresh and beautiful, filled with lots of love songs, thoughts of God and even the radio. So do the pumpkins bow out gracefully? Yes. At times the songs wobble but they never fall off and Billy Corgan's obvious secret fascination with Trent Reznor by looking and acting goth and having electronic effects in your music(I love you Billy, a lot, but there's only one Trent Reznor) is kinda weird, but they do what they do best... rock. Seeing as how the group is doing a lot of in store promotions, some say desperately but I say there's nothing wrong with wanting a number one album, they should go out on top sales wise as well. This is a depressing time for rock music, Trent Reznor is rumored to be leaving and the Smashing Pumpkins are, who's left? At least I have my cherished Smashing Pumpkins' albums to hold on to. Thanks for the great music guys(and girls).Free Music Review: A Wonderful New Album By The Best Band Ever!
Hit: 5 Stars
As I've said, this album is by the best band ever!The Smashing Pumpkins, and this is defiantly a 5 star album. After the Adore (I liked Adore) many people thought that the Smashing Pumpkins would never make another Rock album again, but all the doubters are wrong. The Pumpkins surprised millions when they came out with the album Machina/The Machines of God! The Pumpkins of course still have the Adore sounding music in a few of the songs but as I've said, I liked Adore so therefor I loved those songs too! It starts out with the ever so hard and great, "Everlasting Gaze," I love the song and can listen to it over and over again, I even play it on my guitar (The Pumpkins now tune their guitars down to C, it sounds pretty neat but a hassle to tune!). Then comes "Raindrops and Sunshowers," a nice sound but not the best song on the album, I had to listen to the song a couple of times before I liked it but, that happens to me for a lot of songs. Then the heavy love song "Stand Inside Your Love." I loved it since the first time I listened to it! It's perfect! "I of the Mourning" is a good song but it seems to me that Billy Corgan says "radio" too much, but it has a great sound. "The Sacred and Profane" has a great sound and although most of the time you can't hear Billy's voice, the song is still great! "Try, try, try" takes a couple times to get used to, but now I think it's a good song, although not my favorite. "Heavy Metal Machine" is great when you crank up the volume but still good at any time. "This Time" has a great sound, a good song. "The Imploding Voice" is one of the best songs on the album, it has a great sound and the lyrics are defiantly the best on the album. "Glass and the Ghost Children" is long but still great! (it's scary when you listen to it at night all alone!) "Wound" is a good acoustic song. "The Crying Tree of Mercury" is very freaky and I love it! "With Every Light" is a good song. "Blue Skies Bring Tears" has a good sound but the lyrics aren't that great, it's okay. and "Age of Innocence" is wonderful, and the lyrics are wonderful! You should defiantly go out and buy this album today!