Average Grod's Average Blog

The new Smashing Pumpkin album is good. I bought both Zeitgeist and Our Love to Admire(Interpol) fully expecting to experience some buyer's remorse. I had listened to bits of the SP album the week before and nothing jumped out at me except for the single Tarantula, which I had heard quite a bit, and the opening song Doomsday Clock which I had also heard because it is on the Transformer's soundtrack. MTV.com had the entire Interpol album streaming so I listened to it once while at work. There was nothing on it that grabbed me. The Heinrich Maneuver which is the first single is just awesome. It is exactly what I wanted for this album so it was taking concentration just to keep focused on my day to day activities in the weeks leading up to release. Needless to say I was a bit disappointed when I heard the rest of the album. There aren't many songs in the vein of Evil, Slow Hands, PDA, or my personal favorite Obstacle 1. I like Interpol's slower songs but I didn't know if I was ready for a full album of them.

I went to Best Buy to pick up the Smashing Pumpkins album. Best Buy only had the yellow cover available with the bonus track "Death From Above." Emma didn't like the color and I agreed with her so I headed to Target. They had a purpleish color and that pleased both of us a bit more plus it was cheaper. Bestbuy.com offered it for $9.99 but in store was $13.99. Target had SP and Interpol at $9.99 so I grabbed them both. I don't like that Billy or the label(I don't know which) offered 5 different versions of the album. iTunes, Best Buy, and Target all offer a different bonus track and there are 5 different colored covers, blue, green, red, yellow, and purple.

Mine came with the title track listed at number 13 right behind a pretty little gem called Pomp and Circumstances which is akin to the French Movie Theme from the Cherub Rock single and Vieuphoria movie. It is a bit more grand but is right up my alley. After hearing the short and mellow Zeitgeist it is pretty clear that it doesn't really fit anywhere on the album but number 13. I am looking forward to hearing Death From Above and because it earned a spot at track number 9 I am assuming it is a bit heavier and probably fits right with the rest of the album. It is pretty easy to identify what time period a Pumpkin outake or B-side is from because each album has a unique sonic thumbprint and everthing from the corresponding period falls right in line. If these songs follow suite it will be cool to see where Billy originally imagined them.