Billy Corgan - 'TheFutureEmbrace' (WEA) Released 20/06/05

 

It’s hard to get your head around the concept that this is Billy Corgan’s first solo album. Essentially everything he’s had a part in musically has been the creation of his own genius. Smashing Pumpkins, Zwan etc. may have been full band efforts in a recording sense, but the creative spark behind them all has been down to Corgan solely. In some cases his control freak urges have sparked rumours that he has recorded over fellow band mates parts with his own to content his constantly furrowed brow.

So why now has he let the guard down, removed the protection of a full band to allow all to see his loner-ish musical tendencies? It’s hard to say, although with the Smashing Pumpkins reunion now public knowledge it’s obviously a decision that wasn’t destined to last long, seeming rather at odds with the public perception of Corgan, a man with more ego than sense, driven by his own ambition. Could we be finally seeing the real Corgan, a frightened prodigy who’s own arrogance is his only real defence from his crippling insecurities? Who knows, though what is for sure is that he feels as if he never fully followed through with his own 80’s influenced vision, as this album revisits many familiar themes abandoned pre-Zwan…

This album can be seen as the direct continuation from The Smashing Pumpkins ‘Adore’ album, purely for the electronic sheen present throughout the record, an album that the band never fully recovered from popularity wise, so why he has decided to continue on such a well thumbed, and failed path is beyond most people’s comprehension. Like everything post-‘Siamese Dream’ it has it’s hits and misses; the gloriously ragged ‘DIA’ shows how the well thumbed guitar songsmith-ary of Corgan can never truly be hidden even when choked within an inch of it’s life by electronic blips and beeps… ‘Walking Shade’ is the albums highpoint, a clunky sound so indebted to New Order, if it weren’t for that distinctive whine you’d be forgiven for thinking it a lost classic, even the bizarre cover of the Bee Gee’s ‘To Love Somebody’ somehow makes a song so devoid of emotional spark (like some corny hallmark moment) seem genuinely edgy and menacing. This aside though the rest of the album suffers from the claustrophobic tendencies of such a stylised sound, making it easy for Corgan to rely on the atmospherics instead of actual songs, making everything else blend into one and slip past unnoticed.

It’s quite telling that no matter how hard Billy Corgan tries to disguise his muse, whether it be the dark-gothic electronica of latter-day pumpkins or the 70’s AOR of Zwan, it always treads a familiar path. His voice will always be the giveaway, but even the instrumental passages he has favoured so ever since the guitar nirvana of The Smashing Pumpkins debut ‘Gish’ has a ‘sound’ that you instantly connect to the dome headed genius. It’s a similar story to that of Bob Mould, his recent techno/dance meanderings barely disguising his well-worn writing patterns, and both their constant production and redefinition of sound unfortunately marginalizes them even more with each new release. This is certainly not the glory he once promised!