Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.What on earth happened to Billy Corgan? The talent that drove the Smashing Pumpkins to global success seems to have abandoned him, first with his dismal post-Pumpkins heavy combo Zwan, and now on this solo debut, as sorry an album as any major rock star has made this year. That's a brave way to start, you might think, as the opener "All Things Change" unfolds in slurry swirls of distorted synth and guitar noise marshalled into reluctant shape by a drum-machine - a thick, miasmic sound which apes some of the stylistic breakthroughs of the early Eighties. But then track after track continues in similar manner and you realise this was no one-off gambit, but an entire New Direction. Songs such as "Mina Loy (M.O.H.)" and "Walking Shade" are like the bastard offspring of some grotesquely mascara'd union between the Goth and New Romantic strains of a quarter-century ago - a liaison which reaches its turgid nadir in Corgan's duet with a barely-audible Robert Smith on a stiff, stilted cover of The Bee Gees' "T
What on earth happened to Billy Corgan? The talent that drove the Smashing Pumpkins to global success seems to have abandoned him, first with his dismal post-Pumpkins heavy combo Zwan, and now on this solo debut, as sorry an album as any major rock star has made this year. That's a brave way to start, you might think, as the opener "All Things Change" unfolds in slurry swirls of distorted synth and guitar noise marshalled into reluctant shape by a drum-machine - a thick, miasmic sound which apes some of the stylistic breakthroughs of the early Eighties. But then track after track continues in similar manner and you realise this was no one-off gambit, but an entire New Direction. Songs such as "Mina Loy (M.O.H.)" and "Walking Shade" are like the bastard offspring of some grotesquely mascara'd union between the Goth and New Romantic strains of a quarter-century ago - a liaison which reaches its turgid nadir in Corgan's duet with a barely-audible Robert Smith on a stiff, stilted cover of The Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody", which bears only the vaguest relation to the original tune: trying to follow the melody is like attempting to locate some lost city in an overgrown jungle. It's a jungle from which Corgan needs to extricate himself if he's not to completely squander the fast-ebbing fund of goodwill built up during his Pumpkinhood.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments