When I was a kid, all I wanted out of life was for it to be like the video for the Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979.” Driving around with friends, a little trespassing, going to house parties, bowling in convenience stores. I can say proudly that I have done all of these things, and they were as cool as the 12-year old me could’ve dreamed. The Smashing Pumpkins have influenced, one way or another, everyone who’s ever heard Siamese Dreams or Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. They are completely unique — a sort of blueprint on how to make teen angst sound like it was meant for the opera (to me, only one other band has really ever matched the richness of their sound and had a similar originality, and that is Sigur Rós).
These albums were so good that, 20 years later, we are all still waiting, somewhat patiently, for a third. Sure, there have been six albums since Mellon Collie, and some of them were good, but none of them stuck in the same way. So we continued waiting, hoping for a miracle. Sort of like we do with Wu-Tang, knowing all the while that it probably won’t happen.
Then, suddenly, call it a miracle (or maybe a fight with Anderson Cooper), but it happens: they finally make a great album. Something you can listen to a second time, and a third, without feeling sad or disappointed that your old favorite band is still making music. I’m not saying that Monuments to an Elegy is better than the aforementioned two albums I keep on about, but it’s on the level.
The first track, “Tiberius,” feels like vintage Pumpkins, which is really all we want. Though, this time around, the only remaining original member is Billy Corgan. “Tiberius” has that uniqueness that made songs like “Cherub Rock” and “1979” so special. Parts of it make you feel as if your heart might burst, others make you quiet with nostalgia, but it has that thing all great songs have — whatever that thing might be.
Monuments to an Elegy does not sound like Siamese Dreams or Mellon Collie, but it does sounds like it was made by the same band — an attribute that the last six albums sorely missed. This new version of the Pumpkins is on par with the old, but at no point does the album sound like a band trying to recreate past magic. Instead, it sounds like a band that never lost it. Corgan is sure of himself, and he should be: he hits every mark, making Monuments to an Elegy a must-listen.
Beautiful, unmarred by tired pop formulas or superfluous odes, this album is teen angst for adults who, though they may grace the covers of cat magazines, remain human. It is a labyrinth for the contemplative, an exercise for exercising ennui, a treatment for the winter blues. It’s an album I’m going to be listening to for a long time, and you should, too.
Review By Timothy White. Follow him on Twitter @TipToTheHip