Smashing Pumpkins

Falling short of the concept album it was intended to be, Machina... has some truly bad moments. The album also features some excruciatingly beautiful songs. Thanks to these shining elements, you can almost forgive Flood's studio finesse for not creating a spark when the songs short circuit. Certainly, this is their most frustrating album to date.

Billy Corgan isn't sure whether he's a lost soul or a potential messiah. His songs on the
Smashing Pumpkins' fifth album, Machina: The Machines of God, are all about redemption,
commercial and personal, and they deliberately scramble any distinctions among romance,
rock stardom and religion. With chutzpah or reverence, the band has even redrawn its
logo, with the S and P next to an honest-to-Jesus cross. "Send the bored/Your re... More >

Galloping into the wasteland just in time to save the world from an onslaught of meaningless pop comes a genuine Rock Band caterwauling tunefully about Things That Matter: the death of God, the rain that falls on everyone, "a boy and a girl, simple yes but eternal always," and, most significant of all, hearing one's "favourite song" on the radio. Makes sense that at this moment in history Al Gore's spiritual megrims seem so much more fascinating than Billy Corgan's-Gore might actually affect our lives. But what can it mean that his vocal cadences are sexier? (Grade - C+)