You Can’t Wake Up From The Dream You Wanted

It has been interesting to watch the popular alt-rock bands of my teen years adjust to their aging audiences and major changes to the business model of selling and marketing music. Pearl Jam settled into becoming grunge’s answer to a jam band, and the Foo Fighters became its equivalent to Tom Petty. Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead eventually shed their major label contracts and leveraged their cult and cred to successfully give away and/or sell their music online on their own terms. Green Day kept their focus on being a band for teenagers and stayed huge. All of those guys aged gracefully and made good decisions. And then, of course, there is Billy Corgan.

If Thom Yorke and Trent Reznor are the Gallants in this scenario, Corgan is the Goofus. The guy seems doomed to always make the wrong decision and rub people the wrong way. Since reforming the Smashing Pumpkins, he has done a lot to erode fan interest, from releasing mediocre or straight-up awful new music to embarking on a tour in which he regularly and deliberately insulted his own audience.

The Smashing Pumpkins “Freak”

More recently, he seems intent on undoing some of that damage. The current Pumpkins tour has featured a more reasonable balance of new material and radio hits without any obnoxious antics. Even better, most of the new songs released for free on the Pumpkins site have been pretty good! I mean, it’s nothing extraordinary, but aside from the dreary “A Song For A Son,” the Teargarden by Kaleidyscope tracks have been tuneful, totally decent songs that play to Corgan’s strengths as a writer and performer. “Freak” in particular is probably the most radio-friendly song he has produced in a long time.

Corgan’s current model for releasing music is both simple and weirdly complex. The simple part: He is giving away a new song on his site every few weeks. The complex part: It’s all part of an eventual 44 song album with a cringe-inducing name, and every four tracks comprise an EP that gets its own physical release. There are obvious advantages to this strategy — fans get a steady trickle of new material, and there is a possibility of circumventing the regular hype cycle of the internet. Theoretically, Corgan can be a constant part of the music news cycle since he always has something to promote. The problem, though, is that if there is always some new Pumpkins mp3 going around, it’s not special. It just becomes part of the noise. At the very least, people take it for granted. I’ve been a Smashing Pumpkins fan since I was a young teen and I know that I tuned out for a bunch of these mp3 releases and only recently made a point of catching up with things.

Corgan has said that he’s doing this in part because he feels that audiences don’t care about albums anymore. I can see why he’d feel that way — there’s plenty of evidence to suggest this is true — but I think he has confused things somewhat. Yes, music culture has swung hard in favor of a la carte consumption. This doesn’t mean that people don’t want albums, or that every artist is suddenly a singles act by default. I think that even when people choose to cherry pick songs from records, they still appreciate albums as a unit, as a way of making sense of a discography and understanding the artist’s intentions and chronology. Albums give us something to focus on, something larger than a random song.

If Corgan wanted to — and had the capacity to edit, or had a good editor — he could easily put out a strong, tight album that would have decent commercial prospects and would garner him some renewed critical goodwill. Instead, he’s giving people a steady stream of music with no larger framework to focus on aside from yet another grandiose project that feeds into the perception that he’s lost the plot. It’s a bad way to present the work of a prolific artist.

Get more free songs from the Smashing Pumpkins’ official site.

Weezer “Trainwrecks”

What is a better way? Well, I think Rivers Cuomo has the right idea. Cuomo has embraced a very old-school model that makes better sense for today’s marketplace than just deciding “it’s all single tracks, who cares” and giving up control over presentation. Basically, you get one Weezer album every year, and each album is supported by a single or two. Weezer has always been a singles-oriented artist, so this makes sense — none of these albums are meant to be statements, they’re just collections of songs. You don’t like this one? Oh, well, there will be another one next year. See you then. This is how it was in the 60s and 70s, before labels started to look at albums as long-term platforms to be milked over the course of two or three years. It seems like Cuomo gets just how disposable records are now, and is catering to a market with a very limited attention span. Over the past three Weezer albums, he’s figured out how to get attention for just enough time to promote a new release, and then come back with something new before people start wondering “whatever happened to Weezer?”

It’s cynical, probably, but it looks like Cuomo and his band have been having a blast. In this model, they get to put out a lot of songs — sure, a lot of them suck, but whatever, that’s not the point — and all the silly stuff they do to grab attention is consistent with the character and promotional tactics they’ve been going with since their first album. Maybe they’re being tacky and lame sometimes, but they always seem to be having a good time, and even if he’s largely abandoned the notion of good taste, Cuomo is always pushing himself to try something new, whether it’s encouraging his band mates to write and sing their own songs, swapping off instruments, or collaborating with people outside of the band. As far as I am concerned, he’s still the same terrific singles artist he’s always been, even if tunes like “Memories” and “I’m Your Daddy” are just okay when compared to high water marks like “Say It Ain’t So,” “El Scorcho,” and “Keep Fishin'”. (I quite like the three singles from the Red Album, though.)

At any rate, Cuomo has figured out a system that makes perfect sense for what he does. It’s a smart blend of time-tested record business practices and internet-ready memes. I think this points in the direction of a workable future for pop and rock acts — just keep the music coming in easily-understood bundles, and do what you can to get some attention. Not everything has to be a big deal event, you don’t always have to be making the best record of your career. Have fun with lowered expectations.

Buy it from Amazon.