Machina/The Machines of God
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| Machina/The Machines of God | |||||
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| Studio album by The Smashing Pumpkins | |||||
| Released | February 29, 2000 | ||||
| Recorded | November 1998 – October 1999 at Sadlands, Pumpkinland, Chicago Recording Company | ||||
| Genre | Alternative rock | ||||
| Length | 73:13 | ||||
| Label | Virgin Records | ||||
| Producer | Billy Corgan and Flood | ||||
| Professional reviews | |||||
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| The Smashing Pumpkins chronology | |||||
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| Singles from Machina/The Machines of God | |||||
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Machina/The Machines of God is The Smashing Pumpkins' fifth studio album, released on February 29, 2000. A concept album,[1] it marked the return of drummer Jimmy Chamberlin and was intended to be the band's final official LP release prior to their first breakup in 2000. A sequel album—Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music—was later released independently via the internet.
As with Adore, Machina represented a drastic image and sound change for the band. Nonetheless, Machina, like its predecessor, failed to reconnect the Pumpkins with chart-topping success. However, the band's tours in support of Machina, entitled Resume the Pose and The Sacred + Profane, were far more successful than the Adore tour, as fans responded to the return of Chamberlin and setlists that included far more of the Pumpkins' back catalog.
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[edit] The Arising! Tour
In April 1999, only months after ending the promotion of Adore, the Pumpkins embarked on an eight date tour of small clubs across the United States and Canada. This tour marked several changes - the return of Jimmy Chamberlin, a new logo (no logos were used on Adore), and the band's return to playing material from throughout their career, not to mention a return to a less experimental rock arrangement.
[edit] Recording
Shortly after the brief Arising! tour, the band entered the studio to work on a new album as a four-piece. The recording of Machina was unusually secretive, in contrast to the sessions for Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and Adore, both of which were partially filmed. Much like Mellon Collie, the songs were first tracked acoustically at Sadlands in late 1998 and completed at Pumpkinland and the Chicago Recording Company from November 1998 to October 1999 with Howard Willing, Bjorn Thorsrud and Flood. Corgan described the recording process for Machina:
| “ | This record was a lot of fun to do, and the writing was incredibly easy. We spent most of the time trying to take the songs as far as they could be taken down a particular avenue. So if it was gonna be proto cyber metal, we tried to make it very proto and very cyber. If it was acoustic, then we tried to not fall into the (typical) ballad-y kind of aspects. That's where we spent most of our time. The songs were probably written in about a day.[2] | ” |
D'arcy Wretzky left the band towards the end of recording. According to interviews at the time, D'arcy had "completed her work" on the album,[2] but later statements by Corgan have downplayed her role in Smashing Pumpkins recordings.[3] The closing track, "Age of Innocence", was recorded after D'arcy's departure in November 1999 at the Village Recorder, and was the last addition to the album.
[edit] Album
Corgan has asserted that Machina was always intended to be the band's final album - this being the reason for recruiting Jimmy Chamberlin back into the band.[1] Corgan has also said it was meant to be a double album (with Machina II being the second disc) but that idea was not approved by Virgin Records as they didn't want to release a risky double album after the disappointing sales of Adore.[4] After Machina proved even less successful than Adore, the band released Machina II on their own.
Fans were surprised when the Machina tracklist was released with only five of the new tracks from The Arising! (not including "The Imploding Voice", a reworking of "Virex"). Many of the songs on the album refer to love and relationships (both romantic and otherwise) ending, most of them obvious references to the band themselves. According to Corgan, the album was structured so that the first eight tracks would be "more poppy," and the last five "more arty."[5] More generally, Corgan appraised the sound of the album as "a rock 'n' roll approach with pop sensibility".[6] After the demure Adore, Machina represented a return to the distorted guitar sound of prior albums, though synthesizers and acoustic guitars were still heavily used.
"Stand Inside Your Love" was released on January 21, 2000 as a commercially available single. "The Everlasting Gaze", however, was released at the last minute as the album's first radio single in December 1999. Director Jonas Åkerlund shot videos for "The Everlasting Gaze" and album's last single "Try, Try, Try" which was released on September 11, 2000. The video for the latter single brought some controversy for its explicit violence and drug use. "I of the Mourning" was also released as a promotional single and received limited airplay. "Heavy Metal Machine" was issued as a promotional cassette but was not distributed to radio stations.
[edit] Machina as a concept album
Although Machina is much more story-based than previous releases, which have sometimes hinted at concepts, it is not a story album in the vein of Tommy or The Wall, but is much more open to interpretation. Corgan stated that many of the songs are written from the perspective of the band as the press and public viewed them, rather than Corgan himself.[7] In this vein, songs such as "Heavy Metal Machine" are seen as parodies and homage to their influences and public perception. Nonetheless, it is a concept album, with a story about a rock star named Zero hearing the voice of God, renaming himself Glass, and renaming his band the Machines of God. Fans of the band were referred to as the "Ghost Children," which has now become a term for Pumpkins fans. This story, while planned thoroughly by Corgan (see image), was only implied in the album's lyrics, and was greatly expanded via the liner notes in both Machina albums, additional writings posted to a weblog entitled "Chards of Glass", and, later, an animated web series.
[edit] Glass and the Machines of God: the animated web series
In June of 2001, a few members of the Smashing Pumpkins Message Board were sent mysterious video clips that pointed to a website called Black Wings Over the World. Thus began the "June Mystery". The first website held clues to find two other websites, also hiding the username/password for one site - The Paracell Corporation. Black Wings also hid another site's address, Smash The System. Over the next two months more clues were dropped on the message board and more sites were found and codes cracked. Finally, all this frenzy of mystery and excitement climaxed with the announcement that Glass and The Machines of God was being made as a web based animated series. This was an early example of an internet-based alternate reality game, a form of viral marketing. The series would be interactive, to a degree, and everyone would have the chance, via Sony's Screenblast, to create their own characters and remixes for the series.
The animated series has since been "put on the shelf" indefinitely. Various rumors attribute the end of the project as lack of interest from Corgan and/or fans. Three episodes were leaked onto the internet in 2003. There has been debate over whether these were early "drafts" or final cuts. The first two episodes contain no credits, where the third episode shows credits at the beginning.
In the first episode, Zero hears the Voice in the Radio and contacts his old friend and manager, Ruby. Their conversation is intercepted and patched through to the head of the Paracell Corp, Mr. Valentine - who has had a history with Zero.
Episode two shows Zero's transformation into Glass while visiting Ruby and the subsequent negotiations to get The Machines of God their first gig.
In the third episode we see how Glass affects the audience with his message of revolution.
There was also debate about whether or not background characters were in fact the Ghost Children created by the fans. However, one character - Maya, the Paracell psychic - is known to be a character created by a fan.
[edit] Artwork
The booklet artwork loosely tells the album's story through a series of plates featuring medieval-style paintings and text presented in a printing press font created by Vasily Kafanov. The heavily symbolic artwork references the subjects of alchemy, chemistry, metallurgy, physics, medicine, astrology, semiotics, mysticism, spiritualism, and art. "I Of The Mourning" is the only release from the album that did not include cover art by Vasily Kafanov. The album was nominated for a 2001 Grammy for Best Recording Package.
[edit] Response
Machina is generally considered to be among The Smashing Pumpkins' least successful releases. Although it entered the U.S. charts at #3, sales declined sixty percent the second week,[8] and continued to slide. With U.S. sales of 782,000 units as of 2005,[citation needed] Machina was the lowest-selling Pumpkins album to date. Regarding the disappointing sales, Jimmy Chamberlin commented, "It was like watching your kid flunking out of school after getting straight A's for ten years."[9]
The album received mixed reviews - Brent DiCrescenzo of Pitchfork Media heavily criticized the album's length, "Wall of Sound" production style, and Chamberlin's drumming.[10] Others contend that Machina brought together the rock sensibilities of the Pumpkins' early albums with the atmospherics and lyrical maturity of 1998's Adore - Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times, infamous among fans for his sharp criticism of the Pumpkins' 1993 breakthrough album Siamese Dream, called Machina "an exceedingly impressive and hard-driving record."[11]
[edit] Track listing
All tracks written by Billy Corgan.
- "The Everlasting Gaze" – 4:00
- "Raindrops + Sunshowers" – 4:39
- "Stand Inside Your Love" – 4:14
- "I of the Mourning" – 4:37
- "The Sacred and Profane" – 4:22
- "Try, Try, Try" – 5:09
- "Heavy Metal Machine" – 5:52
- "This Time" – 4:43
- "The Imploding Voice" – 4:24
- "Glass and the Ghost Children" – 9:56
- "Wound" – 3:58
- "The Crying Tree of Mercury" – 3:43
- "With Every Light" – 3:56
- "Blue Skies Bring Tears" – 5:45
- "Age of Innocence" – 3:55
[edit] International releases
Some releases—namely, European and Asian Hut Records versions, and all vinyl editions—have an added track, "Speed Kills". This version of "Speed Kills" is not the Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music version, but the version that appears on the "Stand Inside Your Love" single. On the international CDs, the song is edited to a cut nearly two minutes shorter than the original, and the last four tracks are resequenced. A Japan promo version has an extended version of "The Sacred and Profane" with two bars of electronic drum beat in the beginning of the song, and a slightly different mix of "Age of Innocence".
[edit] Outtakes
A number of songs were recorded in some form or another during the Machina sessions but did not make either Machina/The Machines of God or Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music:
- "Autumn" (instrumental, not to be confused with the 1994 demo "Autumn Nocturne")[12]
- "Drain"[12]
- "Here I Am"[12]
- "Laugh"[12]
- "Lover"[12]
- "Death Boogie"[13]
- "Winterlong" (later released on Judas O)
- "Soot and Stars" (later released on Judas O)
[edit] Chart positions
[edit] Album
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Top Canadian Albums | 2 |
| 2000 | Australian Album Chart[14] | 2 |
| 2000 | The Billboard 200 | 3 |
| 2000 | Top Internet Albums | 3 |
| 2000 | New Zealand Album Chart[15] | 4 |
| 2000 | UK Albums | 7 |
| 2000 | Danish Album Chart | 16 |
[edit] Singles
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | "The Everlasting Gaze" | Modern Rock Tracks | 4 |
| 2000 | "The Everlasting Gaze" | Mainstream Rock Tracks | 14 |
| 2000 | "Stand Inside Your Love" | Modern Rock Tracks | 2 |
| 2000 | "Stand Inside Your Love" | Mainstream Rock Tracks | 11 |
| 2000 | "Stand Inside Your Love" | UK Singles Chart | 23 |
| 2000 | "Stand Inside Your Love" | Australian Singles Chart | 32 |
| 2000 | "Try, Try, Try" | UK Singles Chart | 73 |
[edit] Personnel
- The Smashing Pumpkins
- Billy Corgan – vocals, guitar, bass on "Age of Innocence", producer, art direction, mixing
- James Iha – guitar
- D'arcy Wretzky – bass
- Jimmy Chamberlin – drums
- Mike Garson – piano on "Glass and the Ghost Children"
- Flood – producer, mixing
- Alan Moulder – mixing
- Bjorn Thorsrud – recording, mixing, digital editing, compilation, additional programming
- Mike Zainer – mixing assistant
- Bill Douglass – mixing assistant
- Jef Moll – mixing assistant
- Erin Piepergerdes – mixing assistant
- Andrew Nicholls – mixing assistant
- Howard C. Willing – recorder, mixing
- Howie Weinberg – mastering
- Tim "Gooch" Lougee – technical assistance
- Scott Schimpff – technical assistance
- Tommy Lipnick – technical assistance
- Yelena Yemchuk – art direction
- Greg Sylvester – art direction
- Thomas Wolfe – art direction
- Vasily Kafanov – paintings, etchings
[edit] References
- ^ a b Corgan, Billy. Live interview. KROQ. 2000-05-24.
- ^ a b "Billy Corgan Discusses Painless Machina Sessions". MTV Online. 2000-03-02. Accessed on 2007-12-16.
- ^ Corgan, Billy (interview subject). Inside the Zeitgeist DVD. Zeitgeist Reissue. (Reprise Records, 2007).
- ^ James VanOsdol interviews Billy Corgan. Audio broadcast: WKQX. Aired 2000/11/29.
- ^ "Smashing Pumpkins Return to the Fray". Wall of Sound. 2000-03-10. Accessed on 2007-12-16.
- ^ Interview: Billy Corgan. INSite Magazine. 2000-05-14.
- ^ Corgan, Billy. Interview. "Storytellers: Smashing Pumpkins". 2000-08-24.
- ^ "Oasis, Pumpkins suffer huge sales slide in second week". Rolling Stone Online. 2000-03-16.
- ^ Fricke, David. "Smashing Pumpkins Look Back in Wonder". Rolling Stone Magazine. 2000-12-20.
- ^ DiCrescenzo, Brent (2000-02-01). MACHINA/The Machines of God (http). Pitchfork Media. Retrieved on 2007-04-16.
- ^ DeRogatis, Jim. "Smashing Pumpkins Reclaiming Rock Glory." Chicago Sun-Times. 2000-02-29.
- ^ a b c d e Studio Sessions: Late 1998. SPFC.org. Retrieved on 2007-10-03.
- ^ Studio Sessions: November 1998 - October 1999. SPFC.org. Retrieved on 2007-10-03.
- ^ Chartifacts - Week Commencing: 23 July 2007. ARIA.com. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
- ^ Chartbitz: Wednesday, July 18 2007. RIANZ.com. Retrieved on 2007-07-18.
[edit] External links
- spfc.org : discography : Machina/the machines of God
- Machina: The Writings
- Chards of Glass: The Machina Blogs
- Free download of Machina II
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