The Smashing Pumpkins always looked great to me. I loved seeing them on screen. Billy was so tall and gangly, with a perfect ball for a head. D’arcy and James appeared like cool and disaffected art student foils for the torture and ambivalence of Billy’s Alt Rock stardom.  I liked watching their videos. I liked their album covers. And the names of their albums. In college, I liked the girls that liked Smashing Pumpkins. 

But, full disclosure, I just never liked their music. It always sounded like a rootless din with a brilliant, if angry, cheshire cat heaving at the center. I thought their biggest hits worked if they were able to control the pitchy swirl and feedback with structure. And they were certainly capable of that. But, left to their own devices, they sounded less artful and grounded than Sonic Youth and less tuneful and pretty than Radiohead. Even in college, there was just so much time to listen to music and the opportunity cost of going all in on The Smashing Pumpkins proved too rich for me. 

By 1999, I kind of stopped thinking about them. I mean, I knew they were still making music. And I knew that they were relevant and popular and had plenty of smart, discerning, adoring fans. But, I had resolved, simply, that their sound did not appeal to me. That being said, I remained very interested in the band’s lead singer, William Patrick Corgan. 

Billy Corgan was such a curious man. Quite literally, he might have been the most curious of all of the stars to come out of the 90s. He started an independent professional wrestling company. He could recite Cubs boxscores. He opened a tea house in Chicago. And he seemed to get into a sincere argument in at least half of his interviews. It was unclear to me whether he cared the most or whether it was all high performance. I always suspected it was the former, though.

Even if I were to discount my assumption by fifty percent, Billy Corgan seemed to care more about the perception, criticism and, ultimately, the canonization of his music more than any famous musician I knew of. More than Bono and Billy Joel combined. It did not seem that he wanted to be loved personally so much as he needed his music to be appreciated. In this way, I was perhaps the wrong person to write about his music. I don’t love it or hate it. I just don’t care for it. But I am so interested in William Patrick Corgan, that I was decidedly interested in his third solo album, “Ogilala,” released the year he turned fifty.

If there was ever a musical vehicle that promised me insight into the who, what and why of Billy Corgan, it was this one. By 2017, his celebrity had normalized. He’d reformed and broken up his band. He’s married, divorced and had kids. He’d released two previous solo albums, including a Country-ish one. And he had all the markings of a man who was, finally, deservingly, settling into middle age.

More than anything else, though, was the fact that “Ogilala” was a Rick Rubin record. By his own account, Billy gave Rick full rein. Rick Rubin makes music sound like music. Specifically, he makes the best music sound like the best music. That’s what he does for Adele. That’s what he did for Johnny Cash. And it’s through that lens that I presumed that “Ogilala” would explain to me what Billy Corgan’s music really sounds like, when the squalor and the effects and the buzz are gone.

To both of their credits, the album does exactly that. Rubin does that thing he does where the acoustic guitars are mic’d close and clean. The piano sounds like a Steinway. Most songs have actual strings added. The voice is clear as a bell and up front. In the middle, the signifier turned slightly signified by Rubin’s production, is William Patrick Corgan.

“Ogilala” is, in many ways, a beautiful record. It’s a most human record. There are guitars, keys, strings and a voice. That’s all. The guitar sounds like the guitar on Cash’s “American Recordings” and the piano sounds like it’s straight from “OK Computer.” Both of those are good things. Inversely, Billy Corgan’s voice is almost the inverse of Johnny Cash’s. And while, I don’t know much about poetry, I think Billy Corgan is at least as good as a very good grad school poet at a very good college. 

“Zowie” opens the album and it’s briefly startling to hear Billy Corgan the torch singer. But his voice sounds strong, capable and singular. But, my biases stand in my way. On this song, and most on this album, I can’t help but wonder if the song would be better with Thom Yorke singing. I realize that’s unfair, but (a) the answer was always “yes” and (b) I don’t think I would be asking this if it wasn’t for the particular range of sound that Billy Corgan’s voice makes.

Across the eleven tracks, Rubin tries out some nifty tricks. On “Processional,” which is a pretty song, there is a piano note clink at the end of certain verses that sounds like a typewriter hitting its line limit. It’s unnerving but effective. “The Spaniards” adds light Moog and barely swirling synths. These effects come off as noodling and like life rafts for unfinished poems.

While I have listened to each song on the album multiple times, it’s hard to consider them individually. The sound is so consistent and, without the benefit or rhythm or variance of structure, the gimmicks grow tired quickly. It’s hard to say that something that sounds nice is also boring and hard to listen to, but that’s exactly the case with “Ogilala.” If one or two of these songs came up on a playlist, I think I’d be more happy than not. But the cumulative effect is exhausting. Frankly, if this album didn’t have the word “Corgan” on it’s cover, I would never have made it all the way through. 

By “Amarinthe,” I’m barely holding on. There are apparently only four tricks in Rubin’s bag. And as active and curious of a listener as I am, it begins to feel like work while wading through:

“Vouchsafed it rains, it rails, yes love reeks

From sails it turns to toasts, and I kick my keep

And starved we'll mother the other

Parsing one of each

Whence twined desires and gingham clementines

Fly all but time here

Think what you had

But I can't vouch for what's real or false on that

This trail of tears we've blacked”

The second half of the record offers some minor relief. Though, with such a consistent sound throughout, any small variance or experiment feels exciting. “Mandarynne” is tighter in structure and “Shiloh” has a plaintive chorus that befits Corgan’s voice. The album’s closer, “Archer” resembles a vintage Smashing Pumpkins, acoustic outtake. Surprisingly, there are backing vocals (the first I heard on this record) and a new, exotic, string pluck. The track has much more reverb (though still very little) and the vocals are mixed slightly more forward. “Archer” is not a better song than the others. But it is perhaps confirmation that Billy Corgan sounds better with more noise around him.

It’s probable that “Ogilala” is the last Billy Corgan (or Smashing Pumpkins) album I will listen to in full. It’s not the worst place to end. But its parts are far greater than the sum. “Ogilala” is a prestige, middle-age piece. It’s like when Annie Lebowitz shoots a movie star at fifty for Vanity Fair and shows their lines, their age, their greys and their natural beauty. In that very same way, this record is quite beautiful. But, also in that same way, it’s a lot of work.

by Matty Wishnow