A Fickle Fascination

or,

what does Billy Corgan want us to hear when we listen to MACHINA: Aranea Alba Editio?

The Smashing Pumpkins’ MACHINA: Aranea Alba Editio boxset is in the mail to me presently. It’s only been 6 months and/or 25 years, depending on how you think about it. It’s wild that it’s even happening. It’s annoying that the only live reactions I can see right now are on the Smashing Pumpkins subreddit, a place that is hell bent on becoming the living embodiment of “the worst person you know just made a good point.”

Because they’re right in some ways— the new art isn’t as good as the old. The justification of the tracklist looks a little off. The price was exorbitant, and it’s hard not to think it’s “a deluxe, 8 vinyl set priced between 325-500 dollars” not because it’s the best way to experience “The Complete MACHINA” but because Billy Corgan knew that people would buy it. A certain subset of fans have wanted to know what it sounds like for years. I’m certainly one of those fans. I didn’t shill out for the 500 dollar “blood red splatter vinyl” because I only make money from coffee and because I didn’t need that, and I’m trying not to thumb my nose at those who did because that version is experiencing shipping delays.

But now it’s on its way. 80 tracks of what Billy Corgan was trying to do with The Smashing Pumpkins in 1999 as filtered through the lens of the early 2020s. That sounds complicated. It is, and arguably it should be. MACHINA was always a complicated album, even for a band that had already called their albums what they had. It was sort of a concept album. Its original vision was compromised. The band started breaking up while it was being written. There’s been a dozen people in the band since it originally came out. The band broke up after making it. Its original sister album MACHINA II: The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music, was one of the first albums to be given away for free on the internet. They out-Radioheaded Radiohead (and that’s why Billy Corgan said “I Piss on Radiohead” in the year 2008).

The idea that “they” could “go back” and “finish the album” the “way it was meant to be” was intoxicating. As a deep fan, it’s always been the holy grail. In a weird anniversary year for the band that’s seeing an opera version of Mellon Collie and another 500 dollar box set (with a tarot deck I’m not sure isn’t AI), it’s still the looming MACHINA box that hovers over everything. Something about it feels like the last word on the band. Part of that is because it was the last album the “original lineup” put out, capping a decade that they were occasionally in charge of.

It was a whimper, not a bang. Even at the time, as a (young) fan then, the charge against them was in the air. I remember a radio DJ snickering while announcing the title of the debut single, “the Everlasting Gaze,” because, hee hee, “…gaze.” Get it? “Gays.” MTV, not two years later, laughed at the Aubrey Beardsley-isms of the “Stand Inside Your Love video” (there’s a fat man who rubs his breast in desire, how DARE they), and claimed it might have been the reason the band broke up. Billy Corgan wore dresses onstage.

And yes, that last bit is why it’s important to me. Yes, I started wearing dresses because Billy Corgan looked cool in them, and then I realized they made me feel a little more than just “cool,” and we all know how that turned out (trans). When I first was coming out, I was struggling to listen to anything other than the Pumpkins because something about his voice didn’t code as “male” to me. MACHINA, as we understand the “story,” is about transformation. It’s about a man hearing God’s voice on the Radio and turning his life into something more than it used to be. It’s easy to make a trans reading of that, if you want. I listened to Billy Corgan’s feminine-feeling love songs and became a girl. MACHINA is one of my many TV Glows, if you know what I mean (if you don’t, a simple shorthand for that is “a piece of old media that turns your trans”). This album is important to me. The idea that I can (and am about to) hear “a complete version” of it is astounding.

But part of all of this almost feels like too much. The capitalism of it, sure. But just that my idea of “the complete MACHINA” wasn’t 48 tracks, and definitely not 80. It wasn’t a huge, kinda ugly-looking vinyl box. At most it was three CDs, because a part of what made MACHINA what it used to be was its complete devotion to “being a CD album.” It had 15 tracks and felt like it. 2000 wasn’t quite the last gasp of the CD era, but it was getting close to it. MACHINA is perfect for this: a concept album from a band on its way out, that didn’t even get completed the way it was supposed to, with a companion album the record label refused to release. That’s so 90s, baby! Or maybe it’s the preamble to artists saying the label won’t release their single unless they make a new tiktok. The point is, MACHINA feels old and complete already. Having Billy Corgan in 2025 write out the story beat by beat doesn’t add anything that wasn’t already there.

I’m writing this preamble before I listen to the boxset. I’m nervous, but I’m excited. The people who actually have it on Reddit right now seem to love it. The people who don’t are bitching about the shrink wrap. I can’t really wrap my head around the fact that it’s going to be here.

And now that it’s here, my notes, written live, filled out a touch later. Treat it as me, in semi-real time, realizes what this experience is actually going to be like:

Machina Theme- The first question that many of these songs unfortunately draw out: when was this recorded? is this really from 1999? is any of it from 1999?

Stand Inside Your Love- it’s stand inside your love. it’s a fantastic single. i like the idea of it opening the album. and i wish it did. Stand Inside Your Love sounds like a Smashing Pumpkins song and the Theme sounded like a Billy Corgan outtake. so far… hm.

I of the Mourning- the vocals feel clearer. This song has my favorite kind of Corgan vocal, the breathy kind. I feel like the new mix/master makes the songs sound more “performed.” I mean like, you can tell that someone is playing the guitar. I feel more in the room. You can hear the attack better. This album was played with more feeling than I think people give it credit for.

God’s Promise- jumpscared by a field recording of a bell. Someone opens a door. They walk up the stairs. Do you think Billy Corgan always thought MACHINA would be a radio play? Someone hits a switch: the bells stop. A radio spins up, static, then an old timey song plays: Corgan’s secret favorite. This sounds like a Mellotron (with a church organ’s waltz percussion buzzing in the back of the mix, a constant irritant). I buy that he could have done this in 1999. I would have loved this then. I think I love it now. The static takes over. This must be God’s voice. Synthetic wind. I just want to know when this was made.

Crying Tree of Mercury- comes fantastic after God’s Promise. Makes me wonder if ~this~ is what zero heard that turns him into glass. That sentence makes me roll my eyes (positive). There’s some more air in this mix. I’ve always pretended to not like this song. I want to know who’s supposed to be singing it. Five songs in, and I guess something I like is this new track order makes me ask questions about “the story,” which is something only myself and Billy Corgan probably give a shit about.

Slow Dawn- this one was always going to be tough. “Slow Dawn” is the best “no one knows this” Pumpkins song, hands down. It was also the song most helped by the murky, tossed out mix Machina II had. I can’t really tell you that “clarity” helps the song. The song was good already, I knew that. It might even be missing something now. Removing the cry of “slow dawn!” later in the solo is an act of cruelty. This new mix reminds me of Radiohead purposefully lying about “Lift” when they released OKNOTOK, saying that the high-energy recorded version never existed. This cleaned up version of Slow Dawn makes a great song okay.

The Sacred & Profane- helped by a subtle new mix. Having this come out of “Slow Dawn” makes the “early morning rehearsal” feeling of that song feel more stark than I want it to. Being next to “Slow Dawn” somehow makes this song sound better. But I always thought Machina sounded good? There’s a new feel to the second verse, a new air in the mix, you can hear more going on, it’s not as stuffed. So far a surprising winner for revelatory change, and it’s just track list and a couple of mix tweaks.

The Everlasting Gaze- cleaned up just a touch. it’s got more bite, but it’s just underlining what was already there. Annoyingly this release deserves either a CD or a digital release.

Here’s to the Atom Bomb- (it’s the b-side version), so interesting to hear after “Gaze.” i love this song no matter what version (though i love the new wave one better). Unsurprisingly the new mix rips— it’s such a simple song it would have been hard to fuck up. My brain is still working to “make the story make sense,” but that probably won’t happen until I can page through the lyric sleeve (narrator: it didn’t).

Wound- sounds great after this. obviously the biggest “issue” (it’s not really an issue at all) is that a lot of the “unused” songs aren’t overdubbed and produced the way the rest of Machina is. Machina has a lot of digital reverb on it, and that’s just kind of its sound. I don’t really wish the “unused” songs were slathered in new digital reverb (you’d have to use the same box/unit/pedal/whatever from 1999 to do it justice), but it does make this set sound a touch disjointed. “last night i turned around and thought i watched the world ending” is one of my favorite lyrics of all time. Machina is one of the last times billy’s weird poetry matched the emotions of the vocals.

Glass’ Theme- definitely a big ass new mix, wow! this shit hurts my ears (positive). This song is so nasty. This is actually a mix that heightens how much it does actually sound like it would have fit on Machina. That’s interesting! I don’t love how the vocals are processed, feels like there was some modern decisions made there. But it’s cool to have this as clean as we do now.

Heavy Metal Machine- it’s funny that this song has made it so far in their career. It got a lot of play throughout the late 2000s-early 2010s, which are kind of a no-man’s land of the Pumpkins’ career now. It was a noise-jam workhorse in those years, but what I really feel is that this song doesn’t get it’s due as a well-written “song.” People gave Billy shit for “if i were dead / would my records sell,” ignoring the fact that it was “a concept album,” but frankly, even if it wasn’t, who cares? This new mix is good because it makes clearer the Machina Trick: over-processed guitars for the verses, one layer of “clean” electric on the pre-chorus, a fairly live-sounding chorus.

Blue Skies Wrought Tears- a drastically new experience on this. i think it’s fun!!! it’s different, choppier, more live. sure the “distortion” on billy’s voice is awkward, but it’s 1999-awkward (and he said as much). honestly, it sounds more like an outtake from Marilyn Manson’s Holy Wood, which unfortunately I mean as a compliment. Man, the bridge onwards is like, a whole new thing, and it’s kinda scary and it’s cool as hell. This is cool!!!

Pale Scales- a great segue. i’m mad that there’s obviously new synth on here. but it’s mostly ignorable. it’s just… unnecessary! that top line doesn’t need to be there. the OG guitars sound so cool, a sound that only the Pumpkins were doing at this time. With more space from this the madder it makes me. Why did he put more synths on this? This is is the one outtake he didn’t need to touch, that fans just wanted to hear plain. And yet!!!

Vanity- I always had a softness for this track. I also kind of prefer the mud of the OG mix but i like this fine. it always felt like a song someone sang along to in the mirror. does that make sense? no, and i’m not sorry. I’m glad he kept the vocals mixed so low. it’s the imperfections that i’m surprised he allowed to be left in. Hard-panning the guitars makes the mistakes in the lead stand out, kind of kneecapping a song for no reason.

Autumn- i forget about this one, it circulated a long time ago. it’s an acoustic instrumental. it shares some melody with a daniel lanois song from his album shine. i’m sure that’s accidental. to me it’s complimentary. i like that it’s here and it’s genuinely nice, but if i’m really hard pressed i don’t know why it’s on the album “proper.”

Machina, Machina- of the “mix some old 1999 with some new synth” this is the most successful. really can’t tell when that e-bow solo was done. i want to guess 1998-9, with effects from now. but i’m not sure. Still questioning the decision to record new tracks for this.

Raindrops and Sunshowers- a song that sounds like 1999. hearing it at this exact moment takes me back to 2000 again. it’s an untouchable song, even if there’s a minute of noise and drums at the end— let jimmy cook.

Glass and the Ghost Children- the extended outro of Raindrops makes the segue into this make a lot more sense. i love this song but i do Not Like the New Sound Collage that bridges the two halves of the song. i don’t like the effects or the mix of the back half. this is the one real flop remix, i think (i hope (it’s not)). i think in the story it’s because Glass’ partner June is having an overdose? so the ambulance is coming for her? Idk man. It’s just this remix on the back half is awful. Why is the ending more annoying.

Real Love- is it more annoying so that the secret best song on the album can sound better? Everyone was waiting for this one. So was I! And it is a lot clearer, to the point where I’m doing a headphone listen and realizing that I don’t really know what instruments are on here, and what sounded like keys was a guitar after all. I still wonder what a fully “clean” version of this song would be like (the live version from 2025 doesn’t count). I feel like this could have fit on the original record. “Fall down the stairs again” is in my top five corgan lyrics. The singing at the end is some of my favorite he ever did. Part of me is annoyed this is vinyl-only because more people should hear this!

The Imploding Voice- it’s the 2025 mix, which I think is great (with one mild exception). I love knowing there’s acoustic buried in here. This sounds massive, like it always should have. It sounds great coming out of “Real Love.” I think this is the platonic ideal of “new mixes from Machina”- it doesn’t lose that strangeness of the original, but it’s just bigger and clearer. Billy is still a coward for dialing back the weird ring-mod falsetto in the bridge.

One Moment- never heard this before! Disarm 2? Wow, this is kind of incredible. In the same vein as “Methuselah.” I think it’s all 1998-9, too, I don’t think those keys are modern.

Speed Kills- i downloaded this onto my uncle’s computer via napster in the year 2000 while staying with him and his wife for a few days. It was an awkward visit, I used his printer to print out guitar tabs and I downloaded Smashing Pumpkins songs that i’d never heard before. This song has had a soft spot in my heart because of exactly this, and also because it’s great. It’s a mood piece, it sounds like only the band in exactly 1999. I would have taken another album that explored this more spacey sound. I still would. This sounds massive, though, and I appreciate that.

Here’s To the Atom Bomb, too- it’s the Machina II Atom Bomb, my favorite track from that release. Outside of the “revelation” that the “we are the-“ at the end of the original was a hasty edit, there’s only the simple fact that this song is really good, and always was.

Try, Try, Try- and this song, coming right out of it? Yes! too bad it’s the 2025 mix, with too much emphasis on the electric piano, and the drums spiked way too loud. But it’s still hard to get mad at this, a “lost” single of theirs if there ever was one.

Whyte Spider- one of the big draws here, a version with brand new Jimmy Chamberlin drums! and yet… they make the song sound slower, more plodding, less Cyber. still, i think there’s a bridge I wasn’t familiar with in here? Or maybe the original mix was so loud and obnoxious I haven’t listened to it in 20 years.

Don’t Wanna be Your Lover- yes, this has been a fan favorite demo for years, and i’m glad it’s here, sure. But this fucking track placement? cutting the energy from Whyte Spyder??

Cash Car Star- especially when Cash Car Star is next? there should be an incredible four song mini-set of fucking ROCKERS. Cash Car is so fucking good! So is “lover” but why is it cutting the momentum here, lol.

Dross- and then Dross! which i had the joy of seeing live in 2018, a true surprise. This song is ugly and nasty and harkens to something like Marquis in Spades, some of the heaviest shit SP ever did.

Lucky 13- and THIS!!! clear as day, with Billy’s most deranged vocal. you can only make this song better (why did you cut Jimmy’s banter, though, it’s literally your “i’ve got blisters on my fingers” moment). I’m serious when I say that track placement was so bad it threw me off of fully enjoying the next four songs.

HMM- this is a legit surprise. the “remix” on Machina II was nigh-unlistenable noise, and it’s kinda wild to now know that there was a real version of Heavy Metal Machine buried under here. It makes it feel like the original version was an act of fear: “well, i’ll fuck it up even more, then, I guess.” Now it’s a passable, but imperfect, new version.

Without You- bootlegged for a few years (I wasn’t aware of it until like five years ago). Now it’s a real song, and it’s really nice to have. By “real song” i mean it’s mixed well, which is kind of incredible for a rehearsal take to sound so good. I guess that means this band was still firing on a lot of cylinders at this point, but another “interesting” choice to upgrade from “bonus track” to “main album.”

Winterlong- i don’t know if the synth work on this is new (I know that it is, it’s the same synth tone on all the “new” songs, so it feels like Billy knocked them out in one day), but if so, it works. This has always been an underrated quiet song, and i’m glad it sounds really nice here.

Laugh- and then into this, my other favorite acoustic gem. I tried to cover this once! it went “okay.” This song has a great acoustic rhythm and the vocals are sad and wistful. It doesn’t really feel like a demo, though it clearly is. Maybe one of two songs that okay being an acoustic song in the middle of a cyber-rock album.

If There is a God- very interesting mid-song-segue here, cutting into the original piano demo with some new-agey kind of keys. was this the mike garson performance billy was talking about? (Hears a very distinct trill) hahah, yep- the reverb on it makes it sound like Wyndham Hill, though. Not necessarily a bad thing, just really funny. Glad my old Mp3 is still “sitting on the shelf,” lol.

This Time- but you know, to go from that into “this Time?” wow, i’ll give it to you. this 2025 mix is the triumph of the set, low key. clean but recognizable. it was a song that always deserved some kind of love. It’s the secret sadness here.

Blue Skies Bring Tears- this song used to scare me when i was younger, though i would never have admitted it. the new mix brings clarity to the nightmare. i love that this song went through like, six different versions before getting put on the torture rack to sound like this. Parts of Machina probably got me into the texture of noise now that I listen to this, and there’s something magical in that.

In My Body- another nice, if not surprise, then relief, that this sounds good. I had no idea the bass was so powerful in this song— it was buried in the old mix. I don’t actually miss the weird distortion on the vocals. This song is like the dark step-sister of “waiting,” and the new mix makes that clearer.

Innosense- is this song why i can’t spell that word? maybe. still, i have always loved this song way more than it probably deserves. and yet, i cannot stop. it’s just so sweet and beautiful. i love that fucking piano. i love that fucking reverb. i love his fucking vocals. it’s a tiny, perfect, gem. The one thing the bad, bad credits taught me was that this is a Corgan/Iha co-write: not many of those out there, glad to learn this was one.

Try (Again)- it was always an unnecessary-feeling alternate version. But it has its charm. It’s nice to hear it a little brighter?

Drain- what is this, “blank” reprise? no, that’s mean, this is better, obviously.  But there’s a way in which the extra tracks here kind of imply that maybe Billy Corgan really had taken this kind of songwriting as far as he could. Like, there really is a huge crowbar separation between Machina and Zwan, and a song like this, while good, shows that maybe he really did need the Pumpkins to end to finally break himself out writing songs like this: perfectly serviceable Adore Demos that maybe he would have turned into cyber-rock noise jams that did worse and worse on the charts (the latter happened anyways, and he’s still mad).

Yet Another Promise- when he titles it like this (like a throwaway) and it’s some huge synth wash, it makes me feel like this is some 2020 shit again. This doesn’t sound like 1999, but maybe I just don’t know what he was doing back then. If it is 2020, then what is it doing here? It’s nice— it’s better than a lot of his synth jerk offs, but it feels superfluous. What is it dividing? What does it mean? What’s the promise?

Home- twisted to then go into Home, another vastly underrated Pumpkins song, though one that I think they never really nailed in the studio. This new mix helps, but not really. It’s a song that isn’t actually served by Machina-reverb sounds. It’s got a great bass line I don’t think I ever heard before. It’s also one of those rare times when Jimmy is maybe going a little too hard on the drums. I don’t know if it’s the rip I have that’s the problem, but this still feels kind of cloudy and the vocals have some kind of distortion on them, but maybe this song was never really finished?

With Every Light- this has always been the slight relief at the end of the album after a fairly relentless listen, and it serves this purpose now. It’s funny, if you strip away the Machina-ness of it, it’s one of those music hall wannabe songs that Billy thinks he can write. He’s often bad at it. But this works. Maybe because it feels like it’s about something. I like that the mix is lengthened just long enough to hear someone take their foot off the piano’s pedal.

Age of Innocence- i’ll never love the 2025 mix but in all this loud-ass context here, it’s better. It’s not great, though. It’s one of the only times that it feels like there’s less clarity in the mix. That’s weird and I don’t get it, but here we are. Why clutter the soft part? Why obscure the best guitar tone on the record? Ugh this mix makes me mad, lol.

Let Me Give the World To You- the question will always remain: could this have been a hit? The answer is obviously “no,” not even on Vh1, but here’s the other thing: this was the better version. Rick Rubin’s Adore Version sucked, because RIck Rubin sucks (sorry, Dad), and this always sounded better. It rocks to have a clearer version of this. A song like this (and most of the lyrics on Machina) make me wonder what the real difference between Billy’s lyrics in the 90s-2000s and today are. I think they are bad now, but the descriptors are still the same. I guess these songs just feel like they’re really about something, instead of tossed-off psychedelia.

Soot & Stars- the biggest question (this is a joke) was gonna be “is it the reverb version?” and no, it is not. There’s a new bass note in here, and I’m wondering if it’s newly added. It was weird when they played this like, twice in 2010. “Drinking strawberry wine / forever lost in time” is a line I’ve always thought about. The way the new bass line doesn’t play during the verses makes this song feel like it’s looped. Which, I don’t know, maybe it was. This is a song that is cool but probably shouldn’t have ever been on an album. It’s too long! Willfully so, of course, but still. I find myself wishing that, if we’re going to add a bass line to this, why not put full on strings on this? Fuck it. Why not. Go all the way. Also, I’ve always hated how he pronounces soot “suit.” What the hell, man.

Les Deux Machina- oh hey, what the fuck. This is the end? The last three songs are “Let me Give,” “Soot & Stars,” and an outro? And this is slathered in brand new Corgan synth? Dude… does this suck? It might. I’m torn on the fact that “Soot & Stars” is now the “finale” of Machina. What does that fucking mean? I guess I have more to say about “Soot & Stars,” then. Now it feels like Machina in miniature: overwrought and overlong. Jesus. How is that the end of this reconstruction.

Bonus tracks:

Untitled: they should have just made Untitled the last song on the album “proper.” I know that’s cheating, and it’s ahistorical, but so is putting shitty ass synthesizer on Les Deux Machina. The new mix of this song is great, though.

Blue Skies Bring Tears: you had to put one of these demos on here, you had to. Glad it exists. This is a good version.

Go- it’s fucking MEAN and it’s fucking HILARIOUS that he put James Iha’s only contribution to Machina as a BONUS TRACK. Truly my man is such a bitch sometimes.

Vanity (Demo)- now that the new mix of Vanity is kind of mid does this become the definitive version of the song? no!

Raindrops + Sunshowers (band demo)- really cool to hear this, to hear how the band worked these songs into what they became. It’s cool to hear this song as a “rocker,” but it’s clear it needed more than this. “i’m not afraid to walk in the rain” is a line that needed to be cut, lol.

Soul Power- a fan-favorite cover that is ruined by a weird new-mixing decision to hard pan the guitars, putting a really irritating Iha Whammy Pedal guitar line in my right ear. I feel like I’m at the dentist right now.

Here I Am- those “machina acoustic demos” are doing a lot of lifting on this set, with more than one song getting the upgrade to “it’s on the album now.” Hearing this one has to wonder: what went into those decisions? LIke, is “Autumn” really better than this song? I don’t think it is. And yet “Autumn” is “ a song on Machina” now. I really am baffled by a lot of decisions on this set.

The Crying Tree- a piano version of “mercury,” and i’ve always loved it, and it might be superior. Really glad it’s here.

Glass & the Ghost Children (Pumpkinland demo)- this is cool: a band run-through of the song. This has nothing to do with this, but i realized after I’d left Chicago that I had been walking around Pumpkinland (their rehearsal studio from the mid-90s on) without realizing it. It’s cool to hear something like this: a jam. And know where they were when they jammed it. Is this revelatory? No, but it’s cool; it doesn’t have to be (knowing that the second part of the song originally had the same chords as part one is interesting i guess).

Age of Innocence (Demo)- i don’t think we’d heard this before. I wonder where he was when he made it; this song came very late in the album, it was finished during the mixing of the record. But maybe he had this on deck all along. This demo sounds of a worse quality than his usually do: to me, that’s the most interesting part.

Rock On- you have to include this for completion’s sake. it’s not going to make me like this. If anything, this makes me like their cover of “Once In a Lifetime” more, which I have always been famously cool on until recently.

End of the Joke- now this is one hundred percent new (knowledge-wise), to me and i think anyone else? It’s a vicious rocker, and it kind of scarily reminds me of something off Zeitgeist. Like this really doesn’t sound like it’s from Machina. Why don’t I trust this? Did he record new vocals? Or is this just evidence that he used to be a better editor of his own work and he no longer is? This vocal is driving me crazy; it has the wrong vocal tics??? You could tell me this is an Aghori Mhori Mei outtake and i’d believe you. It’s better than “Chrome Jets,” but not by much, lol.

Stand Inside your Love (early)- i saw this on the tracklist and thought, “OH! it’s the ‘new wave’ version he talked about at Vh1 Storytellers!” but uh, nope: it’s just like, a demo with live drums? The guitar is just some line-in distortion stuff and the vocal sounds bored. Maybe it’s a guitar test: the guitars do sound like they’re “on their way” to the Machina sound. I wish it was the “new wave” version he mentioned. This just sounds a little superfluous.

Home (home demo)- i definitely did not know there was a piano demo of “home,” and i’m so glad I do now. this is something i’m genuinely grateful to hear. this might be the best version of the song we have.

Identify (Movie Demo)- yeah I mean sure, man, put the demo for the Natalie Imbruglia song you wrote on the Machina box. (that’s me being mean; i’m sure it’s contemporary to it).

Rainy Day Song- also brand new and unknown. better than End of the Joke, and—oh SHIT it’s a new James song??? or like, new to me?! that’s awesome. Billy should have put this on the “proper” album. coward!!!

Lucky 13- why is this labelled “M2 Version” when it’s just an acoustic demo? Which is absolutely bonkers that he made an acoustic demo of this song, lol. The chorus has weird poppy chords in it.

Satur9- taking all the room tone off of this mix makes it sound like dog shit. The guitars were DI? lord! there’s no texture to this now, it sounds hollow and juvenile. The original M2 mix had a vibe. This sounds like a demo (pejorative). Calling this “M2 Version” is ahistorical. A genuine crime of a remix.

The Imploding Voice (Demo)- now THIS is the shit, baby. A demo with a fucked up drum machine? yes!!! yessss!!!!! people will be mad that there’s no “Virex” (the version they played live in 1999) version, but Virex was bad, dude! this is fun and i like it.

Without You- there’s a Zwan demo that i wonder if this is the very early thought of. But again, why is this a bonus track when “Autumn” isn’t?

Wound (demo)- or, “if you wait” as we used to call it. it was always cool to know that “wound” started as a waltz, and it still is.

Speed Kills (early version)- not the version we imagined! i’m sure someone is mad that it’s not the Machina II rock version (that might even be me; it’s weird it’s not included (actually, it’s highway robbery that it’s not included)). it’s interesting how many demo-sounding songs are here that have fully Jimmy drums on them. i guess there was a session where he played live drums over Billy’s demos? that’s interesting to know (I sure wish there were liner notes that explained that).

Whyte Spyder (M2 Version)- i’m not sure we didn’t just need this instead of the new Jimmy drums, but i’m not gonna complain that much.

Summer (rehearsal)- i don’t know why this, a James Iha b-side from Adore, is on here, but it’s always been one of my absolute favorites of his. I wonder what this is, what and where it is from. I don’t yet know if the liner notes have explainers for the songs (they fucking don’t!). That was one of the nicer parts of the earlier Pumpkins reissues, and why it’s (once again) annoying that this is only a huge expensive box set (oh, buddy).

Let Me Give the World to You (demo)- it sounds like he re-demo’d it for Machina, which is interesting, since they’d already cut it for Adore.

HMM (M2 Version)- again with the “m2 version” when this is just an acoustic demo. it’s the same thing as “lucky 13,” showing that the chords of the chorus are actually kinda pretty without all the distortion.

I of the Radio (instrumental demo)- another one of those “Jimmy’s playing live over the demo” sounding things— so interesting! I wish i knew more. Again, this is just a curio, but it’s cool. This really sounds like The Cure, lol. Weirdly full-circle for the Pumpkins, actually, which kind of makes I of the Mourning really sweet in hindsight. Why don’t the liner notes explain what this is?

Sleeping Giant- i’m glad to have the small context of “okay this is a Machina outtake” where before we just were pretty sure of it (i think), but it’s hard to say much else about this: it’s a live demo, which is cool, but it’s clear it wasn’t going to go anywhere.

Attached by Sattelites- another acoustic demo. very, very, very light elliott smithyness in the guitar melody. that’s not saying that this is great. again, one gets the question back in their head: “why drain and not this?” like, what went into the sequencing decisions here, man?

Glass’ Theme (M2 demo)- it’s not the “spacey version” from Machina II, which, again, is annoying (it’s SO weird that NOT all of Machina II is on this set). instead it’s an acoustic demo. interesting because we were spared some choogling, I guess! otherwise, it clearly comes from the same demo sessions as the HMM and Lucky 13.

Promise (NYC Demo)- i’ve definitely never heard this. NYC makes my eyebrow raise— when was he in NYC? i’m kinda shook by this: it’s really good. it’s beautiful. it kind of sounds like (and i know this sounds like a big diss) early coldplay. i promise that’s complimentary. again: when you’re putting acoustic demos on the “proper” Machina album, what makes something a 
 Demo? this is wonderful: toss it on the album, man. at this point, who cares?

Fuck You- and sure, put this on there, as what, a nod to the Greatest Hits DVD? why not literally anything else from The Last Show? Why not The Last Song? Why not the 40 minute Silverfuck? Why not something from The Arising Tour? Why not something that’s actually on Machina II that isn’t here? Why not the fucking “Disco King” demo? What would have been the harm in releasing a full soundboard of a show from 1999?

And so:

So this is Machina. The thing is, I’m here thinking “well okay, I can make my own playlist of this that’s all bangers,” but like… that sucks. The whole point of this was that “it’s Machina as it was meant to be,” but that just can’t be true when there’s clearly newly recorded synthesizer on there, and acoustic demos shoved between studio rockers, and there just… isn’t flow? I love Machina put you could credibly call it a mess, and making it just 48 tracks slapdashed together doesn’t help that.

I don’t know, I guess I thought that I’d be able to piece together the story through listening to it. That I’d feel an arc, that i’d understand Glass and June and the Ghost Children. But I don’t, and I can’t— it was never there. Machina was as much a concept album as Ziggy Stardust or Sgt. Pepper (in the sense that those are also terrible concept albums, instead just great “albums”), and now it just has less focus. Reading the story didn’t solve anything: it made me wonder if it would make more sense in reverse. Billy’s gotten worse at poetry in the last 20 years, like he’s got worse at everything, so the “story” is embarrassing. But i read it and didn’t really understand how, like, “Blue Skies Bring Tears” equates to like, “Glass getting rejected by a crowd and living in a warehouse alone.” What song does June die in? I know the new (and bad) noise collage in “Glass and the Ghost Children” is when she ODs but frankly the original “therapy sesh” worked better to make Glass seem like a “character.” I’m asking these questions because “Machina as it always should have been” implies that i’ll understand it better. But i feel like there’s just so fucking much here that i understand it less.

So what do I think, then? What did I want out of this, and why do I feel like I didn’t get it? I think it’s just actually Too Much. The word “slop” keeps entering my head, and it breaks my heart. I don’t mean like “AI slop,” but like “come get it, little piggies, eat it up.” It doesn’t do what needed to be done: rehabilitate Machina, an album actually deserving of it. By throwing everything at the wall and charging 500 dollars for it, it does itself no favors. It could have just been a taut 2 disc set. Instead it’s 8 records. For 300-500 dollars. It’s a luxury item. That pisses me off (even if I bought one (for 300 (not 500)). Machina is about spreading the message of God through your rock fans. Instead it’s about wringing every last fucking penny out of them.

It just doesn’t actually feel considered. The sequencing is all over the place. The mixes are mostly good but when they aren’t they jar. There’s a bad mashup between things that sound like 2025 Pumpkins and 1999 Pumpkins. You can argue that it’s at least nice that 1999 comes out looking better than 2025, but that’s not exactly heartening, either.

It just feels like the Last Word on the Band, a final scraping of the barrel as their stock goes down again. Oh, Christ, it actually feels like the Netflix Era of WWE: endless, thoughtless content with no consideration of emotion or story, released to satiate the stockholders, coming on the heels of a massive resurgence in quality and popularity, and nullifying it all.

Look, I’m going to keep listening to this. When my box actually arrives, I’ll listen to it again. I don’t regret buying a copy (UPDATE: my box has arrived, and… I’m not sure “regret” is the right word, but I sure am wondering why this thing cost as much as it does). I just… am a little shocked at how much it all just feels like less than the sum of its parts. Like, why isn’t ALL of Machina II on here? It’s missing three tracks fully, and the new mix of “Satur9” and the full piano version of “If there is a God.” It’s weird to omit the “Disco King” demo. But then there’s more questions like, why ~not~ put out the entire final Metro Show. Why take all the time to remix this entire albums and then only release it in a small batch vinyl release. And I have the answer to the last question, and it’s what animates this entire set in the most annoying way.

Really it comes down to capital. It comes down to a feeling of “they knew how much a diehard fan wanted this and charged accordingly.” The actual quality of the set itself gives me huge questions. The booklet’s printing is honestly pretty bad, the layout of the tracklist is literally embarrassing, to say nothing of the art inside, which looks about as good as the label on a Madame Zuzu’s tea bag. Obviously it was never going to be a lavish new set of plates from the original artist, but this feels… light. Despite being 80 tracks on four records (and YES I also hate how they’re called “Vinyl 1,” “Vinyl 2,” etc), the whole set feels light. It feels so “this’ll do.” I’m not mad, not really. I’m only a little worked up, and my money is tighter than it was in the early 2010s when the original Pumpkins reissues were coming out (the reissues with ample liner notes, new and not bad art, a bonus DVD, etc). And of course after 25 years of wondering, how could this have ever had a prayer to hold up to expectation? Yet the result is far from definitive; instead, it’s just empty, content with itself, staring at you from your record shelf, satisfied that you shilled for it.