Media

Smashing Pumpkins: "Song for a Son" (MP3)

3:19 a.m. · December 11, 2009 · by Chris Bosman

Billy Corgan may be an egocentric, occasionally childish, constantly pretentious, self-important jerk dating a blowup doll, but the man knows how to release music. After Virgin decided not to release the Smashing Pumpkins' follow-up to the disappointing MACHINA, Corgan went ahead and gave away a bunch of copies of MACHINA II on vinyl, encouraging fans to rip and distribute the album.

Now he's back with an even more bloated, yet equally interesting plan. The new Pumpkins album, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, will be 44 songs, released one song at a time over the course of the next year, completely for free. "Song for a Son" is the first track from the endeavor and it's pretty mediocre, which is really more than you can say for most of Zeitgeist.

There's some standard Corgan guitar noodling, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" organs, Thin Lizzy guitar harmonies, and an abundance of other classic rock tropes, with Corgan's nasally voice a little higher in the mix than is really comfortable. Essentially, it sounds like Corgan took the idea of Lil Wayne's mixtapes and applied the principles to "Stairway to Heaven." You can grab the track at the Smashing Pumpkins website. [YANP]