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Tarantula

The Smashing Pumpkins - Tarantula Audio CD

A fair review of the The Smashing Pumpkins "Tarantula" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all The Smashing Pumpkins reviews here, or go back to the The Smashing Pumpkins tabs.

Band: The Smashing Pumpkins
Title: Tarantula
Rating:

Release Date: 2007-07-09
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Tarantula 2: Death From Above

The way to recreate your image is not with paris hilton...
I get the point of the photo with the nuke going off in the back and i get it's Paris Hilton who embodies all the worse qualities a human can possess and she also emobidies the Zeitgeist better than any person, but the fact that she actually signed on to do this and the Pumpkins let her is just a bit disturbing. The smashing pumpkins have caught a lot of flack for the way Zeitgeist was released but i think the most disturbing thing was the photo of paris hilton on the cover of this single and inside the cd booklet. However, that being said. Why did I give this single 5 stars?

Both songs rock. Death from above should have made it to the album and Tarantula kicks butt. So as this is about the music i say it deserves a 5 star rating. However, go pick up the limited edition from Best Buy of the album and get Death From Above along with Steller and a great new track Ma belle.
.

so, so,
but it doesnt excuse bad music. Hmm, well thats great, i couldnt agree with his views more. it sounds lacking of hmm, well yeah i guess d'arcy and iha. if it was only him all along then it would be obvious in the new sound but you hear something lacking in the music and you cant quite put your finger on it. all these bands of old fart rockers from the nineties, NIN, SP, etc. all could have spoken up years earlier about how america is screwed. Oh, thats right they were all to busy doing drugs. Doing it now is kinda like deciding to be enviromentally aware when you live on a melting ice glacier. your a lil late guys. its pretty sad when green day is on the frontlines of being pollitically aware of how bad america's getting. Lets face the facts most rockstars are less then aware of much of anything besides there own existance. so with that said going straight to just the music itself and this song along with the album is enough to drive a original pumpkins fan to drink. Its not horrible, but from a band such as them your expecting way better. and the cover, your already flogging a dead horse ive seen pumpkins bootlegs with way more clevor covers. the magic is gone and it doesnt sound like its coming back. Maybe its time to be a lil more honest with ourselves and call it the billy corgan band? .

Almost worth it
Tarantual is a great song, but I only bought this for the B side so I wouldn't have to buy the Best Buy version of Zeitgeist. First of all, I love Zeitgeist. If you are a diehard fan like me and you need to have every song that Billy wrote, buy it. Death from above is a so so song that is definitley a B side. .

INTERESTING...
If you're a completist of Billy's work, you need this single for "Death From Above". I had no idea about this Billy/Paris connection, but it's both funny and ironic. There are versions at both BestBuy and Target, each with it's own bonus track and different-coloured cover/booklet. BestBuy's version has "Death From Above" as it's bonus track, with a yellow-ish cover/booklet. . . while Target has a purple-ish cover/booklet and the bonus track is the TITLE track, "Zeitgeist". . . interesting that the song was left off the regular and deluxe version. . . BTW, I HATE the packaging on that. . . big, bulky and obtrusive, and there's nothing special about the pics inside that. . . I'd much rather have bonus tracks.

Soooo, in the end, buy the Target edition of the album and this single, and marvel at the irony of Paris Hilton, blackberry in hand, standing in front of a mushroom cloud. Oh, the song "Tarantula" is pretty cool, with a nice riff and a melody that grows on you. Billy may seem like a jerk to many, but I think the guy's just misunderstood, that's all. . . and Jimmy C just proves here that he's a kickbutt drummer too.

If this is Billy being deep, then I'd hate to see his flippant side
Does this make him philosophical as well?

My problem with Tarantula is that it hardly brings anything new to the table. Tony Danza railed against CNN dubious coverage of Paris Hilton's incarceration. BC is merely doing a rehash of what people already know. Yes, we are unhandily obsessed with the culthood of celebrity. This is not breaking news. I'm not sure what reaction Billy expected by putting Paris on the cover. Did he think people would turn off The Hills, pick up the latest Mother Jones, and call their state senator?

If anything, the whole thing smacks of opportunism and hypocrisy on Billy's part. For example, see the Pumpkins MySpace saturation. See their latest contest of "make your own Tarantula video using our original green-screen footage!". See Billy's childish blog postings of "It's James' fault that SP broke up! D'Arcy was a mean-spirited, drug-addict! "

Don't bite the hand that feeds you, BC.

I'm guessing Billy was one of those people that made fun of the elected Homecoming royalty in high school but secretly dreamt of being voted king himself. Now he has graduated to criticizing E!'s coverage choices but where would Billy be without his fawning fans? The man clearly enjoys his celebrity status.

As for the song itself, it hardly breaks any new ground musically or lyrically. Yeah, it's full of (misdirected) rage but it has all the power of a banana-cream pie being dropped from a ten-foot ladder. Which is too bad when you consider the power of true zeitgeist songs like Eve of Destruction, Blowin' in the Wind, Imagine, or Orange Crush. Tarantula hardly rates among these tunes.

Borrowing a trick from BC. . . Here are my b-sides for the title of this review.
OMG! This isn't gr8, it sux. . .
Billy, meet the pot and the kettle.
The drama queen has no clothes.
Would you like some weienerschnitzel with your zeitgeist, Frau Corgan?
No, I meant what does "ironic" mean?
.

You can see a complete list of all The Smashing Pumpkins discography, or go back to the The Smashing Pumpkins tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.