Ogilala

This is an album that I will put on and listen all the way through. It's such an enjoyable listen and you can feel Corgan's connection to the music. It's all done so simply, and his vocals are at their best. If you're a Smashing Pumpkins fan, there's plenty that you'll like in the album, despite it being a Billy solo project. As much as I enjoyed the last several Pumpkins' albums, Ogilala easily ranks as my favorite Billy Corgan album of the last decade and a half. I can't wait to hear more!

After his last solo effort "The Future Embrace" I was a little skeptical about this album. I did not get it at first. After a few listens, I am really digging it. Stripped down songs in a good way. The opposite of the overproduced music currently in the mainstream. It reminds me of "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" with out the rocking songs. Hopefully it will be followed up by a rocking Pumpkins record in the future.

If you did not like BC's first solo album, theres certainly a chance you may like this one.Ogilala seems like it would be a typical acoustic-vocal solo album, but you may be surprised with the kind of vocal melodies and background atmospheres that are made present. I would certainly recommend this album to any BC and or SP fan out there.

With respect to arrangements, Billy is nearly peerless. His lyrics can be distracting at times and over the duration of his career have been very hit or miss. Given the spareness of these compositions, as well as Rubin's production treatment, they are thrust more to the front in this album than they otherwise would be in more dense sonic tapestries. Whether you feel that they resonate or not will likely color your impressions of this work. The music, though, is utterly beautiful.My only disappointment is that he didn't find any of these tracks suitable to name "Appomattox Court House."Also, if you haven't already, go check out "The Future Embrace." It's worthy of a listen in its own right, but will also help illustrate my point.

There's always been a quieter side to Billy (William) Corgan's music, but it's usually interwoven in an LP of songs. Here we get an album of "quieter" stripped down songs. Still, the lyrics are powerful, and the entire artist vision is beautiful. Be sure to check out the accompanying silent movie, Pillbox, on YouTube.

William's talents have increased with every release and this solo undertaking is hauntingly beautiful. The music and lyrics feel very intimate and meaningful. Watching Pillbox will make a person appreciate it even more.

WPC hit a home run with this album. The songs are awesome and his playing is spot on. Billy in his prime and making some great music, love it.

So William Patrick Corgan shifts gears into singer songwriter mode evoking various footnotes of his body of work.A song like Amarinthe evokes the excellent live acoustic songs from the If All Goes Wrong DVD or the American Gothic EP. It is also a personal favorite off the album.The light production reminds me of the gorgeous acoustic Tonight Tonight B Side Medellia Of the Gray Skies.It is very tasteful and elegant. In fact elegance reverberates throughout all the tracks.Other times Adore is referenced with songs like Mandarynne and Archer.They sound like Adore B Sides or outtakes.Then tracks like The Long Goodbye or Antietam bring the Djali Zwan or Chicago Kid/Chicago Songs projects to mind. And then you have Half Life Of An Autodidact or Zowie which is an obvious reference to the MellonCollie era's ballads,B Sides and outtakes.The Spaniards sounds like a Teargarden By Kaleidyscope song that never made the cut.All the while the album sounds like a departure from his past and it's a very solid set of songs.And very enjoyable to listen to.It's an album that is grounding unassuming and something you can listen to that calms you when your having your morning cup of coffee or a bad day.But this music is more than just coffee house art house music.It's a statement from the master songwriter himself.They are stories of wisdom,fatherhood,loss and gain.They were songs inspired from his 30 days trip earlier in the year that marked his 50th birthday and search for America post Trump as well as himself.You can hear the early morning and wide open road in the openness of the songs themselves.You can hear Spring in Processional and the cold Winter in Amarinthe,Mandarynne and Shiloh.The whole feel of it all has a Joni Mitchell over tone all the while being a Corgan record through and through.He announced an acoustic record earlier in the year and I was extremely skeptical of the quality of the songs let alone skeptical it would even be released but here it is. An acoustic record from William Patrick Corgan. A record like this would have been shelved between 2000 - 2015. That's a long time.Between these years you had Zwan,The Future Embrace,Zeitgeist,Teargarden EP's,If All Goes Wrong,American Gothic,Oceania and Monuments.My complaint with albums like Zeitgeist,Oceania and Monuments was that they just seemed overproduced with Synth and bad vocals or production.They seemed like he was just desperate for another mainstream breakthrough and you could just smell it throughout the records.Every song seemed radio ready.Even the ballads or mid tempo tracks seemed radio ready.The emotion was flat.Even the happy emotions seemed forced and flat.On Ogilala all of that has been tossed out.A decade of desperation and pandering under he Smashing Pumpkins banner is no more.Here you have Rick Rubin focusing on an organic minimalist tone to the whole album and it's results are nothing short of incredible.A little bit of synth and unique production sounds are sprinkled tastefully over the songs.No more processed vocals and slathered on synth and layers of electric guitars. In the past it worked on some songs this past decade but other times it was his undoing on songs like Owata, The essence and beauty of the song was lost.That is not the case on this record.Rick Rubin could see that.Corgan could see it. For someone known to have an almost dictator type approach to his songs,production,band mates and back catalogue Corgan really seems out of character in his looseness on the acoustic tracks and minimal production. I want to thank Corgan for releasing this record.It's the type of record I always hoped he would put out.For those of you who hoped he would release the Chicago Songs,Djali Zwan material or make a record like Adore or the various acoustic B Sides and outtakes sprinkled through his catalogue this is the answer to your prayers.Corgan almost intuitively tapped into the minds of some of his fans when he made this.And not all his fans are only fans of his because of the heavy tracks he's known for .In fact what made me a fans was his ballads and artistic nature to the lyrics,art and aesthetic of the music.Songs like Luna,Crush,Thirty Three,Translucent,The leaving Lament,Laugh,My Life And Times,Winterlong,El -La -Noy Chewing Gum,Sunkissd and many other made me a fan rather than songs like Bullet With Butterfly Wings,Zero,Cherub Rock,Ava Adore and The Everlasting Gaze.You can add this to the many great singer songwriter albums released this year from other singer songwriters like Aimee Mann,The Weather Station,Jeff Tweedy,Hope Sandoval,Ani Difranco,Iron And Wine,Joan Shelley,Julie Byrne,Samantha Crain and Feist.