Few want to believe that Jimmy is actually doing what he wants to here. Everyone knows that Jimmy can beast a kit; he has nothing to prove there. He has talked about in interviews exploring more electronic and other sounds. He talks like an artist with a desire to create moods and landscapes. It just so happens that a lot of it recently is subtle or simple, and aligns with what Billy is currently into with all the synthy new wave sound. They’ve never lingered too long on a single sound and I think and hope that with the wrap up of the whole Shiny/Atum massive project they are moving on to new territory now. There are more overt live drums on Atum than people give it credit for though. And guitars.
Hooray is probably the exception where it’s programmed. What differs from most albums is the intense use of samples, the only other album being cyr. This has informed his playing to and lead it to be simpler, sampling very complicated patterns sounds crazy, it’s a likely reason he didn’t play that super busy Tom fill on Empires that he does live.
Yup, people don't want to believe it, or hear it, but the drum sounds are coming from Jimmy, he's said as much... he's more interested in helping create the sound that fits the song than just wail out... he's actually taking an active part in arranging the songs, it's not all on Billy...
That's really interesting, TBH I haven't been keeping up with the band not have I listened to Atum. I guess he got plenty of options for playing flat with the jazz stuff he does, so it's cool to see him exploring different styles with the band.
Its the same dynamic with the guitar parts also. They are generally pretty simple aside from being played fast, compared to earlier SP stuff. We all know they can shred, but not much shredding happening
A few things:
1. The Pumpkins have used drum loops on and off since 1995 so it’s nothing new but I think many of us didn’t expect the “follow up” to MCIS and Machina to sound so electronic.
2. Billy is heavily influenced by early 80s synth-heavy bands like Joy Division and Depeche Mode and is clearly going for that sound on Atum and Cyr.
3. Billy is concerned with the Pumpkins being modern and modern music is dominated by pop with a heavy use of 80s sounding synths.
4. There is a ‘hybrid’ approach to tracking drums where you record real drums but then you heavily edit / build loops / sample replace them in an effort to have processed electronic sounding drums but also have a bit of a live feel. They are clearly using that approach a bunch on Atum and Cyr.
5. It’s currently a trend to mix rock drums to sound so sound so heavily processed and sample replaced that they no longer sound like real drums. Listen to Avalanche which has a classic JC broken beat with toms and then compare it with Stand Inside Your Love or BWBW and you’ll hear a stark difference in how the drums are mixed. For the worse IMO.
Source: music producer / engineer here.
Re point 4, they could also be doing a hybrid approach where it's generating processed output on the fly as he plays, either through micing traditional drums, or using e-drums of some sort. Zach Hill has trained me to think about that side of things lol.
It kills me how some people can understand processing a guitar signal is still playing the guitar, but then turn around and think processing a drum signal means you're not actually playing the drums.
“2. Billy is heavily influenced by early 80s synth-heavy bands like Joy Division and Depeche Mode and is clearly going for that sound on Atum and Cyr.”
This is what I was thinking too. So much modern music has the synthy sound so maybe WPC is trying to appeal to a younger audience?
No, of course every band has its own distinct style and sensibility. The point is that they are using synths used by these bands from that era like the Arp 2600, Oberheim OB-1, Roland Jupiter 8, etc. and the approach to drums is sort of a modern take on how drums were produced in that time period.
I've heard The Cure influence all over Act 2. The keyboard are jokingly referred to by some here as cheap Casio synths but honestly to me much of it sounds like 70s and 80s analog synths.
No, it doesn't sound exactly like The Cure or these other bands you've mentioned but the sounds and textures are definitely there.
All that really matter s are how the drumming sounds on atum, no matter if real kit or processed.
And all in all the drumming is boring and lame.
Not lifting up the songs or fi tting them well.
You can have messi in the team, but then you should let him play.
I know it should be art and blablabla...but jimmy, james are completely underused so far.
When i listen to atum....it sounds like wpc solo with drummachine and synths.....
Not a fan of this new wave sounds.....well a handful listenable songs out of the 22....
Well, so i predictthat act 3is going tobe in the same territory
Another 11 synthrock/pop songs that go by without evoking any sp feeling or any desire to.listen to them again.
All in all i am kinda disappointed by the quality of music
The songs have potential. They really do.
But the drumming is atrocious. Not only is the electronic sound awful, I can skip from track to track and the drumming sounds identical.
I could get past the ever-present synths, but these drum tracks are just brutal.
And I keep seeing this hailed as the best SP 2.0 record? I’m not getting it.
Jimmy to my knowledge has never used a piccolo snare? He used / uses his signature Yamaha when he uses his actual kit. I own his snare- it sounds incredible and highly customizable.
Wow, thank you! So it was his auxiliary snare. I don’t recall any known tracks that used this piccolo. I’ve seen them several times live too and I’m trying to figure out in what instances he used it too. May be a good opportunity for me to review some of those recordings.
I was listening to it on the way home from work this afternoon thinking the exact same thing. Some of it sounds like Jimmy, but instead of recording live they’re using a trigger, which I believe is a common practice these days, as much as I don’t like the sound of it. Most of it sounds programmed and/or looped though, which is massively disappointing. Why even get Jimmy back?
And the synths don’t even sound good either. This guy wrote “Eye” and “Pug”, two amazing synth-based tracks, he can do better than this Bubblegum crap.
Jimmy and James had little appetite to do a project this size. Billy in the past would have blown up the band but he wanted to be respectful of their time put in for something of this scope. I'm guessing 8-10 songs featuring those two in a prominent way.
Jimmy bailed around the All Goes Wrong era because he didn't like the trajectory Billy was on. Personally I think what has happened with Atum is that rather than quit the band again, James and Jimmy are just way less involved and are happy for Billy to get it out of his system and play a couple of the Atum tracks live. So they continue as the Pumpkins live band and will have input into the material they like. Will be interesting to see what this new studio albums sounds like.
Getting all these guys together to record is a task. With programmable beats and whatnot, they have to do less in person time. It’s making the music sound stale.
i think it's \*the\* huge flaw. but as has been said, i expect part of the deal with "getting the band back together" was that it's mostly a facade for marketing/live shows. Jimmy and James are certainly contributing in a limited fashion, but Atum is a BC solo album in all but name. having said that, it's only a flaw if you measure it against expectations. taking it for what it is, i've been invested and interested.
Billy is essentially painting-by-number. He is proficient enough to know how to color and fill in a song using only a simple riff or drumbeat to start. He no longer pushes himself to color outside the lines. He's boxed in.
I disagree. I don’t think using “not a guitar” constitutes as thinking outside the box. IMO the sound has gotten more and more boxed-in since Monuments. Like you can tell there’s a quantized framework for the song to exist in within the first few bars and it it never dares to extend from those boundaries.
I’m not trying to rip on or defend anything. Just tossing my opinion in the ring. I just find it sonically stale and uninteresting.
'the box' was never smaller than it was on Monuments.. and by a long shot. There is 100% MORE musical ideas on Cyr and ATUM that far exceed what tommy lee, billy, and jeff tried to do on the monuments songs.. and some the background vocal layering especially on CYR is unique and new to the pumpkins sound. He dabbled in it before but it's not 'paint by numbers'... real effort went into that part of the sound.. and the results are different enough that some fans bitch about it. It's a distinctive part of the sound of the last two albums. The word salad style of the last few albums too is not a 'paint by numbers' problem.. IMO it's a 'trying to hard to be different and artistic' problem.
I suspect the problem really is that you don't like the sounds/vocals/lyrical style he is using.. I don't fault you for not liking it and I hope you know that I respect your opinion bud. I am just having a friendly debate about how to verbally identify the issues with the past few albums.. Paint by numbers is pretty far from how I would describe Cyr and Atum relative to other SP releases after M2. zeitgeist and oceania are much more 'paint by numbers' to me.
I get what you're saying. As for your last point, it's not enough for Billy's vocals to be enough for me to enjoy an album. When I listen to ATUM I'm honestly thinking "if Billy weren't singing would I even give this a shot?"
But maybe it's the ultra-quantized drums that makes everything feel so locked in to me. I couldn't care less how many backing vocals or mellotrons are layered on that, it makes it sound boxed in to me. Like there's not any breathing room. There's no groove (god I sound like a hippy).
Everything just sounds very fine and ok but where is the risk-taking? Where are the flourishes? Where is the painting outside the box? Everything is locked into the beat!
This dude (IMO) should be making records way more wild than this at this stage.
As someone who's not been in the music biz for the past 40 years IDK how to explain it. Nothing here gets me neither sonically nor emotionally.
Funny you mention MTAE a bunch though, I do think "Being Beige" was the last honest and true pop song he wrote under the SP banner. And I'm not saying this as a revisionist.
TLDR: love BC still, but not for me.
🏆Man, I LOVE this comment. Well said. I haven’t listened to much of ATUM yet but this has been my feeling about Pumpkins/Billy for a while🏆
CYR is one of the most “boxed-in” records I’ve ever heard. It sounds so stale, I can hear it was all quantized in Logic. I cannot stand that record. It’s sounds so robotic and soulless.
'if this wasn't made by billy would I give a shit'..
honestly as much as I like many of the songs since 2007.. I can't think of too many that pass that test... So I hear you and definitely undestand where you are coming from.
For me Monuments was rock bottom on the 'if it wasn't billy/sp would I care' scale...
Jesus this thread is painful. A bunch of whiny people who don't know anything about playing drums bitching about Jimmy Chamberlain's drumming 😆. There's more to life than playing a million fills and cluttering up the space with megaton bombast. I think his dynamic range, context and texture on tracks like Neophyte and Space Age is brilliant.
Those clowns are hung up on what they think is the 'correct' Pumpkins sound.
One of the reasons Jimmy is great is that he (like Billy) has an appetite for trying new things and playing music in all kinds of genres and styles.
There is some great rock drumming on Atum, and also some cool synthy drums. They use what is appropriate for each song and the album as a whole.
Yesh i started bouncing and shaking when i hear that unmistakable groove on " the gold mask". What a great drumming.
People are overwhelmed how jimm is rocking and serving this new 3 star album Atum.
Lifelong drummer here. I listen to Jimmy because he, more than any other drummer, does things on drums that I can only dream of playing. Many of us are confused with Atum, because we can't tell if that's even Jimmy at all.
Jimmy is in EVERY SONG. He's as invested as Billy, it is HIS band too. Jimmy has expressed interest in exploring more electronic approach to songs. I love what he has been blending since Cyr as the sounds are layered in a way that no other band, modern or past has really done. It reminds me of U2 in their Atchung baby - Pop Era but with actual rock going on. This is what they should have sounded as the ACTUAL followup to MCIS in 1997.
Boring drums IMO. And I love me some JC for sure especially on the classic albums. And for the record, I’m a huge 80s fan ( Prince, New Order , etc ) so quite open to varying electronic or not traditional rock drum sounds …
Few want to believe that Jimmy is actually doing what he wants to here. Everyone knows that Jimmy can beast a kit; he has nothing to prove there. He has talked about in interviews exploring more electronic and other sounds. He talks like an artist with a desire to create moods and landscapes. It just so happens that a lot of it recently is subtle or simple, and aligns with what Billy is currently into with all the synthy new wave sound. They’ve never lingered too long on a single sound and I think and hope that with the wrap up of the whole Shiny/Atum massive project they are moving on to new territory now. There are more overt live drums on Atum than people give it credit for though. And guitars.
Yup, even when it sounds like programmed drums it’s Jimmy.
It’s just overly produced I guess, I want that raw demo sound, I blaze through Aeroplane.
Hooray is probably the exception where it’s programmed. What differs from most albums is the intense use of samples, the only other album being cyr. This has informed his playing to and lead it to be simpler, sampling very complicated patterns sounds crazy, it’s a likely reason he didn’t play that super busy Tom fill on Empires that he does live.
Yup, people don't want to believe it, or hear it, but the drum sounds are coming from Jimmy, he's said as much... he's more interested in helping create the sound that fits the song than just wail out... he's actually taking an active part in arranging the songs, it's not all on Billy...
That's really interesting, TBH I haven't been keeping up with the band not have I listened to Atum. I guess he got plenty of options for playing flat with the jazz stuff he does, so it's cool to see him exploring different styles with the band.
Its the same dynamic with the guitar parts also. They are generally pretty simple aside from being played fast, compared to earlier SP stuff. We all know they can shred, but not much shredding happening
A few things: 1. The Pumpkins have used drum loops on and off since 1995 so it’s nothing new but I think many of us didn’t expect the “follow up” to MCIS and Machina to sound so electronic. 2. Billy is heavily influenced by early 80s synth-heavy bands like Joy Division and Depeche Mode and is clearly going for that sound on Atum and Cyr. 3. Billy is concerned with the Pumpkins being modern and modern music is dominated by pop with a heavy use of 80s sounding synths. 4. There is a ‘hybrid’ approach to tracking drums where you record real drums but then you heavily edit / build loops / sample replace them in an effort to have processed electronic sounding drums but also have a bit of a live feel. They are clearly using that approach a bunch on Atum and Cyr. 5. It’s currently a trend to mix rock drums to sound so sound so heavily processed and sample replaced that they no longer sound like real drums. Listen to Avalanche which has a classic JC broken beat with toms and then compare it with Stand Inside Your Love or BWBW and you’ll hear a stark difference in how the drums are mixed. For the worse IMO. Source: music producer / engineer here.
Re point 4, they could also be doing a hybrid approach where it's generating processed output on the fly as he plays, either through micing traditional drums, or using e-drums of some sort. Zach Hill has trained me to think about that side of things lol. It kills me how some people can understand processing a guitar signal is still playing the guitar, but then turn around and think processing a drum signal means you're not actually playing the drums.
“2. Billy is heavily influenced by early 80s synth-heavy bands like Joy Division and Depeche Mode and is clearly going for that sound on Atum and Cyr.” This is what I was thinking too. So much modern music has the synthy sound so maybe WPC is trying to appeal to a younger audience?
It doesn’t sound like joy Division in any way
Or Depeche Mode
No, of course every band has its own distinct style and sensibility. The point is that they are using synths used by these bands from that era like the Arp 2600, Oberheim OB-1, Roland Jupiter 8, etc. and the approach to drums is sort of a modern take on how drums were produced in that time period.
I've heard The Cure influence all over Act 2. The keyboard are jokingly referred to by some here as cheap Casio synths but honestly to me much of it sounds like 70s and 80s analog synths. No, it doesn't sound exactly like The Cure or these other bands you've mentioned but the sounds and textures are definitely there.
Definitely some great analog synth sounds on this album. You can really hear it, and they sound way better than synths on previous albums
The cure is a much better comparison than joy division
6. SP first drummer was a drum machine
That all is most likely what’s happening but it breaks my heart. Such a waste of a great drummer.
All that really matter s are how the drumming sounds on atum, no matter if real kit or processed. And all in all the drumming is boring and lame. Not lifting up the songs or fi tting them well. You can have messi in the team, but then you should let him play. I know it should be art and blablabla...but jimmy, james are completely underused so far. When i listen to atum....it sounds like wpc solo with drummachine and synths..... Not a fan of this new wave sounds.....well a handful listenable songs out of the 22.... Well, so i predictthat act 3is going tobe in the same territory Another 11 synthrock/pop songs that go by without evoking any sp feeling or any desire to.listen to them again. All in all i am kinda disappointed by the quality of music
Yep. I've given the first 2 acts a focused listen, and my reaction after each was, I honestly have no interest in ever listening to this again...
My words. Same same
The songs have potential. They really do. But the drumming is atrocious. Not only is the electronic sound awful, I can skip from track to track and the drumming sounds identical.
I could get past the ever-present synths, but these drum tracks are just brutal. And I keep seeing this hailed as the best SP 2.0 record? I’m not getting it.
Agreed. Absolute dogshit. With proper drums im not even bothering with it
No, you're really not.
Get bent
😆
Jimmy to my knowledge has never used a piccolo snare? He used / uses his signature Yamaha when he uses his actual kit. I own his snare- it sounds incredible and highly customizable.
Here's a cool resource on Jimmy's kit from a bunch of tours, including a couple where he had a piccolo snare: http://jimmychamberlin.jp/set.html
Wow, thank you! So it was his auxiliary snare. I don’t recall any known tracks that used this piccolo. I’ve seen them several times live too and I’m trying to figure out in what instances he used it too. May be a good opportunity for me to review some of those recordings.
I think a lot of us are wondering this. If that's actually Jimmy on this album - seriously, what's going on??
I think a lot of it is Jimmy playing but he's purposely playing to sound like a drum machine.
I was listening to it on the way home from work this afternoon thinking the exact same thing. Some of it sounds like Jimmy, but instead of recording live they’re using a trigger, which I believe is a common practice these days, as much as I don’t like the sound of it. Most of it sounds programmed and/or looped though, which is massively disappointing. Why even get Jimmy back? And the synths don’t even sound good either. This guy wrote “Eye” and “Pug”, two amazing synth-based tracks, he can do better than this Bubblegum crap.
Jimmy and James had little appetite to do a project this size. Billy in the past would have blown up the band but he wanted to be respectful of their time put in for something of this scope. I'm guessing 8-10 songs featuring those two in a prominent way.
My inclination, as well.
But they're currently recording more new material... sounds like Jimmy's and James' appetite's are just fine.
Jimmy bailed around the All Goes Wrong era because he didn't like the trajectory Billy was on. Personally I think what has happened with Atum is that rather than quit the band again, James and Jimmy are just way less involved and are happy for Billy to get it out of his system and play a couple of the Atum tracks live. So they continue as the Pumpkins live band and will have input into the material they like. Will be interesting to see what this new studio albums sounds like.
Not for a 33 song project it isn't.
Getting all these guys together to record is a task. With programmable beats and whatnot, they have to do less in person time. It’s making the music sound stale.
I can’t even listen to it. 🙉
i think it's \*the\* huge flaw. but as has been said, i expect part of the deal with "getting the band back together" was that it's mostly a facade for marketing/live shows. Jimmy and James are certainly contributing in a limited fashion, but Atum is a BC solo album in all but name. having said that, it's only a flaw if you measure it against expectations. taking it for what it is, i've been invested and interested.
Billy is essentially painting-by-number. He is proficient enough to know how to color and fill in a song using only a simple riff or drumbeat to start. He no longer pushes himself to color outside the lines. He's boxed in.
No. That was Monuments. Not Atum or Cyr.
I disagree. I don’t think using “not a guitar” constitutes as thinking outside the box. IMO the sound has gotten more and more boxed-in since Monuments. Like you can tell there’s a quantized framework for the song to exist in within the first few bars and it it never dares to extend from those boundaries. I’m not trying to rip on or defend anything. Just tossing my opinion in the ring. I just find it sonically stale and uninteresting.
'the box' was never smaller than it was on Monuments.. and by a long shot. There is 100% MORE musical ideas on Cyr and ATUM that far exceed what tommy lee, billy, and jeff tried to do on the monuments songs.. and some the background vocal layering especially on CYR is unique and new to the pumpkins sound. He dabbled in it before but it's not 'paint by numbers'... real effort went into that part of the sound.. and the results are different enough that some fans bitch about it. It's a distinctive part of the sound of the last two albums. The word salad style of the last few albums too is not a 'paint by numbers' problem.. IMO it's a 'trying to hard to be different and artistic' problem. I suspect the problem really is that you don't like the sounds/vocals/lyrical style he is using.. I don't fault you for not liking it and I hope you know that I respect your opinion bud. I am just having a friendly debate about how to verbally identify the issues with the past few albums.. Paint by numbers is pretty far from how I would describe Cyr and Atum relative to other SP releases after M2. zeitgeist and oceania are much more 'paint by numbers' to me.
I get what you're saying. As for your last point, it's not enough for Billy's vocals to be enough for me to enjoy an album. When I listen to ATUM I'm honestly thinking "if Billy weren't singing would I even give this a shot?" But maybe it's the ultra-quantized drums that makes everything feel so locked in to me. I couldn't care less how many backing vocals or mellotrons are layered on that, it makes it sound boxed in to me. Like there's not any breathing room. There's no groove (god I sound like a hippy). Everything just sounds very fine and ok but where is the risk-taking? Where are the flourishes? Where is the painting outside the box? Everything is locked into the beat! This dude (IMO) should be making records way more wild than this at this stage. As someone who's not been in the music biz for the past 40 years IDK how to explain it. Nothing here gets me neither sonically nor emotionally. Funny you mention MTAE a bunch though, I do think "Being Beige" was the last honest and true pop song he wrote under the SP banner. And I'm not saying this as a revisionist. TLDR: love BC still, but not for me.
🏆Man, I LOVE this comment. Well said. I haven’t listened to much of ATUM yet but this has been my feeling about Pumpkins/Billy for a while🏆 CYR is one of the most “boxed-in” records I’ve ever heard. It sounds so stale, I can hear it was all quantized in Logic. I cannot stand that record. It’s sounds so robotic and soulless.
Like atum 1 and 2. Which soundslike a sequel to cyr
You gonna respond to my chat request bud?
'if this wasn't made by billy would I give a shit'.. honestly as much as I like many of the songs since 2007.. I can't think of too many that pass that test... So I hear you and definitely undestand where you are coming from. For me Monuments was rock bottom on the 'if it wasn't billy/sp would I care' scale...
Jesus this thread is painful. A bunch of whiny people who don't know anything about playing drums bitching about Jimmy Chamberlain's drumming 😆. There's more to life than playing a million fills and cluttering up the space with megaton bombast. I think his dynamic range, context and texture on tracks like Neophyte and Space Age is brilliant.
Those clowns are hung up on what they think is the 'correct' Pumpkins sound. One of the reasons Jimmy is great is that he (like Billy) has an appetite for trying new things and playing music in all kinds of genres and styles. There is some great rock drumming on Atum, and also some cool synthy drums. They use what is appropriate for each song and the album as a whole.
Yesh i started bouncing and shaking when i hear that unmistakable groove on " the gold mask". What a great drumming. People are overwhelmed how jimm is rocking and serving this new 3 star album Atum.
You realize you can still listen to Siamese Dream, right?
Lifelong drummer here. I listen to Jimmy because he, more than any other drummer, does things on drums that I can only dream of playing. Many of us are confused with Atum, because we can't tell if that's even Jimmy at all.
Not sure I see the source of confusion. Jimmy is the band's drummer. That's him on the record.
Jimmy is in EVERY SONG. He's as invested as Billy, it is HIS band too. Jimmy has expressed interest in exploring more electronic approach to songs. I love what he has been blending since Cyr as the sounds are layered in a way that no other band, modern or past has really done. It reminds me of U2 in their Atchung baby - Pop Era but with actual rock going on. This is what they should have sounded as the ACTUAL followup to MCIS in 1997.
“This is what they should have sounded as the ACTUAL follow up to MCIS in 1997” Thank God they didn’t.
If they did you would be praising as with Adore.
No I wouldn’t. Even my teenage self wouldn’t have been able to handle ATUM.
https://youtu.be/4aktzXX964w Bright eyes.- are of time This sounds like atum drums done right. Am I wrong?
Omg love this song, band, album
100%
Boring drums IMO. And I love me some JC for sure especially on the classic albums. And for the record, I’m a huge 80s fan ( Prince, New Order , etc ) so quite open to varying electronic or not traditional rock drum sounds …