Despite the ponderous title, the Smashing Pumpkins’ ninth studio album, “Monuments to an Elegy” (Martha’s Music), is practically lighthearted by Billy Corgan standards. Corgan hasn’t gone all One Direction on us, but it’s by far his most concise, pop-oriented album as the sole remaining original member of a band that sold multimillions of albums during its ’90s heyday.
During that era, the singer tapped into progressive rock, psychedelia, metal and Goth, channeling the ambition and excess that each suggests. Big egos demand big music, and though some would cast him as a cartoon, Corgan never backed off from his convictions, no matter how extreme. Heck, earlier this year he indulged himself in eight hours of electronic music at his tea house, inspired by the Herman Hesse novel “Siddhartha.”
Next to that, “Monuments to an Elegy” sounds positively modest. Its nine songs clock in at under 33 minutes, and only one surpasses four minutes. There’s not another album in the Pumpkins’ three-decade history quite like it. Of course, the band’s lineup has undergone more shake-ups than the cast of “The Walking Dead.” This album is a step away from a Corgan solo effort, with holdover guitarist Jeff Schroeder and ex-Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee filling in the gaps left by the Pumpkins CEO.
Love songs dominate, but lyrically they feel superficial (“Run to me, my special one”; “I’m so alive with a girl like you”; “One and all, we are, we are so young”), especially when compared to the quasi-mystical tone (and occasional over-reach) of the previous Pumpkins album, “Oceania.” That 2012 release was certainly the Pumpkins’ best work this century. But as an exercise in pop-rock songcraft, it demonstrates that the guy who wrote “1979” and “Today” still knows how to write hooks.
