CYR

I think each album has 3-4 really great tunes and the rest is mediocre. (Zwan and the solo records are in the same boat). Monuments had no real highlights. Oceania didn’t really, either, but it was probably the most consistent of the proper albums.

The Shiny grab bag is clearly the best in my opinion. There’s five really great tunes on it even if “Solara” is pure garbage and almost spoils that ridiculously short LP.

What’s weird is if the Pumpkins did a three disc Best Of and Disc Three was all from this century, it actually could hold up well in comparison to the other two discs provided the right song selection was made. Billy can clearly still craft great tunes, just not an LP’s worth. Sort of like when U2 delivered albums with major flaws in 2004 and 2009 yet the highlights on each were tremendous.

I think you nailed it when you said that Billy is still capable of crafting great tunes, but not great albums. I'm not that much of a fan of the Shiny LP, but I really love Knights of Malta and Silvery Sometimes, cuz I feel they're some of the best examples of how the band can sound more current without sacrificing their identity. Cyr (the song) is actually pretty good, but it gets lost amid so much subpar material.

Unfortunately, I feel that with this new album, Billy totally lost any sense of what's good to be on the official tracklist and what's not. Monuments and Shiny, even if they were not great, at least were short enough to not overstay their welcome, while Oceania - a flawed record for sure - was more musically diverse and more conceptually focused than Cyr.