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- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Jun 19, 2012The year's most outstanding rock album.
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Jun 18, 2012Several of those tracks anchor Oceania, which adds up to Corgan's best work since the '90s.
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Jun 19, 2012Although the band has put an emphasis on slowly releasing single songs, the album feels like its own focused piece, and not just 13 different studio tracks, and Oceania very much sees Corgan and company settling into album, not single, territory.
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Kerrang!Jul 9, 2012On Oceania, Smashing Pumpkins finally sound like a band with an idea of where they're going. [10 Jun 2012, p.52]
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Jun 26, 2012With crisp, concise songwriting, slick production and subverted historical rock references, Oceania is more the addition of a new tower to the alternative palace Corgan helped build than the foundations for something strange and new.
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Jun 20, 2012Corgan rebuilt the band with new members and finally marshals them through a solid hour of grandiose guitar rock.
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Jun 19, 2012He's carved out an agreeable adventure with Oceania, and one that any casual or die-hard fan can embrace with true vigor.
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Jun 18, 2012Conceptual conceits aside, these are some of the most memorable and rousing songs Corgan has delivered since 1993's Siamese Dream.
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Jun 18, 2012Straddling the line between art and commerce, between arena rock and cult devotion, for the first time in quite a while Billy Corgan and The Smashing Pumpkins sound energised and alive.
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Jun 18, 2012Instead of relying upon the old classics, touring the same old stuff, he and SP have forged ahead to create a record that could well be the catalyst of a stellar second era for one of rock's more interesting groups.
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Jul 19, 2012Forget that it's probably the middle part of some overblown epic song set and enjoy it for what it is: 13 songs that try to break new ground, and generally succeed, while managing to sound like the Pumpkins we know rather than plastic studio production.
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Jun 19, 2012With Oceania he's finally delivered the Smashing Pumpkins album that everybody wanted the first time he decided to revive the name.
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Jul 5, 2012Oceania isn't a great record, but it's a strong enough one, filled with songs that sound like the Smashing Pumpkins you remember.
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Aug 29, 2012Oceania lacks the emotional force that it needed to transcend what it is: a former rock star trying to sound vital again.
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UncutAug 2, 2012The loss of drummer Jimmy Chamberlain smarts, but "Quasar" and the :The Celestials" recall the Pumpkins' '90s heyday with out coming over as retread. [Sep 2012, p.86]
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Jul 10, 2012Oceania sounds louder, better, and altogether more revelatory than any Pumpkins album in years.
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Jul 5, 2012It's a strange album on the whole, though there's no doubting Corgan has his mojo back, and if you can stomach a 45-year-old man still whining on about isolation and stuff then this may well be up your proverbial alley.
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Jun 19, 2012At various times uplifting, rocking, refreshing, and sweet, Oceania makes a return to the live arena a suddenly desirable prospect.
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Jun 19, 2012While Corgan feels reinvigorated, utterly convinced that's he's finally nailed it this time, the final product doesn't hold up as an entirely ingenious one.
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Jun 18, 2012Oceania benefits from Corgan's new sense of freedom, resulting in the Pumpkins' best album since the gothic Adore.
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Jun 18, 2012Oceania is definitely not without its faults, but with repeated listens and an honest approach to the metrics and themes Corgan's hitting, this rhizomed Pumpkins reboot will dispel your notions that the Pumpkins can't exist without its other three founding members.
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Jun 19, 2012His new band might not question him very much, and they may play better or more professionally, than his old crew. But Oceania suffers a kind of rock-star-dictator airlessness.
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Jul 12, 2012Sure, it's bloated and loaded with overreaching, pretentious lyrics, but it wouldn't be the Pumpkins otherwise.
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Jul 2, 2012The collision of sludgy guitars, thunderous drums and Billy Corgan's frantic yelp on opener Quasar makes for a bracing reacquaintance with overwrought stadium grunge. But it loses its way when Corgan shows signs of mellowing.
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Jun 26, 2012The songcraft is back, but the romance is still missing.
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Jun 19, 2012[Oceania] is a good stand-alone record, a bong-prog take on the alt-rock grandeur of Gish and Siamese Dream.
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Jun 18, 2012Oceania is best listened to in bits.
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Jun 18, 2012It's compelling, and finds new territory.... But it doesn't do a huge amount to lodge itself in your memory
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Jul 6, 2012For a Tarot-themed rock album made by an immortal megalomaniac, it's actually OK. Especially the loud bits.
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Entertainment WeeklyJun 18, 2012{The music] never breaks out of a gauzy prison of pleasantness. [22 Jun 2012, p.64]
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Jun 21, 2012When it finds focus, as it does on the lean, certain The Celestials and The Chimera, it's a clear, timely reminder that Corgan can be a fine songwriter. But elsewhere, and too often, tracks chug and puff along a bloated path to nowhere.
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Jun 18, 2012Billy Corgan can't ever quite muster up the magic of the Pumpkins' early years because, to be honest, the songs just aren't good enough.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 102 out of 118
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Mixed: 7 out of 118
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Negative: 9 out of 118
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Jun 19, 2012
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Jun 20, 2012
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Jul 1, 2012