The Smashing Pumpkins were excellent at the outset. gish is a great album, and siamese dream one of my all-time favorites.
Then Billy Corgan stopped going for his Judas Priest merit badge and decided he was a serious songwriter. With dire results, especially after Jimmy Chamberlin left the band. Without JC on the kit, Billy Corgan turned out to have a pretty small bag of tricks.
Machina starts off reasonably well, if you think telling the Cure to pretend they're Ministry qualifies as "reasonably well." Then it takes a swan dive into the potty around track 7, and stays there until the final song, which may as well be called "Tonight, Tonight Part Two."
The actual "album" part of Machina II is, for the first 40 minutes, the best SP album since siamese dream. The mix reflects a renewed understanding that Jimmy Chamberlin is a god, and that you should highlight him instead of burying him in cotton. "Let Me Give the World To You" might have been the hit single that saved them. Instead, they threw the album away and died.
Zwan: yuck.
Hopes for this new SP album: not high.
My Bloody Valentine: I don't do drugs anymore, so I can't stand them.