I went back and forth for a while on whether to list the MACHINA albums together or separately. Most of this material comes from the same sessions, or at least was conceived as a part of the same long project, but it becomes a question of artistic intent vs. the realities of how these albums were presented and consumed by listeners. Rumor has it that the MACHINA albums will be reissued together, perhaps with their tracks reordered so that they are blended together, but that’s not how we first received them. Corgan had pitched the idea of a double album to Virgin who were, after the comparative commercial disappointment of Adore, entirely uninterested in the idea. When MACHINA/The Machines of God was released to an even more muted commercial response and mixed critical reaction, Corgan tried to get Virgin to release MACHINA II, which they also declined. As a result, the band released MACHINA II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music independently, for free on the internet. As a result, you wound up with two sister albums that occupy pretty different spaces in terms of exposure and fan assessment, but nevertheless seem inseparable as two halves of one final act.

The main detriment to the MACHINA albums is all the circumstance weighing them down. After Jimmy Chamberlin rejoined the band, Corgan planned to record one more album and break up the Smashing Pumpkins, and MACHINA became a correspondingly vast and all-encompassing project. At this point, the entire band was thoroughly exhausted with the trappings of rock stardom, and Corgan conceived a concept album structure for MACHINA that would be influenced by the exaggerated image of the band that they felt was placed upon them by the music media. So the story goes on about a rockstar named Zero who hears the voice of God and well, who really knows where it ends or why or if anyone cares. Concept albums are dangerous things to begin with, mostly populated by stories that either are too under-realized to make any sense or so ridiculous that you’d rather not be aware of them. MACHINA was born as a concept album but left half-finished and partially abandoned, with Corgan thrown off by Wretzky’s sudden departure from the band and maybe losing focus with the knowledge that the Smashing Pumpkins’ end was imminent. The final result wound up being an album that was bloated and at some points indistinguishable, not bloated in a mad-eyed, brilliantly diverse way like Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. MACHINA/The Machines of God seemed to be a prolonged last gasp, representing the weariness of a band that had basically been through the ringer constantly since their inception.

But even with all its flaws and the downbeat note on which it/they ended the Smashing Pumpkins’ career for those who had been following along since the start, the MACHINA albums are worth revisiting. Seeking to fuse the electronic sounds of Adore with the structures and aesthetic of their previous work, MACHINA was very much a product of its time — and sounds it — but works surprisingly well. Maybe it can partially be attributed to Corgan and Iha’s New Order-indebted beginnings, but the textural interplay between rock and electronic elements on MACHINA make it one of the more interesting Smashing Pumpkins releases. Though it meanders in its second half, the first MACHINA has some of the most gorgeous, darkly atmospheric pop songs the Smashing Pumpkins ever recorded, with underrated cuts like “Raindrops + Sunshowers” and “Try, Try, Try.” MACHINA II is the dark horse of the Smashing Pumpkins catalog, a lesser known release that diehards (and those who actually reviewed it) often identify as a lost classic quietly lingering at the end of the Smashing Pumpkins’ first phase, one that redeemed MACHINA. And, that’s part true — ironically, for a set of leftovers MACHINA II does have a solid structure and flow to it, and many of the songs are more immediate than those on its predecessor. MACHINA II is the more consistent record, but people are also wrong to entirely dismiss the hauntingly twilit dream-pop of the first MACHINA.

MACHINA I & II require a little sifting to discover its best moments, which in a way each Pumpkins record does. There’s just a little more murk to wade through here. Sure, there’s something to be said for spending time with MACHINA II in favor of MACHINA, or for the idea that if you culled the best of each disc you could have an absolutely brilliant Smashing Pumpkins album, but in true Corgan fashion what we actually have is the big, messy expanse of it. The fact that it has a bleary-eyed knowledge of its existence at the (supposed) end of their career makes it all the more engaging all these years later, post-reunion. It demands a lot of listens to work through everything on both installments of MACHINA, but if you’re at all invested in the Smashing Pumpkins it can be a sneakily rewarding listen.