The Smashing Pumpkins – Machina / The Machines Of God

New Sealed Copy avail. Ships from USA. PM for info.

Why the hell is it blue? Got this for Christmas...doesn't have as much clarity as I'd love, and I hate the blurry cover art, but it's perfectly listenable and enjoyable. If you have issues with the mix, note also that this album was produced to intentionally be bad and annoying to listen to: it is sort of supposed to sound that crunchy and dense anyway.

Sealed copy available. 50€ plus shipping from Spain. P/m if interested

Horrendous sounding pressing. I bought it and I would have categorized it as the worst sounding record in my collection. Sounded like it was ripped off a low quality MP3. Save your money and keep streaming this one until a real pressing is made.

This blue pressing was so bad I had to return it for my money back.

Stay away from this one..can’t get worse.

Copy for sale, located in Germany. PM if interested and we work something out.

my 4/5 rating is based on this being a boot and not an official release. of course its not going to sound anywhere near an official release. for boot quality, i say this is pretty good. since the official re-release hasnt even been announced yet, this will scratch that itch if you arent down spending 450 on the original. I paid 50 bucks at my local shop, and I say thats fair but nothing more.

Physical / presentation:
- the records are heavyweight (180g)
- the cover is definitely enlarged JPEG, it's very clearly blurry in person
- the back cover text is redone from scratch so it looks clear
- no booklet / insert
- the inside of the sleeve itself is printed with the textures from the back cover, which is an interesting touch
- glossy finish on the sleeve
- inner sleeves are nice quality

Sound quality:
- there is a soft 'whoosh' sound as the record spins that you can hear during silence between tracks, but not really when the songs kick in. likely a lack of QA on the plastic / vinyl material used for pressing, not surprising
- Sub bass frequencies seem to be boosted throughout all the tracks so far - almost in the way a hi-fi system might do
- Notable (egregious!) high shelf cut at 10kHz on Raindrops + Sunshowers (maybe by about 3-5 dB?) and similar (but maybe less extreme) on a few other tracks - so much that i thought they might be a lower quality mp3 source, but after ripping a clip of it to check the spectrograph, it is definitely losslessly sourced, so some weird EQ choices

all in all, definitely audibly a bootleg on any decent system, but if you don't have a big preference for audio quality or just want to be able to spin this album it might do you. For me, it's mainly just increased my want for an official version but I do see myself listening to this a little bit.

there is an unmastered version of this album out there that could have been used to make a new vinyl master, bit of a missed opportunity here imo but whoever is pressing these clearly just saw a demand for this record and threw something together.

Listenable but almost every track appears to be ripped from a different source. ‘The Everlasting Gaze’ and ‘Stand Inside Your Love’ are great quality, but much of the other songs are poorer in quality and sound level

Please, please, do not waste your money on this release. It is CD-sourced garbage (from the Japan release), extremely poorly eq'ed, has volume variances from track to track, and just sounds like absolute ass. I get that we as SP fans want this badly on vinyl, but this release is why you don't buy boots. Universal has the masters from Billy, and it will get an official release, eventually. Avoid this like a $5 hooker on the docks.

Sound quality on this one is fantastic, I’d never say it was an unofficial pressing. It uses the Japanese release run order.

For the album itself, it was my first time listening to it since 2000, and it was quite a refreshing listen. It encompasses pretty well all of what the Pumpkins had done up to that point, and turns in a solid rocker with quieter moments that should definitely please fans of the band.