Back in the '90s...

Whatever happened to the mid-'90s? Think back: it's 1995. Kurt Cobain is dead, Hanson is unheard of, and Britney Spears is still in middle school. As Soundgarden and Pearl Jam slip off the charts, latecomers are thriving. Oasis rule the UK, sitting atop several massive singles and spouting rhetoric about being the next Beatles. Smashing Pumpkins, a band that began early in the decade, is blowing up, fresh off the 1994 Lollapalooza tour and readying the release of a dizzying double-album for 1996. By the time it drops, lead singer/mastermind Billy Corgan is talking seriously about the Pumpkins becoming "the biggest rock band in the world," and he has a fairly legitimate claim to it. The band's 1996 tour run is huge, taking them on multi-night trips to every conceivable global locale. Singles like "Zero" and "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" rule rock radio, while "1979" proves a massive crossover smash.

By the time these bands released their next albums-1997's Be Here Now and 1998's Adore, respectively, nobody in Spiceworld gave a damn. Oasis suffered because their record just plain sucked; the Pumpkins made an introspective, quiet album and got ignored. The bands dropped off the map as the much-maligned Backstreets and Bizkits took over. Looking at today's back-to-back releases, it begs the question: Does anyone still care? Should they?

Oasis have definitely come back strong. The Beatlesque brutes have always had their detractors, as would any blue-collar outfit comprised of a couple of punk-assed, trash-talking half-wits. However, Oasis' strength doesn't come from arty flourishes (that's what Blur was for, remember?), but from consistent, conservative hooks, bellowing choruses and stadium-rocking production. That's all we're ever likely to get out of them, and that's all they want to give us. Standing On the Shoulders of Giants is perhaps the band's strongest work since their debut. Singles like "Go Let It Out" and "Roll It Over" rock as hard as anything in the catalog. There's still some evidence of Noel's Chemical Brothers obsessions in the form of drum loops and perfunctory DJ scratching, but overall, Standing stands as a monument to straight-ahead, bang-out rock and roll. If that's your bag, Oasis is still your band.

Not so for bald Billy and the pugnacious Pumpkins. Regardless of its merits, Machina: The Machines of God is doubtlessly the worst Smashing Pumpkins album. Lacking the heady experimentalism of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and the underrated eloquence of Adore, this album coasts on waves of shimmering guitar noise and autopilot hooks. Given Billy Corgan's reputation as a prolific songwriter, Machina shows how far he has slipped; most of these songs don't pack the appeal of the Mellon Collie b-sides collected on The Aeroplane Flies High box set, or even "Eye," the band's contribution to the Lost Highway soundtrack. The new songs are mostly repetitive and hookless screeds that, while not quite ear-splitting, don't invite repeat listening. Indeed, Machina finds the Pumpkins at a frustrating crossroads, trying hard to keep up with the times and its original rock aesthetic, trying to be relevant in a post-rock world. With Machina, the Pumpkins fail miserably. Billy Corgan's voice has never been good-he sounds like a transvestite prostitute trapped in a forest fire-but at least his pain managed to resonate before. This time, he, and much of his songwriting, just stinks. Machina won't totally disappoint Pumpkins fans, at least not the more rock-hungry ones, but it isn't likely to earn any new converts, either.

Like the hair metal of the late 80s, the Pumpkins' post-grunge, pre-Backstreet alternarock isn't going to cut it this decade. Oasis, with their more timeless, less innovative material, isn't likely to equal their early achievements either. The difference is one of ambition; the Gallaghers are sticking to what they do best, crafting punchy rock anthems from their library of Beatles and Stones riffs. While Lennon and McCartney they ain't, this approach isn't as disappointing as watching the slide of a once-interesting and progressive band into failed attempts at reinvention. Like the laughable Skid Row/Mötley Crüe days, the mid-90s sound is showing a lack of staying power that will make anyone who lived it feel old.