Being Beige

"Being Beige"
Song

"Being Beige" is the first single from The Smashing Pumpkins's tenth album Monuments to an Elegy. The track was released through SoundCloud on October 20th, 2014.

Background and recording

In an interview with Roling Stone, Corgan stated: "People always ask me to explain songs, and honestly I can't," Corgan tells Rolling Stone. "But if there's honesty in this lyric, it's that there's something amiss in our cosmos. Yet still, we must love."

Reception

Rolling Stone stated: "Being Beige," the first finished track off the Smashing Pumpkins' forthcoming Monuments to an Elegy, has a simple title but its acoustic guitar and drum machine intro builds toward an urgent, memorable chorus, where singer Billy Corgan repeats the line, "The world's on fire" as the full band fills out the previously sparse tune."

Radio.com commented: "The song, released via Soundcloud, starts off with quieter, subdued vocals from frontman Billy Corgan. However, it eventually explodes into the louder, guitar-heavy fare for which the band is most known."

Chicago Reader commented: "Maybe the world's on fire (if we're taking "fire" to be a loose metaphor for Internet-fueled Ebola panic), but Corgan seems remarkably placid on this new cut. It sounds like Monuments, which features guest drumming from Mötley Crüe's Tommy Lee, won't be a retread of the Pumpkins' "rat in a cage" days. Corgan's putting his rage behind him in favor of a slow, piano-accented build toward the heights of songs like "Perfect" or the more energetic selections from his early-aughts stint with Zwan."

The 405 stated: "...the track features some pretty acoustic guitar arpeggios over mist-like drum machine sounds in its quieter moments, livening up to a crashing wave kineticism with sweeps of distorted guitar and aching melodies, as the vocals paint a stumbling melody over these sounds, layering towards the end in a maintained crescendo."