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Smashing Pumpkins is no more, but their music lives on forever.  Earphoria is a collection of live performances from concerts and TV shows, but is not the album for those hoping for a live version of their greatest hits.  The mishmash of songs is mostly Siamese Dream fare but the album sounds as if it was hastily thrown together in a last ditch attempt to capitalize on the now defunct band.  However, the album is apparently the soundtrack to the band’s home video Viewphoria and is an official re-release of a hard to find collector’s promotional CD that came with the video.  

The songs themselves are tried and true; the producers knew they could do no wrong with well-known favorites such as “Disarm” and “Today.”  However, the music is not as important in a live album as the energetic, wonderfully spontaneous and raw presentation of that music.  Earphoria is certainly raw, but too raw.  A few of the tracks do not sound digitally remastered; some of the songs have that pirated-off-the-radio fuzziness and some almost sound like they were recorded by a concertgoer with a tape recorder.  One of such tracks is the delicate and delicious “Soma”; this performance ends abruptly in the middle of audience applause without any fading.  However, some tracks perfectly capture the vivacious spirit of the band despite the unpolished recording.  “Quiet” is edgy and full of guitar-laden zest while Silverf*** demonstrates the ebb and flow of a wave with its subtle, slower periods that swell into frenzied flashes of guitar.  An unplugged-sounding “Mayonaise” is sweet and understated, while “Disarm” is harder and heavier than the original.  Any hardcore Smashing Pumpkins fan will treasure “French Move Theme” and the long-winded 15-minute “Why Am I So Tired” for their uniqueness. 

Earphoria is not euphoria. The songs and some performances possess the live spark while others simply do not.  Perhaps the unpolished element was deliberate because the album is not a live one on its own but is a soundtrack; nevertheless it sounds rough.  Any Smashing Pumpkins fan will love to add the missing link to their collection, but many other fans may feel cheated.  The album had good elements that could be mastered and put together in a superb live collection instead of being released as is.  Billy Corgan’s perfectionist attitude that keeps his music sounding top notch has failed him this one time.