It was Election Day 2004. While the United States was locked in a bitter struggle over its political future, Billy Howerdel and Maynard James Keenan dropped a record that felt less like an album and more like a protest sign shoved into the dirt. A Perfect Circle eMOTIVe wasn't the follow-up to Thirteenth Step that anyone expected. Fans wanted more sweeping, melodic masterpieces like "The Noose" or "Weak and Powerless." Instead, they got a collection of covers—mostly—that felt jagged, electronic, and deeply cynical.
Honestly, it pissed a lot of people off.
Some critics called it lazy. Others thought it was too "on the nose." But looking back from 2026, the album feels strangely prophetic. It wasn't just a side project or a placeholder. It was a deliberate attempt to deconstruct the "peace" anthems of the past and see if they still had any teeth in a post-9/11 world. Spoiler: they didn't, at least not in the way we remembered them.
The War on the Radio: Why eMOTIVe Felt Like a Betrayal
Most bands release a covers album when they’ve run out of ideas. That wasn't the case here. You've got to understand the context of 2004. The Iraq War was in full swing. The Chicks (then the Dixie Chicks) had been effectively blacklisted for criticizing the President. The atmosphere was stifling.
When A Perfect Circle eMOTIVe hit the shelves, it didn't sound like a rock band playing in a garage. It sounded like a transmission from a bunker.
The tracklist was a bizarre roadmap of 20th-century dissent. You had John Lennon. You had Black Flag. You had Joni Mitchell and Devo. But Billy Howerdel, the primary architect of the APC sound, did something radical: he stripped away the recognizable hooks. He took "Imagine," arguably the most overplayed "hopeful" song in history, and turned it into a funeral dirge. It’s haunting. It’s dark. It feels like someone watching the world end through a CCTV camera.
Many listeners hated it. They wanted the soaring guitars. They got "Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums," which is basically a terrifying industrial remix of "Pet" from the previous album. It’s repetitive. It’s abrasive. It’s meant to be.
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Reimagining the Classics Without the Fluff
If you listen to the original "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye, there’s a sense of soul and community. A Perfect Circle took that and drained the blood out of it. It’s cold.
Maynard’s vocals on the record are some of his most restrained. He isn’t screaming. He’s whispering warnings. Take their version of Depeche Mode's "People Are People." In the 80s, it was a synth-pop plea for tolerance. In the hands of APC, it sounds like a resigned observation of human nature's worst impulses.
The Standout Tracks That Actually Worked
- Passive: This is the one "original" song, though it has roots in the defunct project Tapeworm (a collaboration between Maynard, Trent Reznor, and others). It’s the closest thing to "classic" APC on the record. It’s loud, bitter, and cathartic.
- When the Levee Breaks: Most people know the Led Zeppelin version. APC’s version is a slow-burn electronic nightmare. It feels heavy, but not because of the drums—because of the atmosphere.
- Freedom of Choice: Covering Devo is always a risk. Here, they turn a quirky New Wave track into a stern lecture about the dangers of apathy.
It’s worth noting that the lineup for this album was a bit of a revolving door. You had Josh Freese, Jeordie White, and even James Iha involved, but the core was really Billy and Maynard experimenting with Pro Tools and textures they hadn't touched before. It was a departure from the "supergroup" rock sound. It was an art project.
The Controversy of "Counting Bodies Like Sheep"
Is it a cover? Is it a remix? Technically, it’s a reimagining of their own song "Pet."
But the music video—directed by Floria Sigismondi—was what really stuck in people's throats. It featured creepy, animated political imagery that didn't hide its intentions. In the mid-2000s, this kind of overt political messaging was polarizing. Even within the fan base, people argued. "Just play the music," some said. But for Maynard, the music was the message.
The song’s mechanical, tribal beat mimics the "drums of war." It’s designed to make you feel like you’re being marched toward something you can’t control. It’s effective because it’s uncomfortable.
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Why 2004 Was the Only Year This Album Could Exist
A lot of people ask if A Perfect Circle eMOTIVe holds up. That’s a complicated question. If you’re looking for a "greatest hits" vibe, no, it doesn't. If you’re looking for a time capsule of a specific moment in American history when artists felt a desperate need to say something—anything—to wake people up, then it’s a masterpiece.
The album peaked at number 2 on the Billboard 200. That’s insane for a covers album this dark. It shows how much the audience was starving for a different perspective, even if they didn't necessarily "like" the sounds they were hearing.
Breaking Down the "Tapeworm" Connection
For years, industrial music fans obsessed over Tapeworm. It was the legendary "lost" project featuring Danny Lohner, Charlie Clouser, Trent Reznor, and Maynard. "Passive" (originally titled "Vacant") is the only real fruit of that labor that saw the light of day in this format.
Hearing "Passive" on eMOTIVe gave fans a glimpse into what might have been. It’s aggressive. It has that signature Nine Inch Nails-adjacent grit mixed with Billy Howerdel’s atmospheric production. It’s arguably the strongest track on the album because it carries the most raw emotion.
The Technical Shift: From Guitars to Glitch
Billy Howerdel is a guitar tech genius. That’s his background. But on this record, he leaned heavily into digital manipulation.
There are moments where the guitars are so processed they sound like synthesizers. "Annihilation" (a Crucifix cover) is almost entirely vocal-driven and atmospheric. This shift alienated the "Tool-lite" crowd who just wanted big riffs. But it paved the way for Billy’s later solo work in Ashes Divide and even the sounds we’d eventually hear on the 2018 APC comeback, Eat the Elephant.
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The Critics Were Split (And Still Are)
Rolling Stone gave it a lukewarm reception. Some fans on old forums (rest in peace) felt it was a "cash grab" for a covers record.
But if you look at the track "Fiddle and the Drum," a Joni Mitchell cover performed a cappella, you see the sincerity. It’s just Maynard’s voice, layered, singing about the sadness of a nation turning to war. You don't do that for a "cash grab." You do that because you’re heartbroken.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Listener
If you’re revisiting this album or diving in for the first time, don't treat it like a rock record. You'll be disappointed.
- Listen in context. Put yourself in the headspace of late 2004. The world felt like it was on a collision course.
- Compare the originals. Go back and listen to the Fear cover ("Let's Have a War") or the Marvin Gaye track. See how APC deliberately stripped the "fun" or "groove" out of them to highlight the lyrical darkness.
- Watch the "Imagine" video. It’s a stark contrast to the sugary, white-piano aesthetic of the original.
- Give "Passive" a loud listen. It’s the bridge between the APC of the past and the experimental nature of the present.
The legacy of A Perfect Circle eMOTIVe isn't about radio hits. It’s about the fact that a major rock band at the height of their fame chose to release something difficult, ugly, and politically charged when it would have been much easier to just write another radio-friendly ballad. It’s a document of frustration. Sometimes, that’s exactly what music needs to be.
If you want to understand the DNA of A Perfect Circle, you can't skip this. It's the moment they stopped being a "supergroup" and started being a mirror for the world's messiness. It’s not a comfortable listen, but then again, it was never meant to be.
Check out the "Amotion" DVD if you can find it. It contains the remixes and music videos from this era, which add a whole other layer of visual context to the audio. It completes the picture of what Maynard and Billy were trying to achieve during one of the most volatile periods in modern music history.