Cast the POLLs Aside: the definitive SMASHING PUMPKINS albums poll

I care about nothing past Adore

while I love parts of Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie, this has to Adore vs Gish for me

Adore has always been fantastic but I've never put it on loop for hours the way I have with Gish

Siamese Dream. I'm boring. But that album rocks it.

Also, how had I missed that his last album was called Monuments to an Elegy. Beautiful. Reminds me of: These extremely metal song titles: which is the most metal?

adore, though shouts out to machina ii which is prob the sp record i'm most likely to listen to these days

mellon collie the one i liked most at the time but if i was going to listen to them now i'd pick siamese dream for nostalgia reasons, because i've always LOVED 'rocket', and because all the aspects of corgan i loathe so much - his voice, his lyrics, his weird petty insecurity against 'cool' - have in this case at least become amusing w/ time. still kind of amazing to me that this band, coming off two huge multihit albums that were so big they both generated their own successful b-side comp cashins, would crash to earth w/ not too huge a change of sound and then bow out defeated and generally unmourned in the larger culture shortly after.

super disappointed after that intro that this didn't turn out to be a parody poll

The love that Adore has been getting in recent years is interesting, considering how reviled it was at the time among a lot of fans. I hardly ever play it anymore, but I still have a soft spot for it since I saw them on that tour, where they played mostly theatre venues.

The Aeroplane has some interesting gems on it for those willing to sift it, plus I still have the original box.

But the answer is Mellon Collie.

sift *through* it

gish with paws chicago a close second

can't imagine any reason to go for anything beyond one of the first two, but Pumpfans are a strange lot

Pisces Iscariot!!!!!!!!!!

Siamese Dream without thinking

Siamese or Gish. Pisces is boring IMO

Very tough choice between SD and MCIS. Didn't really REALLY get into the former until much much later, so while I do think it's the stronger, more powerful record, Mellon Collie kinda defines my Pumpkins fandom and it has so so much great shit on it (plus a sprinkling of yawners, unfortunately). Hrm.

Teargarden by Kaleidyscope

he named an album Teargarden by Kaleidyscope

love the first four, but guess I'll go with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, which is just as terrible a name as Teargarden by Kaleidyscope

It's Siamese Dream, and it's not even close.

Mellon Collie kinda defines my Pumpkins fandom and it has so so much great shit on it (plus a sprinkling of yawners, unfortunately)

same, but i think by this point most people have their own custom version of it that involves skipping past certain tracks. the fact that no one can agree which tracks are skippable speaks to the quality of the album i think

ranked

siamese dream
melon collie
pisces iscariot
aeroplane flies high
gish
machina
machine 2
adore

what did adore to you!?

see also:

"Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" by the Smashing Pumpkins
MELLON POLLIE AND THE INFINITE SADNESS

xp i was so disappointed by it at the time, listened to it a bunch and really only dug "appels + oranjes" and "pug". not into all the syrupy balladry. i think i like it better these days, actually.

loved "eye". that's a top 5 pumpkins tune, imo.

i have signed up to do the Smashing Pumpkins poll. so you can look for that in about two or three years.

my vote will always be Siamese Dream, with Gish coming in second.

I never thought anyone would think of machina II as a possible best album, which is very cool. I guess I never read an enthusiastic text about it and it's always cool to have a counterpoint view.
But I'm boring as hell and I think I choose mellon collie or Siamese Dream.

1 siamese dreams
2 pisces
3 mellon collie

never liked the rest

i'd take mashed potatoes between pisces and aeroplane if it had been included

take = place

I love all their records. But the only choice for me is Mellon Collie. A song for every mood, every feeling, a work that towers over everything else in its era. I wouldn't cut a single song on it, except maybe "Love" - but I have no idea what I'd put in its place. Coming after the goose-step assault of "Fuck You," the only logical choice as a comedown is to go for something sinister but goofy to lead into the lush "Cupid de Locke."

I'm always surprised that the band's sense of humor isn't appreciated more. I mean, sequencing "Jellybelly" right after "Tonight, Tonight"? Even more severe, "Tales of a Scorched Earth" after "1979"? Some people itt find it ridiculous that Corgan would name an album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Maybe he should have called it Monuments to an Elegy.

I wouldn't cut a single song on it, except maybe "Love"

insane!

crikey, there's a full-on grunge revival going on. I love the first four albums (Siamese Dream slightly less than the others for some reason), and know nothing afterwords.

Mellon Collie is ofc a masterpiece, although I'd be more likely to listen to Adore or Gish these days.

Voted Mellon Collie. Siamese Dream has a few good songs but is kind of boring and overrated. Mayonaise remains one of their best songs though.

Mellon Collie is the easy pick for me, although I'm still pissed because my wife bought me the fancy vinyl box, which, while a lovely thing to look at, sounds like utter shit. If you are going to make an expensive collector's item, make sure that you don't completely screw it up.

what are people's complaints about MC again? Is it some hangover from nineties prog-distrust?

xp Did she get it for you right when it came out in 2012? The first pressing was recalled. "Zero" is overcooked beyond belief. I got a subsequent pressing and it sounds great.

flappy bird - I love 'Love'. Those phasing guitars

if i cut anything from mellon collie it'd be the aggro tunes ("fuck you," "tales of a scorched earth," "xyu")

yes, I believe that's it, "Zero" is indeed very distorted.

xxp

"love" rules. when i first heard it i thought my cd player was broken

yeah it's a strange thing about "Love." Whenever I think or talk about cutting it or not liking it, I can't think of a single song on TAFH that would fit better in that slot. I do love the sound of the absurdly flanged out guitars and Billy's distorted vocal. Sweet guitar synth solo from James on there too. I always appreciate it when I listen to the album in sequence (pretty much every plane ride I take), but I never listen to it on its own. I've cycled through being obsessed with every other song on this album though.

i tried to make an alternate mellon collie tracklist but i think the last seven tracks are all potential "last tracks" which gives it a weird rhythm https://open.spotify.com/user/unbornwhiskey/playlist/4MWIKGgMknTs6PsiCCGCSd

anyway if you were looking for a replacement for "love" in the regular order, imo "cherry" works

mellon collie was my first pumpkins record and like one of the first cds i ever bought and for some reason it's hard for me now to see the flow between tracks as anything but fractured and distracting. wish anyone but flood and billy had tried to stitch something coherent out of this material, but maybe it's impossible lol

for such a long album, it's really well sequenced. It's as though Billy said to himself 'right, I'm going to write a song to round off side 2 of the second disc or something...

I have a huge amount of love for the silly songs at the end, especially 'Beautiful' and 'We Only Come Out At Night'.

oh yeah that's the best part of the record imo

haha. i wrote that about the sequencing before your post Brad.

It was my first Pumpkins album as well, and I was just young enough to pretty much take the whole thing as an infallible, incontestable whole.

yeah now i think "1979"/"tales of a scorched earth"/"thru the eyes of ruby" is a...bit much

i'm learning how to play drums rn and i've been going out of my way not to listen to jimmy bc i don't want to intimidate myself that hard. anyway that plan didn't work out. wtf is even going on in "porcelina"

There's a lot I might cut from MCIS but "Love" would definitely be a keeper for me!

the fills on "muzzle" are giving me vertigo

the James Iha song is hideous

what are people's complaints about MC again?

It's way too long and the only songs on it I ever actively want to hear are the singles; I've enjoyed other songs on the album but I literally have no memory of any them and never feel like going back through the entire album to get to know them.

PI no question. the first two are still a pretty dece listen, though nostalgia may be weighing heavily for me here. i really can not abide anything else.

Brad you cant cut "xyu" bcz Billy Corgan is made of shamrocks!

(Or more aptly "nmade nof shnam nrocks")

Anywats, voted Pisces without a thought.

I have yet to come across a sequence for Mellon Collie I prefer to the original, which considering it's 28 songs + a full 2 hrs (making it easily the longest studio rock album I have ever owned), that's sort of remarkable.

Still, Siamese Dream > Adore > Mellon Collie > Gish > the rest.

the original vinyl press from 1996 has a totally re-ordered sequence, it's an interesting alternate perspective but in no way better than the standard sequence:

Side 1 – Dawn

1. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
2. Tonight, Tonight
3. Thirty-three
4. In the Arms of Sleep
5. Take Me Down

Side 2 – Tea Time

1. Jellybelly
2. Bodies
3. To Forgive
4. Here Is No Why
5. Porcelina of the Vast Oceans

Side 3 – Dusk

1. Bullet with Butterfly Wings
2. Thru the Eyes of Ruby
3. Muzzle
4. Galapogos
5. Tales of a Scorched Earth

Side 4 – Twilight

1. 1979
2. Beautiful
3. Cupid de Locke
4. By Starlight
5. We Only Come Out at Night

Side 5 – Midnight

1. Where Boys Fear to Tread
2. Zero
3. Fuck You (An Ode to No One)
4. Love
5. X.Y.U.

Side 6 – Starlight

1. Stumbleine
2. Lily (My One and Only)
3. Tonite Reprise
4. Farewell and Goodnight
5. Infinite Sadness

Pisces Iscariot works remarkably well as a suite, considering it's a b-sides comp

Man, SP were my first love. I used to ride my bike to the local record store just in the hopes that they gotten a new $25 import in. Live stuff, interview discs (kindly shopkeeper: "You know there's no music on this, right?").

I always tried to love Adore (I was 16 at the time, my grandpa bought it for me), but it's still never clicked. I vote Mellon Collie (barely) over SD and Pisces. Oh man, Gish...

The Machinas are a downright sludge. Some really great songs, but I find the albums tough to get through from end to end.

Flappy bird, you're right: you could put together a comp of stuff from Zeitgeist until today that I would have been ecstatic with had it come out in the late 1990s.

*had gotten

never listened to the MCAtIS vinyl ordering but it looks like a slog, just a "guiet side" / "loud side" pairing three times over.

I like that ordering

Pisces Iscariot works remarkably well as a suite, considering it's a b-sides comp

― TARANTINO! (dog latin), Friday, April 15, 2016 3:56 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Otm, and I'd go so far as to say that it's curated so that it can function as a decent intermediate point between Siamese Dream & Mellon Collie...hell I've even begun to think of it a little as SD's "Twilight to Starlight"

you could put together a comp of stuff from Zeitgeist until today that I would have been ecstatic with had it come out in the late 1990s.

feel like i'm up to this challenge but i also feel like i diverge with most people on what the good sp reunion tracks are

Mellon Collie has all my favourite things about them even though the sequencing is a mess but idk if there's really any way to make it make sense without cutting it down. I don't really care for a lot of the heavier tracks but it's impressively solid. It's a really fantastic sounding album too - it's strange how much worse Adore sounds, which is probably the biggest weakness of that.

Adore largely has great songs and I really like what it seems to be going for but the textures are too muffled and gloomy and really let it down.

the mix on Zeitgeist is horrible iirc

I really disagree that adore sounds worse than mellon collie although I'm not sure how you're determining that!

i was just thinking about how lovely "perfect" sounds yesterday. imo it's closer to a shoegaze song than anything on sd in terms of writing, layering, etc. but every element still feels really in focus even as it rushes by

I agree that Adore is gloomy, but I find the production really striking and not dated at all. That was the first album where the songs went through dozens of different arrangements and versions before Billy settled on one that would go on the album, but going through the demos and outtakes, there aren't any songs on the album proper where I prefer one of the different versions. Some of the b-sides though... the solo vocal + piano arrangement of "Saturnine" is beautiful, and I can't stand the ugly industrial grit of the Rarities & B-Sides version. "Appels + Oranjes" is the one thing on there that sounds very 1998, but I still love it. The "What If?" demo of that song is pretty cool as a curio, sounds like a folk song, but it's no way superior to the album version. I will say that the version on "Pug" they played on the Arising! tour in 1999 fucking slays the version on Adore.

How many of y'all have heard the mono mix of Adore? It's not drastically different, although "Crestfallen" benefits from being sped up a little bit.

lol i was going to mention the first vinyl record i ever owned was adore bc i really wanted to hear the mono mix

btw this is my comp of SP2 keeper tracks...

Cottonwood Symphony
A Song for a Son
Quasar
Panopticon
The Celestials
One and All
Being Beige
That’s the Way (My Love Is)
The Rose March
United States
Sunkissed
Monuments
Stellar
99 Floors
Pinwheels
Bleeding the Orchid
Spangled
A Stitch in Time
Oceania
Superchrist
Tiberius
7 Shades of Black
As Rome Burns
Violet Rays
My Love is Winter
The Chimera
Inkless
Again, Again, Again (The Crux)
Gossamer
Owata

My contradiction here is that Chamberlain was by far the most talented artist on the Pumpkins but my favorite record of them is Adore, the only one I get back to beyond the singles.

amazing show from 20 years ago today, incredible sounding bootleg for an audience recording. insane setlist, featuring a few songs they rarely played live, only on really good nights (Here is No Why, Bodies, Farewell and Goodnight). really worth a listen if you're a big MCIS fan.

https://archive.org/details/tsp1996-04-15.flac16

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Tonight, Tonight
Zero
Fuck You (An Ode to No One)
Here is No Why
To Forgive
Bullet with Butterfly Wings
Thru the Eyes of Ruby
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
Disarm
By Starlight
Geek U.S.A.
Cherub Rock
Muzzle
---
1979
X.Y.U.
---
Germans in Leather Pants (tease)
Today
Mayonaise
---
Bodies
Silverfuck
Farewell and Goodnight

The production on Adore doesn't sound dated as much as just quite weird and singular in a way that doesn't really work for me. Mellon Collie is so warm and up-front while Adore is muffled and blurry, with a weird shine to it. I'm mostly just not fond of the muffled tone of everything, though it's definitely not as bad as Machina which went much further with that weird dull glossy tone. It's very strange to me that they went for that after how lovely the tones are on the previous albums. Sometimes it feels like it's aiming for a sort of retro production style but taken in a different direction?

I'd never thought about it before but I agree that it has a similar feeling to shoegaze. A lot of it feels more about things being implicitly felt, rather than easily picked out, especially the percussion which often doesn't have much weight to it. It's a very interesting mix. I still really like Adore a lot despite disliking the production though, Annie-Dog is the only weak track.

I hate many of the songs flappy bird listed, especially "spangled"

Adore still sounds amazing. If anything it makes me wish some bits of MCAtIS were produced the same way

ma belle
stellar
lightning strikes
violet rays
tom tom
the fellowship
astral planes
bring the light
panopticon
cottonwood symphony
one diamond, one heart
pale horse
death from above
being beige
anti-hero
one and all

that's about it

They never topped Gish. What an amazing psychedelic album.

i added spangled at the last minute. one of those songs that's so stupid but won't leave my head, even though i haven't heard it in nearly six years. i'd add tarantula to my list, i guess. seems like the consensus is that all the best Zeitgeist era songs were left off the album and relegated to those Best Buy/Target/Wal-Mart exclusive editions. What a fiasco.

I voted

voted Adore.

btw this is my comp of SP2 keeper tracks...

Cottonwood Symphony
A Song for a Son
Quasar
Panopticon
The Celestials
One and All
Being Beige
That’s the Way (My Love Is)
The Rose March
United States
Sunkissed
Monuments
Stellar
99 Floors
Pinwheels
Bleeding the Orchid
Spangled
A Stitch in Time
Oceania
Superchrist
Tiberius
7 Shades of Black
As Rome Burns
Violet Rays
My Love is Winter
The Chimera
Inkless
Again, Again, Again (The Crux)
Gossamer
Owata

― flappy bird, Friday, April 15, 2016 1:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No "Tarantula"?

very strange to look at the list of albums and realize how many arrived beyond the point where most people jumped ship.

I don't know, it's hard for me to imagine too many people hearing sucky-period smashing pumpkins first and then getting excited and working their way back. Seems more likely that the any fans of their sucky-period are a steadily diminishing portion of their older audience. But I dunno

Sorry if anyone I'd really pumped about modern SP

is

xp yeah Ray I forgot about Tarantula, I'd add that. keep in mind i almost never listen to any of those songs, but every time Billy puts out a new record, I'll get it and give it a chance. I thought Monuments to an Elegy was the most consistent thing he's done in a while, pretty much free of baggage (shortest SP album ever - who would've thought BC would ever be able to release an album under 40 minutes)

When Zeitgeist came out I got a promo and played it a lot for a review; that's the last time I really was able to invest myself in a new Pumpkins album, and overall (with the exception of "Tarantula) I hated, hated, hated that record.

Bought Oceania not long ago at WalMart because it was on sale new for $5, played it twice, made very little impact. I guess I've heard other songs here and there without getting excited. Sometimes I wonder exactly when Corgan lost the ability to nail a song/vibe, to deliver in a way that could be appreciated on a large scale? It can't all be down to generational or cultural shifts, and as much as the Machinas are troubled there are solid tunes in there.

He overthinks everything, and he's desperate to reclaim some pop success instead of embracing the cult following he has and has been slowly whittling away ever since the band got back together in 2007.

Zwan = they wrote and recorded 100+ songs, he left out most of the best ones and all the ones that were co-written with Sweeney and/or Pajo to retain publishing, is still sitting on the studio recordings of amazing songs like "Chrysanthemum" and "Rivers We Can't Cross" because he "can't stomach having to deal with the other band members," even on a legal/business level.

TheFutureEmbrace = he scrapped his all acoustic "Chicago Kid" record after reading negative comments on fucking Netphoria the morning after the one show he played, fans were complaining about no loud guitars and he shitcanned the thing. Always says "it's the best thing I've ever done, and it's just sitting in a box." Ooooookkkkk.....

Zeitgeist = Thought the band needed to be reintroduced with a simple, SUPER HEAVY record. vox are mixed way too high and dry. he fucked up the release with all those chain store exclusives. got independent record stores and the indie community pissed off again...

Teargarden by Kaleidyscope = declared the album was dead in 2009. this was his biggest disaster by far. the song were shit, jimmy just left the band, and the release schedule quickly fell off. another super ambitious project abandoned.

Oceania = good, but for the first time he conceded to making a middling paint-by-numbers record and it showed. world tour where they played the album in full was undersold. i saw the barclays show in NYC that ended up coming out on blu ray and dvd and the place by less than half full.

Monuments to an Elegy = the best of the post reunion records. the concept is "we're going to emulate the version of the band that people remember but never actually existed." i.e. easily digestible pop songs with meaningless lyrics and catchy octave chord riffs and yeah it's super short. drums are finally good again. still a failure, sold 30,000 copies, he abandoned the follow up "Day for Night" and well, now we're here...

Listening to them again after a very long time away, what really hits me about "Thirty Three" and "1979" is how they feel like a direct mixture of the best qualities of Buckingham and Nicks' songs on Tusk. It's a very specific vibe that I wish the band (in its first incarnation; I have no idea about the post-90s records) had captured more often.

(You'd expect Corgan's work with Hole to repeat this quality, but it doesn't, maybe because Courtney's vocals take those songs to different places)

I don't care much for it, but "once upon a time" totally had that vibe of which you speak

"Obscured" too

He overthinks everything, and he's desperate to reclaim some pop success instead of embracing the cult following he has and has been slowly whittling away ever since the band got back together in 2007.

iirc he also says he doesn't really listen to his own recordings after they've been released. which I guess isn't that weird.

is that quote from after 2007? bc he listened to his own albums all the time in the 90s, could dig up some interviews on Starla.org... allegedly he went on a road trip in 1997 and listened to MCIS on a really tinny stereo and freaked out to some of his friends about how nasal and thin his voice sounded, then he got vocal lessons for Adore...

Listening to them again after a very long time away, what really hits me about "Thirty Three" and "1979" is how they feel like a direct mixture of the best qualities of Buckingham and Nicks' songs on Tusk. It's a very specific vibe that I wish the band (in its first incarnation; I have no idea about the post-90s records) had captured more often.

― Tim F, Sunday, 17 April 2016 22:17 (Yesterday) Permalink

sounds like "Adore" to me!

Or the should've been a double A-side: "Meladori Magpie" & "Rotten Apples"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FtVaq-xVh0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE8vYTHFIfc

sounds like "Adore" to me!

lol i was about to say the same thing but i assume tim's spent time with adore

I'm not hearing it, except for "once upon a time"

Then again, I don't know how 1979 sounds Mac-ish either. More like modern English. Whatev!

Is it like when ppl were hallucinating junior boys sounding like hall & Oates?

Yeah, no, Adore has a vibe which is not unconnected but which is not same thing IMO.

From memory the album is a lot less sharply drawn than these songs, for starters.

If any of y'all stopped at Adore, the Machina albums are really worth listening to. Unfortunately, it's an unfinished work, but there are tons of great songs and tunes and sounds on both records. Billy described the guitar sound on Machina as "Judas Priest meets Simple Minds." Really obvious on these songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wOD7uK4Z98

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q10-jHmXr9I

Here's an attempt at creating the complete machina.

http://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.no/2014/05/the-smashing-pumpkins-glass-and.html

allegedly he went on a road trip in 1997 and listened to MCIS on a really tinny stereo and freaked out to some of his friends about how nasal and thin his voice sounded, then he got vocal lessons for Adore...

I like Billy's voice a whole lot more before these "vocal lessons"

it's strange, Adore has some of his best vocals, particularly "Blank Page." after those lessons, he was able to hit higher notes without screeching or distorting. But that passion in trying to hit notes he couldn't was what made his singing so endearing. I was listening to "Blank Page" the other day and my girlfriend thought D'arcy was singing. But circa Zwan, and especially when he came back with Zeitgeist, his voice just sounded absolutely terrible. Dropping consonants, just sounding like Leo Kottke, "geese farts on a muggy day"...

Here's an attempt at creating the complete machina.

http://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.no/2014/05/the-smashing-pumpkins-glass-and.html

― satins favourite son, Monday, April 18, 2016 1:01 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is awesome! thanks for sharing

If any of y'all stopped at Adore, the Machina albums are really worth listening to

I believe this. I Will probably never listen to them by choice.

Some of the songs from Machina are spectacular ("Age of Innocence" and "Cash Car Star"-the latter could've been a big hit), but the
production is atrocious-a thick, over-compressed nightmare

Also, I think ADORE might have the band's best song ever-"Annie-Dog". Gorgeous ballad.

xp yeah, "Cash Car Star" was the song Virgin wanted as the first single from Machina - again, some executive implored Billy "constant KROQ rotation!" - but ever since Adore, he's made a habit of self-sabotage. The most egregious example is cutting the Rick Rubin produced version of "Let Me Give the World to You" from Adore literally out of spite. It was supposed to be the lead single, and at a meeting with label people, Billy picked up on the fact that no one them liked the album except for that song so he cut it. It was supposed to be the last song, after "Blank Page." That would've been a big hit, and salvaged the album and his career. Unbelievable.

Corgan really is like Prince-the man needs to be reigned in by someone with sense. Maybe Butch Vig could do that. Who knows

My favorite abandoned Corgan project might be the novel has was supposedly writing 15 years ago

It was supposed to be the last song, after "Blank Page."

in retrospect he was completely right to cut it (and I sort of doubt that in the '98 pop universe "let me give the world to you" would've done anything)

From the MACHINA era I always had a deep love for "this time", still one of their best songs. But usually people don't care about it, unfortunately.

i also sorta love the production on machina but when i bought it i was too young to know any better, and now it's too late

also idk if that "let me give the world to you" track placement story is apocryphal, it's sorta clear to me that adore was supposed to end with "blissed and gone," thus "17"

idk, "Let Me Give the World to You" would've been way more appealing to radio than "Ava Adore." they should've made "Perfect" the first single. i agree that ending on "Blank Page" is just absolutely devastating, just no hope left...

i've come to love the production on Machina. really colorful and gooey. pretty much everything on there except "Heavy Metal Machine" and "Blue Skies Bring Tears" is great, and yeah, "This Time" is a beautiful song, also explicitly about the breakup of the band.

xp it's not apocryphal, Billy revealed the whole LMGTWTY fiasco in the liner notes to the 2014 Adore reissue

shouts out "blissed and gone" one of their best ever b-sides

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es-StbxiMBs

'machina' was the first album I heard of them (I was around 11/12), although my interest started around 'adore' when I saw the videos of 'perfect' and 'Ava adore'.
It started an obsession with this band, which is weird because when I was a big fan of them they were ending. And I remember so well to find some songs of the machina era so weird and strange that I didn't know what to do with them. I spent a lot of nights trying to imagine what the hell was going on with 'glass and the ghost children'.
In some ways 'machina' has a more nostalgic resonance on me than 'Mellon collie' or 'Siamese Dream', which I still think has some of their best songs (I'm kinda bored, soz).

yeah "blissed and gone" was supposed to end the record

I am ready to reveal that this small offering is "Blissed and Gone," the track I so rashly left off of 'Adore.' And what precipitated the decision might be found in an encounter I had with producer and friend Rick Rubin, in whom management had asked to survey my progress; which at that time had ground to a standstill. "Whoa," he said when hearing the looped version of the greater song. "Whoa." in this I took whoa to mean "not good," and abandoned it like so many others that were worthy. The last of which was Rick's oversight of "Let Me Give the World to You," which the label had pegged as their only hope to sell more plastic. So let the circle be complete, because if you are reading this, then you've made them happy.

lol of course the same thing happened when billy like searched flood's face for some meaning when he first played him "set the ray to jerry"

"Set the Ray to Jerry" would've fit nicely after "Porcelina" instead of "Take Me Down" or in place of "In the Arms of Sleep." Two songs you can't really cut, though.

oddly interested in listening to that 'reconstructed' machina, esp. if it means hearing the machina ii tracks in something other than the really distorted and shitty sounding mp3s i've had since it came out. but the links to the files pop up big browser security warnings and i am kinda overly cautious about those.

this might be an improvement on what you have, it's a virgin cd promo of Machina II, still sourced from vinyl, but better than the Agnew rip that most people have, which runs fast

https://archive.org/details/machina.II.ver.Virgin

first album best album

looks like no album is gonna pull away with this one. genuinely surprised no one has mentioned the Greatest Hits

flappy bird - awesome, thank you, DLing now.

I really, really want to review one (or both if two) versions of Machina if they're ever reissued.

The only post-Adore Pumpkins song I listen to is "White Spyder." That song is a monster.

This would have been the ideal way to end the career. Weird to think there was a moment where this looked like all she wrote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2H1y755PQk

(Ack, this is the Judas O version - the Machina II version is better.)

THIS version. This one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwWcO_oLLCM

Something telling and perfect about the vocal track cut short too soon.

that Judas O version sucks. love the Machina II one

imo they're both good

what do you think about "Heavy Metal Machine," brad? imo that's the worst thing SP1 did by a longshot

"heavy metal machine" is awful, machina would be 100 percent better without it as much as it's "important" to the "concept"

i liked it a lot when i was 12 though, i thought the chorus was super pretty

agree 100%, every time i go back to reevaluate Machina i'm like "this is actually pretty great, i like the production now, and the songs rule," then it hits HMM and im just like FUCK. but yeah, take that out and the only clunker left is Blue Skies Bring Tears, which is just a lousy arrangement. i love his acoustic demo of that song. also Raindrops and Sunshowers, another shit version. this straightforward take on it is fucking awesome though, leaked in 2014:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwYtXdcVWOA

mellon collie was one of those defining albums of my early music life so that's where my vote goes

i like "raindrops" as it is on the record. it sorta sounds like a rainstorm

"blue skies bring tears" is weird. i like all the versions of it ok but the arising arrangement is clearly >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

agreed. whereas "The Imploding Voice" is vastly improved as it appears on Machina. such a beautiful/heavy song. perfectly captures that "Judas Priest meets Simple Minds" vision that Billy had for the album for whatever reason

was typing this on the kim thayil corgan mockery thread but figured it made more sense here, if it makes sense at all: their arc would look a lot more continuous and coherent if adore had either gone full on for the eye/ava-adore/TEITBITE "alt rock bands are going electronica!" kinda thing, more obviously bridging MCIS and machina, or if it had been all-acoustic, this dreamy singer-songwriter kind of sideways move, a clearer kind of 'therapy' record, after which it's sort of obvious that the "return to rock" follow up will be a hollow, hearts-not-in-it kind of thing and somehow it makes total sense that what had been one of the biggest rock bands in the world (maybe the biggest?) five years earlier would put out a flop concept album nobody besides fans remembers and break up.

who knows though. the production on that record is just horrible and it's totally possible that with a slightly different lineup of material, a less grating and gooey sound, and the right singles it could have limped by. "dross" and "cash car star," which iirc leaked well in advance of the album, suggested at least that if it was a 'return to rock' it was one that rock fans would like, even if it was out of step with alt-rock radio in 2000. mind you i think the album's actual problems are with 'heavy metal machine' etc, not 'with every light,' but man it is a mess all put together.

Can't remember if I've already posted this, but Billy said in a recent fan Q&A that after Adore tanked with critics and fans and his label, he "re-cloaked" - he talked about being an abused child, you "cloak" and put up defense to keep yourself from getting hurt. after cutting his veins open with the Pumpkins' first four records, he re-cloaked with Machina and in his words, hasn't opened up again since. A common complaint amongst hardcore SP fans is how shallow and insincere his lyrics have been in the past fifteen years, maybe starting with Zwan. I thought it was pretty striking, really sad, and while that might read as an excuse to some people, I think it's obvious that he was profoundly devastated by losing his mother, his wife, his drummer, and his fame in the span of like three years. No wonder he's been so fucked up ever since.

btw I just saw them on the new tour and it's definitely the best nu-pumpkins set i've seen. schroeder is kind of a wonderful guitarist, all of his little improvisations added a ton to like..."soma" even, a song i feel you can't really add much to guitar-wise. jimmy's only onstage for about half of it but it's so thrilling to see him drum, especially with the subtle ways he's rearranged the drum parts for the softer pallette. "eye" live was kinda incredible. they've been closing with "the spaniards" which sounded amazing and is maybe my favorite nu-pumpkins track?

the original vinyl press from 1996 has a totally re-ordered sequence, it's an interesting alternate perspective but in no way better than the standard sequence:

I've been listening to this ordering on Spotify via the playlist feature and I like it a lot better this way! the flow just sounds more natural. it makes me better appreciate the tracks I paid less attention to back in the day. nb I've always skipped around the original album more than listened to it straight through. I like the idea of Mellon Collie as six killer EPs rather than two sprawling CDs.

recent setlist:

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-smashing-pumpkins/2016/saenger-performing-arts-theater-new-orleans-la-3f1c943.html

fuck is "Hummer" a great song or what

I was at that saenger show and it was incredible but my god the crowd sucked

were they begging for the hits over and over

i wonder what % of smashing pumpkins fans feature either shitty sound or audience

not even that, just people talking loudly throughout the (relatively quiet) set and many ppl abandoning the show halfway through

xpost shows, i meant

I saw the DC show of the current tour, and the crowd was mostly older, very respectful. i feel like the Pumpkins have a good history with DC. like, the biggest laugh of the night was when Billy began to introduce the Siamese Dream suite, people started calling out song titles, and he just stops and says "OK, this isn't the part of the show where you yell dumb shit at me."

Pisces Iscariot

Sort of stunned by all the love for Pisces Iscariot. Why Pisces over SD? By the same token, nobody's said anything about TAFH.

I only see 3 or 4 other people who mentioned it as their favorite.

I'm guessing they had about 40 or more non-album tracks to choose from when putting this together and it seems like they purposely avoided what could have been a more frantic or less-cohesive record. It doesn't feel like anything is out of place. It might be their saddest-sounding and most psychedelic record. It's also the only one where the majority of the songs are shorter without as many huge bloated mid-sections and codas, with "Starla" as the only epic and "Obscured" as the only other song that stretches past 5 minutes. I feel like most of the songs were recorded around the same time as Gish, and I hugely prefer it to that record.

And in a way it gives me the impression that Aeroplane was a wasted opportunity to try something similar. All the b-sides on Zero (minus Pistachio) plus 6 or 7 others pulled from the other discs could have been an equally great record.

i used to have TAFH. i enjoyed the Zero single but would sometimes be a bit overwhelmed by the rest. i'd be curious to see what everyone's top ten were from that box

Only caught them live once, on the Machina tour, one of the last shows with Melissa Auf der Maur. I was so excited to see them - I was about 14 - but they suffered from the worst, most buzzsaw-like guitar tone I've ever endured at a show. It was so awful that I actually took off early, midway through "Soma", even - at 14! One of my first major disappointments in life.

And in a way it gives me the impression that Aeroplane was a wasted opportunity to try something similar. All the b-sides on Zero (minus Pistachio) plus 6 or 7 others pulled from the other discs could have been an equally great record.

Yeah a "third disc" type deal of similar length to the others could have been great, with "Aeroplane Flies High" itself as the big fuckoff penultimate epic.

I feel like most of the songs were recorded around the same time as Gish, and I hugely prefer it to that record.

it's actually mostly songs recorded for SD and post-Gish b-sides. the only Gish era songs are "Blue," "A Girl Named Sandoz," and "La Dolly Vita." Everything else was recorded during the SD sessions. "Starla," "Landslide," and "Soothe" are the in-between songs.

TAFH has some of my all time favorite SP songs. my top 10:

Rotten Apples
Meladori Magpie
My Blue Heaven
The Aeroplane Flies High
Set the Ray to Jerry
The Boy
God
Marquis in Spades
Blank
Pastichio Medley (still one of the coolest things they ever did, the Pumpkins' own Revolution 9-esque riff collage)

Pisces Iscariot is just really pretty!

xp Interesting. I guess I assumed it was an Incesticide type of thing where at least half of the songs were earlier recordings.

It was kind of awesomely bold that they put out TAFH as this fancy-shmancy box set with the 45 case and all that - IIRC at the time, gimmicky box sets of that kind were pretty rare and it did stand out as a prestige Christmas item or whatever. But it also meant that a LOT of fans never heard any or at least most of those songs. Feel like a second Pisces Iscariot would have been the better move if they could find a way to package it where it still felt like an 'event' appropriate to a band at their commercial peak etc.

Like, it could have either been one double-disc with everything on it, or a single-disc deal where you just accept that some songs are only going to be had by those devoted enough to collect CD singles. Who knows though? As it was the thing sold pretty damn well for a five-disc box set with 28 'new' songs on it.

tbf the only songs exclusive to the TAFH boxset were the covers on the BWBW single. all the other singles were released separately w/ all the b-sides throughout 1996. and fwiw i think the covers are the most disposable of all the songs on TAFH. were CD singles more widely available in '96 though?

Yeah, by "new" I meant "new to people who don't buy CD singles," which surely has to be the overwhelming majority of the five million (?) or so people who had bought Mellon Collie.

CD singles always sold better in the UK, right? or was that just vinyl? by the time I started buying music ~1998, they were phased out except at somewhere like Bleecker St and other places that sold bootlegs, too

but yeah, obviously most people that bought MCIS and SD were not searching for CD singles and imports

I'm American and started buying music around 1995, and probably considered it a bigger part of my life than most of my peers, but I think at most I ever owned, like, four CD singles. There weren't that many of them at the stores and price-wise they seemed like a huge ripoff, particularly if you already owned the album and therefore had the 'big' song.

I loved the shit out of maxi singles and so did my deeper music head friends, but it definitely wasn't what most people went for. But then neither were box sets.

were CD singles more widely available in '96 though?

Not really. Many maxi-singles - especially from Gish and SD era - were difficult to find outside of imports. Import singles were always kinda risky - spending $9.99 or $10.99 just to hear 1 or 2 b-sides that could potentially suck. At least in the case of the Mellon Collie singles, they were EP length and "Zero" specifically probably contained about 50 minutes of music.

iirc NIN's "Further Down The Spiral" was a pretty hot deal at $5.99.

NIN also cannily branded every release as a numbered "Halo," pumping them up as essential pieces of the canon rather than just product shoved out by the label.

Now I'm thinking Corgan should have followed this model - Gish as "Pumpkin #1" etc.

CD singles sold very well in the UK throughout the '90s, hitting a peak from 1994 2 1998 or thereabouts. Bands would often release 2 different versions 'o' the same single, with different B-sides on each. At one point, CD singles were almost like EP's... u got the "main" track and then three additional tracks. If they went down the 2xCD route, then u'd end up with six new songs, or remixes or whatever. Of course, the quality 'o' the B-sides varied depending on the artist, others opted 2 put out live tracks or remixes etc.

Of course, digital files ended up killing the CD single, but the rot started 2 set in when the "rules" 2woards CD singles changed. Eye think u stopped being allowed 2 have more than three tracks on a CD single and it had 2 clock in under a certain amount 'o' time. Bands got exhausted with multi-4matting because it meant that they were having 2 write the equivalent of 2 or 3 albums worth 'o' stuff during an album cycle. Think about it, it wasn't uncommon 4 bands to release 3 or 4 singles from an LP at that time. If they released 2xCD singles 4 every single, that would have meant releasing 24 extra tracks, on top of the LP.

*2wards

Anyway, eye happen 2 be one 'o' those people that thinks that MACHINA could have been one of the Pumpkins' best ever albums if it had been done properly, as it was supposed 2 be. Eye think Corgan was writing a lot of great material at that time, and a lot 'o' the songs from then are big favourites 'o' mine.

*r

OK I actually just attempted the Pisces Iscariot of the MCIS era

Medellia of the Grey Skies
God
Ugly
Cherry
Transformer
Rotten Apples
The Boy
Mouths of Babes
Marquis In Spades
Set the Ray to Jerry
Said Sadly
Pennies
The Aeroplane Flies High (Turns Left, Looks Right)
The Last Song

I wanted to be clever and open with "The Last Song" instead but it was just stupid

I need to go back and listen to all of those TFAH tracks. I sold my box set during an era of extreme poverty about fifteen years ago, and now the only tune I can remember clearly (apart from, like, "My Blue Heaven") is "Set The Ray To Jerry" (which is amazing of course).

TAFH, even.

The acoustic demo of Ugly is so much better than the one on the EP. apparently that song went through half a dozen versions only to be rendered in this off-putting minimal palm muted thing and cast off as a b side. the tune is strong enough to have been a single. lyrics would've resonated back then, too

Billy's Home Demos/the Mellon Collie Demos are absolutely gorgeous, i listen to this more than MCIS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urrSfBXa--c

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Lily (My One and Only)
To Forgive For Nothing Less Than Forgetfulness
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Here Is No Why
Galapogos
Frantic Ab Groove
Autumn Nocturne
Ugly
Wishing You Were Real
Thirty-three
Beautiful

i'm still not convinced billy isn't singing 'panties for sale' on pennies

beliebe, belieber meat

if there is a god
i know he likes to rock
he likes his loud guitars
and his spiders from mars

if there is a god
i know she's watching me
she's a spy with bedroom eyes
that cowers in our skies

http://pitchfork.com/news/65103-darcy-wretzky-says-shed-consider-reuniting-with-the-smashing-pumpkins/

Machina 2 is maybe my fifth-favorite album of theirs, but looking back I don't know if they had a better four-song run than "Go," "Let Me Give the World to You," "Innosense," and "Home" (god "Home" is a gorgeous song).

^^^^ otm

"Go" is probably the best Iha-sung tune they ever did

I prefer Blew Away and The Boy, but Go is great. Certainly better than Take Me Down.

Eye must be one 'o' the few people that likes 'Take Me Down', eye've never really understood what was supposed 2 be bad about it. The guitar sounds on it r beautiful.

it works well as a denouement to disc 1, but on its own the song is really uninteresting. like it functions well as a 3 minute intermission between Porcelina and Where Boys Fear to Tread, but I'm never paying attention to it.

There's plenty 'o' nice melodic ideas in it, eye think. Eye'd take it over 'To Forgive' or 'We Only Come Out At Night' or 'Lily' any day.

it does have some nice sounds and tones, but it's so weightless compared to Corgan's material. really shows how undeveloped Iha was as a songwriter and singer. To Forgive, We Only Come Out at Night, and Lily have so much more going on melodically and lyrically.

'To Forgive' doesn't have much 'o' a tune 2 speak of, really. It's a mere scrap over-inflated 2 4 minutes, whereas 'Take Me Down' cycles thru a whole number of vocal melodies in 2 and a half minutes... none of which really repeat, if eye remember correctly.

"take me down" is good but as "the iha tune we allowed on the album" it's like... way less good than "believe" or "the boy"

*'o'

i agree, but there isn't a place for Believe, The Boy, or any of the other MCIS-era Iha songs on the album. This leaked demo of Billy singing "One and Two" (which ended up on Iha's 1998 solo album) is pretty good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGXwp7sv3IY

Eye think Iha was a more than capable songwriter, 2 be honest with U. Granted, he was far from a great singer, but then Corgan wasn't either. Eye think he could have blossomed as a songwriter if it wasn't for baldy's dominance in the band. Corgan is quick 2 blame people 4 their lack 'o' enthusiasm, but let's be honest, he did his very best to quash people's enthusiasm 2.

I think you're giving Iha too much credit. He complained to everyone that he was a "repressed talent" a la George Harrison - no one agreed, not producers, record label execs, or other members of the band. Iha wrote more songs in the late 80s period of the band, and they're all awful. I mean, listen to his solo albums. They're garbage. To blame Iha's mediocrity on Corgan is unfair. John and Paul were just as discouraging to George but he blossomed and showed them. Iha has yet to prove he has anything better than "The Boy" or "Go" in him.

He's a fantastic guitar stylist. He came up with a lot of really cool atmospheric parts for live shows. He was generally lazy in the studio, and not as productive as Corgan.

Maybe spending 12 years with baldy sucked the enthusiasm out 'o' him. In fact, I'll bet it did.

Not really, he just divested his energy out of the band. His solo albums from 1998 and 2013 show that he has nothing going for him.

i like let it come down ok

he plays some nice geetar on that one Fountains of Wayne song

he's great with an ebow

"Everyone has a misguided perception of...my brain."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRlJlJBAQQs

All started with Gish for me, and SD was the soundtrack to pretty much all of puberty. I dont think I played any other CD more in my life than SD. Hanging out with them and drinking Jack Daniels in their tour bus after a Rotterdam concert was the high point of my teenage years.

I unashamedly love all their albums up to Machina, which disappointed, and after that I gave up. Which felt odd to do, breaking up in a way. Age-wise it was perfect timing: when Machina came out Billy just wanted to "rawk" (after the Jimmy debacle, the death of a fan in Ireland, Jonathan Melvoin od'ing) and I saw why. I at that moment tried to squirm away from my teenage years, and develop my musical taste further by taking an interest in Alvin Lucier, Can, Throbbing Gristle and the likes.

But my love for all albums up to TAFH (their swan song for me, to my ears) is undying. And looking back and being asked this question now, this can only be between Mellon Collie and Adore. And it's a nigh on impossible choice to make, as they are complete opposites.

Great story, thanks for sharing. Can only imagine what the vibe on that bus must've been.

Billy played "This Time" for the first time since 2000 recently. I always loved this overlooked song, it's really sweet and very sad- all about the impending collapse of the band...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vto9efbruA0

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Results are about right.

Yep, could've easily predicted the outcome of this one.

no votes for Machina II though? sorta shocked. who tf voted for monuments to an elegy

I never understood the sd love. After the amazing gish which was new, fresh and psychedelic as hell to me sd was where they became mainstream. Boring almost classic rock. Mellon collie was a return to form after that as it had great tunes sd didn't have. I guess it was also the production on sd which did not work for me. Too slick.

I agree, I almost never listen to the album proper because the production is so homogenous. But my favorite live era of the band is 1994 - they were like a paramilitary unit, and the SD and Gish songs sound great played really fast and with a lot of venom.

bombs away!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLHEitwq20w

man, that really brings out the song's kinship with "ace of spades." not in a bad way.