POLLcelina of the Vast Oceans - ILM artist poll #87 - SMASHING PUMPKINS (voting open until 2 April 2018)

Songs: Rank your top 25 Smashing Pumpkins songs (minimum 5)

Albums: Rank your top 5 Smashing Pumpkins albums (minimum 3). Compilations, EPs, and whatever Teargarden by Kaleidescope actually was are all eligible

Send ballots to ilmsmashingpumpkinspoll AT gmail dot com. Order ballots from highest (#1) to lowest, without numbers, and include your username

Voting closes 12am 2 April 2018 GMT

WHAT

WOW

thanks for doing this for me ufo!

i wish there was a section for just EPs but this will be amazing.

oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiit

seriously checking ilx while my friend's in the bathroom but before that we were gushing about the pumpkins for fifteen minutes. this poll is going to rule.

xp I'd never really considered them much of an EPs band, though there are the Mellon Collie singles

hope everyone enjoys the poll

i had a conversation with someone recently where he declared the best pumpkins release is the 1979 ep and tbh hard to disagree

omfg

oh no only 25?

Wrote it down on my calendar

oh fuckkk

voted. not listened to the pumpkins properly in a while so i just picked the ones i remember being good from when i was 16.

first draft of tracks ballot: 40 tracks lol

This is really hard.

I wrote my 25 last night & feel good about it, but at the risk of being over eager & impatient, I’ll let it sit for a bit and go thru the discography & see if anything I neglected deserves inclusion. All 7 albums (including Pisces & TAFH) represented but still very Mellon Collie heavy.

Albums was easy.

it's a phenomenon with polls of bands that I used to LOVE LOVE LOVE back in the day, I tend to find a through-line with favourites quite easy and I'm often surprised at how simple the process of sorting things into the two categories of 'good song' and 'bloody amazing all time song' quite easy. I think I longlisted 30 songs and whittled it down to about 15 songs I'd include on an all-time personal best compilation, then whacked on about 10 more arbitrary faves.

yeah the trick with SP is, how "clever" do I want to get with this ballot. Of course the only correct answer is not to be clever - go with the core, the heart music

i assembled a ballot in about ten minutes last night but i may go through the whole catalog just to do it

i almost included a sp mk 2 track but as much as i inevitably love a few songs from every billy corgan thing i guess—idk it’s some kind of a curse—it looked laughable in the company of mk 1 tracks

The last Pumpkins album I own is Machina 1. I don't know whether to go digging in the reunion albums or stick to the stuff I used to love.

I'm not sure if this band still really does much for me, but I'll do a ballot anyway.

for the most part i don't really recommend getting into the reunion albums. people rep for oceania but it's overstated; it gets the mood right but the songs are just fine for the most part

er, delete one of those "for the most part"s

Machina 2 is better than 1 and has a few gems on it if you haven't heard it, but the 'reunion' albums haven't produced much that can even come close to their 90s material. which mk2 track are you considering Brad?

my only task remaining is to relisten to Machina II in its entirety to see if I want to include anything but "Real Love"

"home" and "vanity" made the initial draft of my ballot. "in my body" and "white spyder" were realllll close

Machina 2 is better than 1 and has a few gems on it if you haven't heard it, but the 'reunion' albums haven't produced much that can even come close to their 90s material. which mk2 track are you considering Brad?

― ufo, Monday, March 19, 2018 8:04 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"ma belle"! a track i think only i am obsessed with

man Machina has some great songs I am voting for but I find it such a drag to try to listen to front to back

lol

Billy Corgan's chart showing the loose story of Machina and Machina II

https://spfreaks.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pic061.jpg?w=549

personal edit of machina is get rid of "heavy metal machine" and "blue skies" and it's probably my favorite pumpkins album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UkFFUWO_8g

way underrated song imo

I'm still mad Billy didn't get to give it the remaster/deluxe treatment. It could uh really use another shot at the mix

machina production being indecipherable mud vs. machina guitar tones being some of my favorite ever recorded

"Imploding Voice" was just cut from my ballot :(

"wound" also on a good day is my favorite pumpkins song

i also would've put the machina recording of "speed kills" on the actual album, maybe in place of "blue skies" but that part of the album is already so moody and decayed lol

May put in a vote for just the first half of "Glass and the Ghost Children".

I was listening to a 2000-era bootleg and "Heavy Metal Machine" actually sounded really good. It's just a really bad fit for that aqueous production style.

eh i think it's a ponderous song down to its bones

it was absolutely one of my favorite pumpkins songs when i was 12 but i think it was just responding to the brightness of the chorus compared to the slog of the verses

I'm still disappointed we never got that combined Machina reissue he was planning, but then again he was considering re-recording parts to 'complete the vision' so that might have been even more of a disaster

incidentally i just found a weird youtube bootleg where someone fused machina 1/2 into a double album. it's very curious. i don't think i've ever heard the version of "if there is a god" that opens it (or it's the old arising!-era recording that i'm actually super familiar with and i just haven't heard in 15 years; there's also one of these for "dross" but the machina 2 recording is so much more fun) (waiting for flappy bird to correct me in 3, 2, 1)

sorry ahead of time for posting 1000000 times in this thread, i guess you never stop thinking about the band you decided was your favorite of all time in middle school

Vanity! I knew I'd forgotten some. Many, probably... I remembered Beautiful this morning.

yeah the trick with SP is, how "clever" do I want to get with this ballot. Of course the only correct answer is not to be clever - go with the core, the heart music

― Simon H., Monday, March 19, 2018 10:17 AM (fifty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao. it's true! I'm going strictly by the album versions, which leaves a lot of Gish & SD out- to me those records are blueprints for the far superior live versions: so caustic, aggressive, passionate, and fast. Though some remain...

There are a handful of post-reunion songs I rate (The Celestials, Sunkissed, Owata), but none of them would make my top 50, maybe even top 100. Processional, Aeronaut, and Half-Life of an Autodidact from Ogilala would make my top 100. MCIS & TAFH alone is 56 songs, and that's not even counting all the extant demos like Methusela and Speed that were left unfinished. Brad OTM re: Oceania - it has riffs, some OK songs, but feels so rote, so dispassionate. And Mike Byrne...

Didn't make my initial list but leaning toward including the Pastichio Medley. Not only evidence of a band at the peak of their powers with C-sides, jams, and castoff riffs that tower over most other artists' best work, but more importantly a thoroughly enjoyable and insane listen in its own right.

w/r/t the promised Machina reissue, for once it's not Billy's fault. The company that owns the rights to all mk 1 SP songs changed hands shortly after the Adore reissue, and the Machina reissue languishes in the vaults due to lack of interest. That's the holy grail for me now (besides a studio version of "Chrysanthemum" and the 'final' Metro show, though I suspect Billy isn't eager to release that).

I agree with Brad re: The Imploding Voice, a song served so well by the production on Machina. the barebones Arising version pales in comparison imo.

sometimes when I listen to "Stand Inside Your Love" I get angry that it wasn't massive

same, it's perfect

Wound is a tough one for me. I'm considering including the waltz demo, If You Wait. the version on Machina is gorgeous but ohhhh boy are his vocals mixed wayyy too high and dry for me.

here's the fan-fused machina for anyone curious. i wouldn't have made all of these choices, and the machina 2 production really, really doesn't sit well next to machine 1's, but.... idk i'm having fun listening to it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJWD2GS-GPc

hi

man I forgot about "White Spyder" what a jam

last night i turned around
and thought i saw myself turning
inside the strangest dream
of life unloved and cities burning

his writing got realllll pretentious for machina, like mellon collie to the thousandth power, but all of my favorite pumpkins lyrics are on machina

fuck this is hard

a good chunk of the lyrics on mellon collie make absolutely no sense to me lol

they're nonsense

"Quiet" is a fucking killer song, I'm thinking this should definitely be top 25 for pretty much any band, but then they have at least 25 songs that are better than that

I'm always surprised when I learn individual songs on MCIS are supposed to be autobiographical xp

xp like Tales of a Scorched Earth, too often derided for pushing the extreme. they're both thrilling songs.

on Adore and Machina, his vocabulary expanded, some of my favorite lyrics are on those records. a few of my favorite verses ever written by BC:

I catch the rainfall
Through the leaking roof
That you had left behind
You remind me of that leak in my soul

The rain falls
My friends call
Leaking rain on the phone

and possibly my favorite SP verse ever:

I blow the dust off my guitar
In the attic with the star
I read your letter to feel better
My tears upon the faded ink

as a kid i was enraptured by whatever's going on lyrically in "porcelina" though, "the realm of soft delusions / floating on the leaves," it means absolutely nothing but i still get weird chills reading it rn

lotta embarrassing confessions to come out of this poll imo

the lyrics on Mellon Collie are really only of two modes: brutal nihilism and lovelorn romanticism. in the context of the record they work, though few stand out as exemplary, unlike the next two records.

lotta embarrassing confessions to come out of this poll imo

^^

the core, the heart music

that "Blank Page" verse really stands out for suggesting Billy has friends

https://i.imgur.com/nvlpEgY.png

At 15/16, I was definitely more taken with the Machina artwork than the music. I was taking a few hours of art classes every day in high school, and that album art definitely crept into some of what I was doing.

Seems kind of brown now that I look at it again.

he apparently wrote the lyrics to Porcelina in one sitting on a tour bus during Lollapalooza 1994. the words are beautiful, and without spoiling, I think that song more than any other captures nearly every side of the pre-Adore band: it's equal parts spacey, heavy, romantic, experimental, plus you get Billy's SD-era wisp of a voice along with the nasal bleat that runs thru most of that record. it's a towering achievement of a song.

someone pls scrounge up those old Pumpkins msg board posts from where Billy asked people to guess as to the "plot" of Machina and pointed out who got closest

At 15/16, I was definitely more taken with the Machina artwork than the music. I was taking a few hours of art classes every day in high school, and that album art definitely crept into some of what I was doing.

Seems kind of brown now that I look at it again.

― jmm, Monday, March 19, 2018 8:37 AM (twenty-six seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao

i looooooved the machina art. the "imploding voice" art with the androgynous figure seizing a single wave was my shit

someone pls scrounge up those old Pumpkins msg board posts from where Billy asked people to guess as to the "plot" of Machina and pointed out who got closest

― Simon H., Monday, March 19, 2018 8:38 AM (fifty-one seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

iirc i actually submitted to this at the time. i was very wrong iirc but who could've guessed the story was that dumb (j/k my idea of it at age 13 probably wasn't any more sophisticated)

tbh whenever I see the Machina cover art I think of Bobby Sands' cell walls in Hunger

Oh yeah, I can't believe I forgot this, but I even made a costume of this guy.

https://i.imgur.com/nvlpEgY.png

lmao that's awesome

brad I will now forever choose to think that billy read your submission and said "fuck that's actually better" and that's what precipitated the original breakup

my biggest literary influences at age 13 were billy corgan and sylvia plath, there's no way it was better

I just remembered Blinking with Fists.

i bought it! it's awful

but it is a book with a jt leroy blurb on it

ugh now that i'm hearing it i really want to put "innosense" on my ballot

it's like the gentlest song he ever wrote along with "luna"

but it is a book with a jt leroy blurb on it

lmao holy shit

I don't think I can not put "Go" on my ballot

ah fuck i forgot "the boy"

the problem of james

anybody considering pre-Gish material? it's minor work, though many great songs: There It Goes, She, My Eternity, Jennifer Ever, Razor...

xp if I were to include one, Blew Away would be my James pick.

Stand Inside Your Love is indeed fantastic, the production of that album is just an unfathomable mess though... and its not as if its aged badly, it sounded like some sort of mastering error at the time

i thought about the pre-gish material but none of it really stacks up with the rest. gish is a huge leap and barely any of it figures into my ballot :(

my James pick is Believe.

Blew Away will probably make my ballot, it's by far his best though The Boy is pretty good too

I don't know how he went from the vocals on Adore, by far his best singing on a record, to Machina, where so many of the songs have the vocals mixed way too high and not double tracked or effected in any way.

xxp it is amazing how much of a leap Gish is from the late 80s material. and yeah, most of the songs on that record are far superior live imo, save for a special few...

god, I can't believe how bad "Tales of a Scorched Earth" is. I will just pretend that I never loved that song.

i hate "tales" but it's really only over the "whores/f*g" lyric

where so many of the songs have the vocals mixed way too high and not double tracked or effected in any way

astonishingly this got worse and worse with zwan and zeitgeist and etc. etc.

One of my favorites. A song that rides the edge of a cliff. The most extreme the band got before Machina. The lyrics are such a perfect expression of frustrated teenage nihilism.

god "white spyder" is so badass. it sounds like garbage but that weirdly deepens its mystery (like "love")

xxp TOASE I mean...

and yeah, a lot of my issues with the post-2000 material comes down to the way the vocals are mixed. There are some great songs in there that are rendered near unlistenable because of the mix.

the acapella break in the everlasting gaze is still one of the weirdest moments in a sp song

goddammit i just revisited literally all of these songs a month ago, the timing of this poll, honestly.

the acapella break in the everlasting gaze is still one of the weirdest moments in a sp song

― ufo, Monday, March 19, 2018 9:01 AM (fifteen seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol i remember hearing this for the first time, they had a stream of the song on... amazon???? before the album came out, and when i heard the a capella part i was like "that is certainly a choice"

i love that song though, it is possibly my favorite sp track to air drum to

acapella break on Everlasting Gaze >>> acapella break on Frail and Bedazzled

pffft excuse me no

first half of "glass and the ghost children" is the weirdest most ambitious thing billy ever wrote i think, followed up only by "mary star of the sea" and then he generally stopped making songs like this

i'd also like to out myself early on as a real big fan of the delusions of grandeur/godhood interview tape warping over the piano figure. "spiders" half of the song is really lovely too

in other words "glass and the ghost children" is on my ballot

I love every part of Glass and the Ghost Children. a lyrical masterpiece. "and she counted the spiders as they crawled up inside her" is a beautiful coda. and one of my favorite opening lines ever: "to the center of the earth / or anywhere god decides."

you say i'm empty
we all know i'm full of shit

^^^ most self-aware dude ever got over the course of how many albums and comps and etc.

I may need to warm up to the 'spiders' section again. The psychedelic first half still sounds really cool.

lol xp

Chrysanthemum is the most self-aware and healthy song he's ever written imo...

oh lol i wasn't thinking about zwan but true

re: the bad vocals/mixing post-Adore, I believe he took voice lessons (lol) so I assume his thought process was along the lines of, "now that my voice is a PERFECT INSTRUMENT I'm not going to try to bury it"

lmao

"a flower's still a flower crushed to dust inside my hand"

as verbose and obtuse he can be, i'm just in awe of that line and how it so eloquently conveys the self-destruction of SP, how he drove it into the ground, and yet how beautiful it was and how beautiful it remains. "we were going somewhere." it's just a marvel of a lyric & song, the optimistic inverse of Jellybelly.

xxp

re: the bad vocals/mixing post-Adore, I believe he took voice lessons (lol) so I assume his thought process was along the lines of, "now that my voice is a PERFECT INSTRUMENT I'm not going to try to bury it"

― had (crüt), Monday, March 19, 2018 12:34 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he took voice lessons before Adore, and it shows. the vocals on every record after that are inexplicable, though I chalk up most of his inexplicable creative decisions to psychosis brought on by the relative failure and rejection of Adore. he hasn't made a truly thru and thru sincere record since then, with the exception of Ogilala.

one of the things i for some reason really enjoy thinking about whenever i reengage with my sp fandom is how this Objectively Ridiculous person made Objectively Ridiculous music but there's something about the particular presentation, the particular collapse of influences (deep goth genuinely loves boston and cheap trick and queen but we're in the '90s!) in the first five records that makes it work where everything since (aside from like 70 percent of the zwan discography and parts of future embrace and ogilala) has felt undermined or outright ruined by second guessing, which i guess if you're an Objectively Ridiculous person the moment you start questioning yourself is where the nimbus of your exaggerated personality falls apart, where you just kinda stand revealed as this kinda weird dumb baby who had interesting taste and a consuming totality of vision which wasn't ever exactly intelligent or consistent but which was still oddly mesmerizing and you can't ever get back to that bc you have care too much about what your audience thinks or wants and have so much contempt for it

i mean the whole glass story is basically "i have contempt for my audience. this is like the wall"

I think he panicked as soon as Adore was finished and knew the end or the inevitable decline of the band was coming and he couldn't let SP go out with anything but a super BANG! so how do you top MCIS? I guess he thought the answer was actually making a concept album.

i guess i don't blame him and the approach produced some of his best work imo but like what is the purpose of a song like "heavy metal machine," it's performative rock

oh god i forgot there was a third version of "blue skies bring tears"

yeah I love Machina, I just don't think its 'concept' stands up to scrutiny because I don't think there's really much there. but the songs are great. Heavy Metal Machine is justified only by the concept, that they could take the most braindead butt rock riff and turn it into a satirical thing, "if i were dead would my record sell?" yet they played it at nearly every concert in 2000 and in 2007!

all right here's something embarrassing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU5-EG7eVLw

i watched this, like, daily when i was a kid. at the time (don't ask me why i know this ok i was an aspiring anime music video creator) amvs were harvested from videotape and then crudely edited together on a computer and i thought this one, set to one of my favorite sp songs and including most of my favorite series, was just sooo beautifully and almost seamlessly woven together, lol

anyway "with every light" slaps

am i the only one who thinks that 'this time' it's the best 'machina I' song and of their best?
weirdly i also became a fan with 'machina'. i can't count the nights i tried to figure out what 'glass and the ghost children' was all about, as my English back then was even poorer than it is nowadays.

lmao that's awesome brad

i love that song though, it is possibly my favorite sp track to air drum to

"The Everlasting Gaze" is funny because it's such a deliberate, forced attempt to Rawk Out With Your Old Drummer Out, but the last 20-30 seconds rocks so hard you don't care

also this might seem weird but Machina and the Manics' Know Your Enemy are inextricably linked in my mind, both seventh albums following their respective broody keyboard albums, both kinda bloated and try-hard, both with lead singles that announced "hey we're not dead!", sometimes literally

With Every Light and This Time are highlights on Machina. Sincere and moving ballads.

Y'all heard The Everlasting Gaze demo "Disco King"? a real stone jam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf7GrTnvX6g

also this might seem weird but Machina and the Manics' Know Your Enemy are inextricably linked in my mind, both seventh albums following their respective broody keyboard albums, both kinda bloated and try-hard, both with lead singles that announced "hey we're not dead!", sometimes literally

huh i like this analogy. they're also both better than their reputations suggest

I remember reading about how the cover for KYE was originally going to be a mirror (because the enemy...is YOU!!) and tbh that's almost Corgan level pretension lol

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0f/Time_youcover01.jpg

I think my ballot is done. 25 was a dastardly number to have to whittle it down to.

i had a conversation with someone recently where he declared the best pumpkins release is the 1979 ep and tbh hard to disagree

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Monday, March 19, 2018 2:48 AM (sixteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I disagree.

The last Pumpkins album I own is Machina 1. I don't know whether to go digging in the reunion albums or stick to the stuff I used to love.

Oceania is the only one that you really need to hear, as it's excellent. 'Panopticon' in particular rules. Predictably, Brad is wrong about the record.

nah I agree with Brad - it's making all the right moves but the songs just aren't that exciting or moving

Anyhow, thinking about what tracks I vote for, several selections from MACHINA spring to mind (and no, MACHINA II isn't better - don't be daft) as well as one or two things from Pisces Iscariot ... I can only think of one track from Adore that is a no-brainer for a Pumpkins ballot.

I was excited and moved by the record, therefore yer wrong.

I can only think of one track from Adore that is a no-brainer for a Pumpkins ballot

this explains everything!

fun's over i guess

I'm bumping all my Adore votes up a spot.

xxpost:

It's an incredible track, though!

I like Adore a lot, but if you're only going to pick 25 tracks then they might as well be incredible.

can't wait to read more of your challenging and intelligent opinions in the rollout

There's nothing "challenging" about it - basically, this band's high points were/are incredible, and while there's a lot on Adore that's highly listenable and very good, and while I have a lot of time for the record - there's not a lot on it that comes close to the very top of what this band in their original incarnation were capable of.

it’s For Martha right

Adore has some pretty high highs, Behold! The Night Mare especially is incredible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohGwSHQ7Vdc

25 is so brutal

My shortlist is down to 27... It was pretty easy to put together without overthinking but cutting two tracks and ordering them is going to be tough.

listening to Mary Star of the Sea for the first time in years now and it's surprisingly pretty good? probably better than both Machinas and certainly better than all the SP mk2 material by a long way

yeah it's a great power-pop record

honestly I'd probably enjoy it more if whenever I listen to it I wasn't reminded of how needlessly sour he was towards his new bandmates

like obv it's also a problem with SP but it's especially jarring against the posi vibes

and most of their best songs were left off of it (Chrysanthemum, My Life + Times, Cast a Stone, Rivers We Can’t Cross, Friends as Lovers, Glorious).

i've just done a 50-song list and just realized I left 'quiet' and 'blank page' off the list. this is impossible.

lol. i revisited gish/siamese dream last night and the positions of certain songs in my ballot fluctuated wildly ("hummer": it's actually perfect), this is v hard

yeah no ballot is complete w/out "hummer" imo

My list seems to be angling strongly towards softer tracks and epics so far. Not so many heavy songs.

same

yeah no ballot is complete w/out "hummer" imo

Made some hard cuts last night based on studio vs. live versions. One of them, I can’t believe it’s not on my ballot but there’s just too many.

i just realized that only 4 songs in my list were released as singles.

My list seems to be angling strongly towards softer tracks and epics so far. Not so many heavy songs.

b-b-but Hello Kitty Kat!!!

Yeah Yeah

The transition back into a more languid mood in 'Hummer' is so good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4Imf_anNCY

where does "Let Me Give The World To You" fit into ILM's view of this band

I could wait to see but I'm impatient

The Zwan record is good, and I can think of 2 or 3 tracks on there that I absolutely love - but I disagree about it being better than MACHINA, let alone Oceania ...

xp fine song, wouldn't have fit on Adore, but I still think it could've been a decent hit (only the Rick Rubin version though), certainly bigger than Ava Adore and Perfect.

LMGTWTY is totally pedestrian imo

don't think it would have been a hit either

it is pedestrian, and tho i don't think it would've been massive or saved SP's career, i think it had a better shot than the other two singles.

it's just so extremely 1998, it's like a Matchbox 20 song

Unashamedly stoked for this. Was a huge fan when young. It's to my advantage that everything after Machina I/II (bar Zwan) is pish, so I don't have to consider those. Still, stuck with a first draft of 40-songs-that-absolutely-have-to-be-on-the-25-votes-ballot.

Is Zwan allowed to vote for (it's prob not going to make it, but just checking)

Except that not everything post-MACHINA is awful.

If Zwan is allowed then Corgan's solo stuff should be, and if Corgan's solo stuff is then so should Iha's and Jimmy's ...

assuming Zwan & Billy's solo records are not eligible, what say you Bee OK? Chrysanthemum would absolutely make my top 10, probably top 5, but like everyone has said whittling just SP mk I down to 25 tracks is truly brutal.

I'm perfectly fine with just SP, was just asking

even picking 25 b-sides would be tough tbh

i can’t figure zwan into this, it’s honestly like another 100 additional songs to account for even though they only put out one album lol

“let me give the world to you” is a very nice song

that’s all i can think of to say about it

oh probably one of billy’s better nonsense lyrics. tired symphonies play downward etc.

i’m glad they didn’t put it on machina either bc it’s rendered pretty redundant by “try try try”

Yeah, a lot of Zwan's best work didn't even make it onto the album.

(several xposts)

Any pre-Gish stuff appearing on your ballots? 'Not Worth Asking' might crack mine.

Were any of you people on Listessa back in the day, '95-ish?

that reminds me, machina ii try >>> machina i try. better lyrics imo & that really sharp keyboard line

oh yeah, Not Worth Asking! I mean yeah like I said upthread there are some good songs from their early Cure cosplay days but I don't think any of them would make my top 100.

It's not as good as 25 others but it's sheer nostalgia tbh. Used to do my paper route with a b-sides/old stuff cassette in my walkman :)

Though Cure cosplay is a bit of a stretch for that tune, and you know it!

i'm thinking mainly of songs like She, There It Goes, My Eternity, really anything they played on that Pulse Basement show in 1988.

omg I just remembered SPITEFACE

Haha, Spiteface, yeah

Whoever upthread said he picks the quieter songs and some stellar jams, that's me as well.

got a lot of heavies on my list, only a few of the canonical epics.

I'm curious to see if my #1 shows up on anyone else's ballot

"United States" is indeed a brave #1 choice fp

Really, your #1?! Now I'm intrigued. I've got about two or three songs I'm fairly certain of no other person will vote for.

xp lolll

Glynis is p much a lock, but listening now since forever, and good god, the "sub-aquatic" production nearly ruins the whole thing.

that reminds me, machina ii try >>> machina i try. better lyrics imo & that really sharp keyboard line

― flappy bird, Tuesday, March 20, 2018 11:44 AM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i completely disagree, the lyrics are worse and the keyboard line is dumb

lmao simon

yeah it's not an obscure song at all but i'd be surprised if it makes anyone else's top 25

i know i'm very alone in that opinion but i honestly think the machina i "try" a huge improvement: jimmy's drums are more interesting, the piano gives it this weird dreamy fading-in-out-of-nothing effect, billy's vocal is better, i love the way "like you said it's...." trails off instead of resolving in a really stupid rhyme ("just because!")

I'm with Brad on this one. The piano is what does it for me.

xp i do love both versions of Try, and i definitely wouldn't rate the MII version if the MI version didn't exist. i just like how it's a variation on a theme lyrically, all the cities mentioned & yeah the arrangements are pretty different. i really like the acoustic guitar chord changes in MII version.

finally someone else agrees with me xp

great now i wanna put "try" on my ballot

the music video is a hot mess though

Yeah thanks a lot Brad, that's number 41 to crunch into 25 places!

xp heh

lmao I remember the video being censored on VH1 (I think?)

yeah it contains a surprising volume of dildos and blood

ok it's less surprising if you're aware that it was directed by jonas akerlund

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX5FeOnhC20

I still DO. NOT. UNDERSTAND. and never will, why MTV changed to a channel not playing music, not doing interviews with musicians, not playing videos. It truly is one of the greatest mysteries of life to me in 2018. How can there not be a need for stuff like this, despite youtube? Idgi, I must be hella old.

The Real World was more popular/got more ratings. they followed that path. when I started watching MTV daily in 2000/2001, they stilled played a lot of videos and had mostly music programming. I watched TRL religiously. by 2004/2005, music had moved to MTV2 (lol). stuff like True Life and Cribs were watched more, I think it's as simple as that.

btw there's a really funny part in that interview-

Billy: you know, we want to do something new, we're not sitting around asking each other how we can make Live at Budokan.
Jimmy: *laughing* yeah we do
Billy: ...shut up Jimmy

I saw the first Real World run, with that prick, whazzizname, Puck? Still doesn't account for the complete erasure of *actual music* from MTV though. I am really waiting for a book on the subject tbh. (if it's not already out there)

Pumpkins were a good fit with MTV, despite never getting the desired Unplugged slot.

xp

I *just* heard that :D

jimmy's a great interview foil. he's the highlight of the zwan documentary

Wasn't that doc on the second disc, included with the Zwan album? I've got that lying around here somewhere.

They should have absolutely attempted a Live at Budokan tbh

Wasn't that doc on the second disc, included with the Zwan album? I've got that lying around here somewhere.

― Google Atheist (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, March 20, 2018 12:35 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes!

lol cheap trick get namechecked like three times in that mtv interview

that's called a cheap hat trick

They were always namechecking Cheap Trick, in a way that felt less earnest with every next time they did it. To me it always came across as keeping ties with their Chicago roots. Could explain some of the "dumb rockers" they recorded later on though..

(nothing against Cheap Trick, mind, but it's just not something I desired from SP)

that's called a cheap hat trick

― Simon H., Tuesday, March 20, 2018 12:41 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

*chamberlin-style rimshot with fifteen extra cymbal crashes and tom rolls*

They were always namechecking Cheap Trick, in a way that felt less earnest with every next time they did it. To me it always came across as keeping ties with their Chicago roots.

otm

There are so many songs on the Machinas that I find totally compelling as ideas or departures ("Glass and the Ghost Children"! "White Spyder"!), but there are very few I can countenance voting for over something like "Today" -- even though I don't really need to listen to that song at all anymore. I'm torn.

"Today" and "Disarm" are the only songs on SD I'm a bit worn out on

In compiling my list I've come to the conclusion that Oceania has by far the best song titles of any (so-called) SP album.

I'm thoroughly bored of 'Today' at this point, and to be honest if I was to rank the songs on Siamese Dream it'd be down near the bottom somewhere - and it's still a great song.

Today is the first song I ever remember hearing, and it's one of my first memories, but I've been worn out on it since I became completely obsessed with this band 8 years ago. But it has to go on my ballot I suppose, because it is one of the few Siamese Dream songs that wasn't superior live (imo). And the memory of hearing it in a car sometime in the summer of 1997...

Pumpkins were a good fit with MTV, despite never getting the desired Unplugged slot.

this was going to happen in the summer of 1996, there are extant press releases about it, but it was scrapped after Jimmy's OD and Jonathan's death.

i forgot that “to forgive” is the best song

Oh god

This is so hard

To Forgive is really fun to play on guitar

LOL have literally just been doing that

I'm imagining them playing a bunch of Frogs songs in their Unplugged set, the way Nirvana did Meat Puppets in theirs.

geez, the Youtube video for "Beautiful" has an insane number of adoring comments for Dylan Klebold

uhhhhh

i'm having a hard time with this, glad i have some time to re-listen.

The track that so far has risen the most in my estimation during this exercise is "Obscured". I'm not sure I particularly noticed it back in the day.

I'm going to lean towards no for Zwan/Corgan solo eligibility since I hadn't made that clear upfront and, but if people really want to vote for those I can allow it?

Let Me Give The World To You is a good tune but every version has such a straight-forward arrangement that means it's always a bit underwhelming. it's one of the better Machina-era tracks but not really up with their best

I'm just discovering that I've always overlooked Snail, it feels like a very condensed version of a Mellon Collie epic in all its shifts

yes!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS-ThN4aEDU

machina production being indecipherable mud vs. machina guitar tones being some of my favorite ever recorded
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 20 March

This Crate GX15R is from the private collection of Billy Corgan.

Believe it or not, this little combo was responsible for the heavy distortion sounds on Machina. This is the Machina sound. Corgan would run out of the headphone jack or the speaker jack, similar to a DI. These little Crate combos were dimed, essentially becoming distortion pedals, and were routed out into the board.

“we run everything through this”

everything

when Jimmy shakes Manny's hand

"hi, Jimmy Chevrolet"

"is it still raining?"

I need to relisten a lot of stuff before voting in this ... is Pisces Iscariot still as good as I remember? How many songs from Machina I and Zeitgeist are worth keeping?

Pisces is definitely still as good.

I think Pisces will be the best-represented album on my list.

zeitgeist keepers:

*tumbleweed floats across the landscape*

j/k i love parts of that record, including:

that’s the way (my love is) (one of the best pumpkins singles imo)
bring the light
stellar
death from above
ma belle (almost made my ballot as detailed upthread)

actually i’m listening to it now and “7 shades of black” is also p good

this record sounds like garbaaage though

yeah there are some good songs for sure but it really does just sound awful

ugh ok i kinda want to fit “that’s the way” into my ballot

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

like, what a good song, in terms of composition way more linked to zwan and thefutureembrace than anything else on the record, plus the shoegazey layers of guitar and synth swallow up some of the dry isolated qualities of corgan's vocals

also i still get kind of a thrill from "tarantula" even though it's obviously the result of billy hearing green day's "holiday" on the radio once

ugh i also really like "starz." sorry y'all i actually liked this record when it came out and am currently reliving that experience

i don't expect to be particularly forgiving of "united states" though especially when a superior version of it exists ("superchrist")

'Superchrist' to me stands for what I really dislike about Corgan's later stuff. That buffed-up macho "rawk" without any feeling at all just doesn't do a thing for me.

re: "united states": billy just playing harmonics for like a solid minute is extremely not great

this is almost identical to the moment ten or so years ago that i figured out "heavy metal machine" sucks. "united states" realllly sucks

however this song RULES, one of the prettiest things he ever wrote, and i think the ultimate exponent of him totally revamping his songwriting process on tfe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICHw1MLEAms

sorry to liveblog my zeitgeist impressions y'all

really i've got approximately 20 years of feelings about billy corgan's music that i go out of my way to never express. but then this thread appeared

most welcome imo xp

yes, I feel exactly the same way

it's gotta be 100% Billy's fault that Zeitgeist sounds like such shit - Terry Date is a pro (see: all the Deftones albums he did)

as is roy thomas baker

the mastering on machina/mary stary of the sea/zeitgeist is just shameful

yeah, Oceania was actually a slight improvement in this regard but I still just get nothing out of it

"neverlost" was my mom's favorite song off of zeitgeist and tbh i see where she's coming from

I don't think the Zwan album sounds that bad. The others though, definitely.

the grey best buy deluxe edition of zeigeist goes "neverlost" -> "stellar" -> "ma belle" and it's one of my favorite sequences in the entire discography

"stellar" is just remarkable especially bc there's no evidence on the rest of the record that he had something like that in him still

the Zwan album sounds pretty great except for the mastering but Machina and Zeitgeist have truly dreadful production. I really don't understand how Machina ended up so bad when the production team was all people who'd worked on Adore

'Superchrist' to me stands for what I really dislike about Corgan's later stuff. That buffed-up macho "rawk" without any feeling at all just doesn't do a thing for me.

― Google Atheist (Le Bateau Ivre), Wednesday, March 21, 2018 6:36 AM (thirty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm not as big on it as some other fans but i think it's a buffed-up macho sp track that also has a weird aura of mysticism hanging around it, nothing in the catalog really sounds like it imo (except for, lol, "united states")

the moment where i thought "huh i don't think billy corgan is a very good songwriter anymore" was about two minutes into the american gothic ep, wonder what i think of it now

man i started making up my ballot thinking it was probably going to be the most redundant ballot, surely everybody else is voting for this same list of songs in a slightly different order.... but reading over the thread so far and realizing i've never listened to anything post Machina II, or ever gotten into the b-sides or unreleased cuts in a serious way (despite ned and others turning me onto "Set The Ray To Jerry" etc. on ILX) i'm wondering if i might be a super basic pumpkins fan!

and still getting this to a top 25 is going to be impossible!

xp to Brad: I've not picked up on that mysticism on it. Believe me, I tried... You are right that it's a complete outlier though.

american gothic is better than i remembered but the only song really worth anything on it is "the rose march" and it's only ok

Bless Ned for that! xxp

okay i guess i don't really LOVE "cash car star" and "dross." they rock but they also just, as leaked MP3s (or maybe realaudio files lol), stood in for omg this next album is going to be amazing.

unfortunately listening to pisces iscariot for the second or third time is giving me all kinds of stuff to add back in, d'oh

Personally, I'm still at the stage of "oh duh, Stumbleine is really good, better include another Mellon Collie track."

My 25 have gotten quite a bit balder since two days ago.

"my boredom has outshined the sun" just bumped "Plume" up like 10 spots in my poll

my list, i mean.

Personally, I'm still at the stage of "oh duh, Stumbleine is really good, better include another Mellon Collie track."

*flappy bird voice* imo the arrangement of it that they played on the adore tour makes the song even better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G9d1h2wc5s

fuck now i need to put "stumbleine" on my ballot

lol @ "flappy bird voice" <3

I like that arrangement!

Stumbleine is def on my ballot.

I think.

Joselito Lobo
4 years ago (edited)
Great song, lyrics but terrible voice!!
Billy Corgan rulez!
\o/
|
/ \ 

woah at that version of "stumbleine"

"Daydream" is the best Isn't Anything ripoff

woah at that version of "stumbleine"

― Simon H., Wednesday, March 21, 2018 7:38 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

simon i highly recommend listening to literally any adore-era show, the way they rewrote the songs to fit that particular configuration of the band and the mood of that album is just...

I've really only heard the amazing "Blank Page" arrangement

joining the chorus of admiration for that "stumbleine." original quickly became a total skipper for me, just couldn't do the close-miked whispers and fingers-on-the-guitar-strings thing, but this is really really pretty. would have been terrific on adore.

the way the sibilance on the album version of "Stumbleine" got panned always cracked me up

like every time he makes an "s" sound it comes mostly out of the left channel or something

for instance, how to make a song i've played so much i can barely hear it anymore sound new:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T-qZ8AETBc

great tune tho xp

"Crush" is the track that's fucking up my ballot currently

it's so good

when i listened to it the other day i finally heard the curtis mayfield influence on that song that billy mentions in the reissue liner notes

huh i guess i'm going through all of sp mk 2 today

hot take: "glow" is pretty good

I USED TO BE A LITTLE BOY

― crüt, Tuesday, February 20, 2018 9:20 PM (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sorry, carry on

― crüt, Tuesday, February 20, 2018 9:20 PM (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

disarm wasn't on my ballot before but now i want it to be #1 just to piss people off

lol

i was thinking maybe the quintessential moment of the pumpkins catalog is that third "burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn"

otm

I love the crowd shots in that "Tonight Tonight".

More in dredging up of high school memories: I'm just now realizing that a play I helped out with in high school, written and put on by a friend of mine, was very likely named after a Smashing Pumpkins lyric.

a lined-paper comic series, drawn in turn by me and a keyboard-class buddy, was very definitely named "Thru The Eyes of MIDI"

on the subject of high school SP love, I did most of my music listening via C90 tapes, and I condensed each side of MCIS to fit. iirc I removed "Love," "Cupid de Locke" and "Ode to No One" from the first disc. The second disc is a puzzler though - my best guess is I took out "Stumbeleine," "XYU", "We Only Come Out at Night" and "Tales of a Scorched Earth."

i forgot about the string section breakdown in "superchrist." this song is badass

wish i could vote for the last five tracks on mellon collie as a suite

Will I be the only one voting for Farewell & Goodnight? I think I will be.

Ha Simon, I also condensed it to a C90 tape for some hs pals. Can't remember what I left off sadly.

never remove "Love"

i'm personally a big fan of the vinyl track order: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellon_Collie_and_the_Infinite_Sadness#Original_vinyl_version

I love "Love" now but I absolutely did not get it as a #teen

Yeah, that's a pretty great order. Though you can't not end this album with F&G imo

"Cash Car Star" from MACHINA II is a stunner, and could've been a big single.

I'll throw in "Annie-Dog" as another longtime favourite

i'm onto part one of tearygarten by kaleidioscope or whatever. "a song for a son" really sucked at the time and still does

i sometimes wonder if i'm a better drummer than mike byrne. the answer is no but the thing is that i could be

I think the main qualification for being an SP drummer now is either to be jimmy chamberlin or to be unable to mouth the words "actually billy that sucks"

whereas jimmy's talent often feels inaccessible xp

also byrne is super inflexible and pretty much incapable of that particular propulsive swing of jimmy's (cf. "frail and bedazzled" "jellybelly")

yeah besides the obvious talent gap it might be as simple as the fact that JC (claims he) never ever plays to a click track or would want to

teargarden vol. 1 is almost completely worthless lol wtf. vol. 2 is pretty good though???? especially "the fellowship" and "freak usa"

feel like the relative upswing in his songwriting with oceania and monuments kinda starts here. the lyrics of "tom tom" are dumb as hell but as a song it feels way more earnest/honest than anything on zeitgeist

well, almost anything*

this btw is my favorite sp mk 2 track, from the aborted teargarden vol. 3. it'll never make it to my ballot but maybe someone here will like it even more than i do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT9jdrx4V-M

Ballot sent... I think over 60% if it is b-sides and rarities. This might be the only band I can think of that I think are way better represented by rarities than the actual album cuts and singles.

Smashing Pumpkins were arguably the most ambitious American rock band on a major label during the 90's, and that's reflected in the volume and
quality of b-sides they released. Songs like "Pissant" and "The Aeroplane Flies High" are among their very best.

Didn’t vote for anything past Machina either because I lost interest in them like most of their fanbase at that point. Anything I’m missing? Only sing I remember from post machina is White Spyder from Machina II

Didn’t vote for anything past Machina either because I lost interest in them like most of their fanbase at that point. Anything I’m missing? Only sing I remember from post machina is White Spyder from Machina II

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, March 21, 2018 9:25 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's a lot of great stuff on machina ii ("home," "go," "vanity," "slow dawn," really it's all good), and i've basically been liveblogging the good tracks after that all day today lol

It’s even ridiculous take for example Drown. It was left out of Gish and Siamese Dream somehow and yet it would be a clear top 3 song in either album. It’s also one of their top 10 songs imho.

Xpost

since today's a snow day and i'm working from home i will probably end up watching if all goes wrong today, featuring such elusive and thrilling pumpkins deep cuts as.... "99 floors"

still haven't forgiven myself for forgetting "drown" in the first draft of my ballot

"here's to the atom bomb" is on my long shortlist. always liked "white spyder" and "lucky 13" but they're not top-25 material for me.

Brad where can I read those? Interested in catching up with those.

on this thread!

Oh! Lol sorry I’m writing on mobile and just catching up with the thread. Thank you.

I stopped after MACHINA II. Are there any essential songs I must hear?

riveting scenes in this documentary of billy eating cauliflower in a robe in his hotel room

lmao

of post-machina 2 sp i'd say the good songs are:

that's the way my love is
7 shades of black
bring the light
stellar
ma belle
death from above
the fellowship
freak usa
lightning strikes
anti-hero
some of the songs on oceania but honestly i forget what they are every time. pale horse def

oh and i think "being beige" and "drum + fife" are pretty good too

yo flappy bird, i assume you're one of the few people here who's also seen it: how fuckin bizarre is if all goes wrong

the fan encounters alone are simultaneously touching, harrowing, and deeply weird

ooohhhhhhhh my god i can't believe this is on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGoJhglz4RE

whatttt

the mike garson piano hour

ok I didn't know they recorded a song called "Freak U.S.A."

for anyone here who hasn't seen it i'd say their storytellers episode is pretty essential. i listened to a bootleg of the unedited set for years but i didn't know there was video of the whole thing!

man i love this stupid ass band

I stopped after MACHINA II. Are there any essential songs I must hear?

― beamish13, Wednesday, 21 March 2018 16:37 (thirty-two minutes ago) Permalink

'Panopticon', 'Pale Horse', 'Pinwheels', 'Oceania' ...

opening your acoustic TV broadcast show with "Glass and the Ghost Children" takes some kinda chutzpah xp

in the actual edited for television version it opened with a fragment of "snail" for some reason

melissa auf der maur is so cool

yo flappy bird, i assume you're one of the few people here who's also seen it: how fuckin bizarre is if all goes wrong

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Wednesday, March 21, 2018 12:49 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the fan encounters alone are simultaneously touching, harrowing, and deeply weird

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Wednesday, March 21, 2018 12:49 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh god. What a brutal doc. Billy at his most delusional and abusive? maybe... that part where he goads Jeff into throwing his guitar into his amp rig really sucks. Billy miserable in that hotel room, long shots of him opening cassettes, eating vegetables, so obviously dejected depressed and angry. I hate it but at least it's an accurate document of the band at that moment in time. Like that part where it's shots of the audiences at the Fillmore and the songs in the setlist come zooming in on title cards one by one, everyone in the crowd looking confused and bored. jesus christ.

ahaha and yes i do love that Stumbleine arrangement. but i prefer the version on MCIS, such a great bridge between Ruby and X.Y.U., and the first song I ever learned to fingerpick on guitar. really great lyrics too, sort of a preview of the more expansive imagery of Adore. "Boredom's the bathroom shaking out the loose teeth" is such a great opening line.

IN the bathroom ofc

I hate this phrase but I have to admit "Spangled" is a guilty pleasure of mine. not on my ballot but I just had to get that out there. I too am snowed in today and will be spending too much time fussing over my ballot

yeah i don't mind "spangled" at all really

I discovered this live only Zeitgeist era song fairly recently, "I Don't Mind." it's not bad, pretty basic riff & song, they only played it like 10 times or something in early 2008. this is the last performance of it, followed by an extremely embarrassing rant about how rock is dead. "Rock! Fun. Fun, all the time. Rock. It's fun" https://archive.org/details/tsp2008-02-12.flac16/tsp2008-02-12t28.flac

Dammit, why is my head full of Pumpkin lyrics? What is this poll doing to me?

with seashell hissing lullabies
and whispers fathomed deep inside my own
hidden thoughts and alibis

my secret thoughts
come aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive

my favorite part of storytellers is james saying "dude you gotta go to long island"

Remember when they promoted an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno as being their final TV gig? They actually did
a great rendition of "Cash Car Star" on it, and Billy wore a phenomenal ankle-length skirt

yes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE8iPynWIKk

jimmy's so ridiculous on this song that it makes me lol

LENO: Why are you guys breaking up?
BILLY: Comedy doesn't pay.

ugh how can I not include Where Boys Fear to Tread? a riff so good they can play it for four and a half minutes and it never gets old. oh well

and Bodies... always loved that break in the middle with Billy whispering words that are all negations: distress, disappoint, deceive, disarm, die, deny, destroy, despise, disconnect

Is that him making fun of his own lyrics?

i never knew what he was saying there

me neither!

Guys, I'm finding narrowing this down to just 25 tracks impossible. I've tried imposing limitations such as just sticking to the studio albums proper, but even then it's still difficult. They've always been one of my (many) favourite bands, but this has kinda hammered home just how amazing they were during their peak years.

Like, putting together my Bowie ballot was easier, and that was still plenty difficult.

the storytellers version of "raindrops + showers" is like... literally jazzy. it's awesome

Whoever was saying 'Stand Inside Your Love' should have been bigger upthread is OTM - every time I listen to that song I'm struck by how perfect it is. I read 'Tonight, Tonight' being described as Corgan's best song once, and while it's undoubtedly great, I think 'Stand Inside Your Love' is up there.

here's a b-side i need to find room on my ballot for

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

'Untitled' is one I keep forgetting about, but I fucking love it.

i love "untitled," it's the portal to zwan

I gave the Zwan album another listen today, completely prompted by discussion of the Zwan stuff on this thread - 'Ride a Black Swan' is fucking superb, isn't it? Like, if that had somehow been written earlier and done by the Pumpkins it'd be seen as one of their classics, I'm sure.

i should give oceania some credit for at least being the proggiest sp record by far

of everything on it i'd say i like "violet rays," "pinwheels," "pale horse," approximately 30-40 percent of the title track, the really excellent prog-pop-punk song "the chimera"

also "inkless," the sequel to "yeah!"

I love how 'Pinwheels' takes its time to get to those guitars.

pale horse was actually a highlight of the solo show i saw last fall, billy played it on piano.

it's a really good song

yeah when he started playing it i was like "hmm i recognize this but not sure what it is, it's good though" then when he got to that thorazine line i was like "ohhh.... cool!"

same with Winterlong, which always confused me... where did that song end up? it's an Adore era song? or Machina? was it on an official release or just bootlegged? he did that one too and it was v good

re: "pale horse" it's sort of the first time in sp 2 that i hear his songwriting stake out what feels like new territory, which puts me in the mind of the cure's fogbankier songs

"tiberius" is kind of a jam, i forgot. monuments being a kinda straightforward pop-rock record coming after the gluey prog treatments of oceania is a little deflating. also at a certain points it feels like the album was filled in around the singles ("run 2 me" in particular)

How many songs does Corgan have published now? It must be a good few hundred at this point, surely?

more like a thousand

SPFC lists 1,598 songs. that's SP + Zwan + solo + side projects + covers. Probably alternate versions of songs, too. But it's definitely over a thousand. http://www.spfc.org/songs-releases/song.html?song_type=-1&song_display=

Wow! 1,598 songs, shame only 2.5 are good according to ILM.

some people only get 1.5

SP mk I alone is ~150 songs.

that's only the five proper albums + Pisces & TAFH & Machina II, & sundry B-sides... there's also like 30-40 pre-Gish songs or something

Well, I was more talking about songs that Corgan has either written or co-written, so no Iha tracks or covers etc.

still well over a thousand, maybe subtract 300 to be v generous

good lord at those numbers. so weird that I feel competent to make a ballot despite knowing maybe half of that 150.

got the #1 song after I looked "in my refrigerator" (not really). If some went lighter, my ballot skewed heavier, though. still amazing that some of my favorite tracks come from an album where billy covers landslide, seemingly with an awful sounding d.i.'d acoustic guitar.

shades of the van morrison poll where Brad and others enthuse over an artist's more recent work that I've ignored. hopefully some gems will make it in and then finally click for me.

"Christmastime" perhaps the most van morrison sounding smashing pumpkins song

can't ever hear or even read the title of that song without instantly imagining the animated video of billy looking at netphoria and crying

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0paULEFwec8

some of the Adore tour rearrangements are good but this one really confuses me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az_G4Lg4gMY

here's a Zeitgeist-era oddity, Billy reciting Britney's Piece of Me over a metal jam

lmao at the 1979-as-self-titled-Blink-182-album arrangement

"Nointeen Seventy Noin"

haha aw i like that arrangement but also, otm about blink s/t lmao

*extremely flappy bird voice* this is the best version of Porcelina ever (27 min. in):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U7QGPz4xmA

Back to those 1500+ songs. I assume those include songs he wrote for other people like those Hole’s celebrity skin songs which are amazing.

Any other songs written for other people that are worth checking out?

I assume those include songs he wrote for other people like those Hole’s celebrity skin songs which are amazing.

No.

ah wait I'm sorry I take that back, yes! I've never seen them on their before: http://www.spfc.org/songs-releases/song.html?song_type=2&song_display=

SPFC lists 438 covers and 348 "side project" songs (this includes soundtrack stuff).

"Drown" is essential because it features the Smashing Pumpkins at all their best dynamic levels while also maintaining a steady groove. Jimmy is especially great on that song

SP = 614 songs
Zwan = 72
Billy solo = 57
The Marked = 69

*extremely flappy bird voice* i recommend the seamless Drown -> Hummer performances from 1994

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTiudGnKWO4

wow that's fantastic, two of their very best

"Drown" will be on my ballot but i have known that for a very long time.

Of course there is "Geek USA" with twenty clowns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t50AitbL4II

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryYcyt8FPlg

Got it down to just below 50 and this is getting ridiculously hard. Biggest surprise so far is what I'm willing to cut to keep Pulseczar in.

this could be a really weird list

i'm excited

like i just realized Tonight, Tonight isn't on my ballot.

good call imo

well it's like i'm pretty sure there are 25 solid canonical Pumpkins tracks. all the singles + epics on the first 3 albums? and then most of us are rating a lot of b-sides & more obscure songs. I have 5 singles on my list, more than I thought tbh

for context SP mk I released 24 singles (promo singles included):

siva
rhinoceros
tristessa
i am one
drown
cherub rock
today
disarm
rocket
bullet with butterfly wings
1979
zero
tonight, tonight
thirty-three
muzzle
eye
the end is the beginning of the end
ava adore
perfect
crestfallen
the everlasting gaze
stand inside your love
try, try, try
untitled

lol *is the end

Is it fair to pick an a side for rhe batman and robin soundtrack?

my current #1 isn't really an epic or a rocker it's just a really pretty song & the one i come back to the most

it had a commercial single, a music video, radio play... more of a single than the actual 7" of tristessa, really

lol, I just put on the end is the beginning is the end because I couldn't for the life of me remember anything about it and turns out I still know almost all the words.

It's pretty bad, though.

xps once upon a time and thirty-three are very pretty pumpkins

lost inside your world of wow

thirty-three is timeless

Yeah, it's by far my favorite single of theirs.

Feels like a song that's always existed somehow

an easier poll would be 25 best guitar solos

it was my favorite song of all time for a while

xp “thirty three” i mean

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kzkx991Gqs

this thirty-three demo is gorgeous

Was just listening to that

(actually it was the original mix from the Billy's Home Demos bootleg with the flanged drum machine)

FORgive

Thirty three is such an odd choice for a single when compared to the others on MC and it’s probably my favorite one too... can’t imagine any other band pulling this one off as a decent single... at their prime Corgan was a magician making his songs feel nowhere as sappy as they should, specially the ballads.

Yeah I was very surprised when they released that one. 1979 is a strange choice too but it's a great single.

And Moka you're right - the final stretch of the album with all the silly fluffy ballads is one of my favourite bits.

'Thirty-Three' made perfect sense as a single given that they'd just fired their drummer, and 'Thirty-Three' has no drums on it.

*rubs hands together*

I'm surprised by how many people are proponing post-MCIS tracks. I was a super-fan when that album was released, but there was always an aspect of willing myself to like the album, contrasted with the almost magnetic captivation everything from 'Gish' through the 'Siamese Dream' b-sides had caused. 'Adore' was a real struggle, and by 'Machina' I could only laugh to keep from crying. What brief snippets I've heard after that make it seem like the fine print on Corgan's deal with the devil stipulated that after 1996 he would be cursed to live forever as a mocking satire of his brief ill-gotten brilliance...

An interesting side-poll for the true believers only would be "top 10 post-MCIS" tracks. The apostates could then give the consensus result a listen?

Did you really not like "Stand Inside Your Love"?

best post-mcis tracks imo:

i of the mourning
perfect
wound
for martha
age of innocence
crestfallen
blank page
eye
appels + oranjes
stand inside your love

something like that

that was hard too and i was somehow unable to include "with every light"

i should say i think adore is a way better album than mellon collie these but that's mostly bc i've recently found the sequencing of mellon collie v tiring

er these days*. it's early

btw my exploration of the post-machina material on this thread isn't me unearthing some hidden long-neglected genius songs on unfairly maligned albums or anything, it's mostly just to prove to myself that it's not all terrible

tbh I think our ranking is going to end up pretty similar to this one (well, maybe a bit kinder to Adore)

https://www.spin.com/2015/10/every-smashing-pumpkins-song-ranked/

125. “Anaise!” (Monuments to an Elegy, 2014)
124. “Slow Dawn” (Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music, 2000)
123. “Monuments” (Monuments to an Elegy, 2014)

weird list, almost everything about it seems arbitrary

45. “Doomsday Clock” (Zeitgeist, 2007)

lmao idk this song is actually pretty bad

placement of "that's the way" is bold and awesome though

162. “Thru the Eyes of Ruby” (Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, 1995)

lol yeah no

I mean if yer gonna rank the entire discography a lot of it is going to wind up arbitrary unless you spend like a year obsessively retooling every placement

and yes "Doomsday Clock" sucks

unless you spend like a year obsessively retooling every placement

should be required by law imo

Adore is awesome but when I think of overly long albums that could have been immeasurably improved if they were 20 minutes shorter, it's one of the first that comes to mind.

That list is annoying me too much. We can do better.

it's a little long but also there is absolutely nothing I'd remove xp

An instrumental version of "Soma" and no "Soma". Go away.

New-to-me supposed Pumpkins fact from the comments

Bleeding the Orchid is about Layne Staley's death.

Adore is a weird one for me, I didn't hear it until many, many years later ('Ava Adore' really put me off), some of it is definitely still too electro-goth for me but there are also some really lovely songs on there.

ballot sent

That one-two punch linked upthread by Flappy, Drown + Hummer, is stellar.

Adore is a little too long but the only thing I'd definitely cut from it is Annie-Dog

the Spin list is very weird, Glass and the Ghost Children at 232 and all those other things

correct placement tbh

It's the only post-Adore track I'm currently considering.

I was shocked at how much Machina/Machina 2 I wound up voting for.

always heard Soma as the deluxe version of Mayonnaise. much prefer it

132. Tristessa gtf outta here, list

100. Hello Kitty Kat, this song still delivers on the heaviness my memory of cherub rock promises

hate spin lost so much

That is a bad/boring list

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVNavYDd1ig

oh wow this version of Jupiter's Lament is gorgeous, how did this not get released until the remaster?

Post MCIS tracks I like:

Eye
Shame
Stand Inside Your Love
Appels + Oranjes
To Sheila

Perfect and Adore were the singles that introduced me to the band when I was 12. Loved them at the time and they were two of my favorite songs that year but then heard MCIS and realized Perfect is just a rehash of 1979 which is far superior and Adore I liked better for its video than the actual song.

Perfect is just a rehash of 1979 which is far superior

no! this is extremely untrue imo!!!!

i mean i hear what you're talking about but i think "perfect" is basically... perfect. i just love the sound of it, it's so weightlessly pretty

it has all the distant yet dreamy melancholy (lol) i associate with peak pumpkins

the Spin list is very weird, Glass and the Ghost Children at 232 and all those other things

― ufo, Thursday, March 22, 2018 7:22 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

correct placement tbh

― Simon H., Thursday, March 22, 2018 7:23 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

we're having a fight rn simon

Perfect is the closest they ever came to rehashing 1979 but it's still its own thing and 1979 is such a great song I would have been fine if they'd rehashed it 20 times

sorry I've always found that song to be a total momentum-killing slog xp

also to be fair to moka billy does recycle ideas... a lot. one of the reasons i'm sour on oceania is its "cherub rock"-ass opening even though "quasar" is a significantly shallower song than "cherub rock"

i feel like you could safely cut at least 3 minutes from Glass and the Ghost Children without losing much but the first section is the best part of Machina

No mention yet of my favorite B-side, 'Ugly'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAFR5jW58LU

I hear 'Perfect' as the Adore analogue of 'Tonight Tonight'. Not really a fan of either song tbh.

I was listening to Ugly the other day. It's really catchy. Hadn't heard it in years and years

Machina has no momentum. However on that song he lets it get as weird as the album concept suggests.

i'm thrilled that a second smashing pumpkins amv has been posted to this thread

MPetrozzaIsGod
3 years ago
Not a big fan of "Japanimation" but since this is the only copy of the song here from "The Aeroplane Flies High....", I love it. Excellent job on an awesome and truly underrated song.

re: mellon collie b-sides, i think this song is up there with, like, "hello kitty kat" in terms being an extremely fierce rock song that's packed with hooks and subhooks and subsubhooks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O2rwM0t5xA

that is an extremely poor upload of "mouths of babes" but y'all get it

See I was just seriously considering knocking something off my list to include “Marquis in Spades”

I mean I still like “perfect” a lot.

come to think of it he also rehashed it for Hole’s Malibu but that one isn’t as obvious due to it not being a SP song... not very good identifying chords but it seems to me like they both have the same chords and the same sort of mood and melody... again not as noticeable due to Courtney and Corgan having very different and distinct singing styles.

Anyone else hears the comparison or am I crazy?

they were written around the same time so it wouldn't surprise me if they shared basic dna

i think i'm gonna finish the if all goes wrong documentary today but it's honestly one of the worst things i've ever watched

that is an extremely poor upload of "mouths of babes" but y'all get it

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, March 22, 2018 11:02 AM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

See I was just seriously considering knocking something off my list to include “Marquis in Spades”

― flappy bird, Thursday, March 22, 2018 11:07 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

both songs that juuuuust missed my ballot

i was even at one of the fillmore shows that the documentary surveys and i had a great time and the doc is weirdly corrupting my memory of it, like trying to make it a fundamentally joyless experience orchestrated by this giant baby who is Extremely, Disingenuously Bitter that james iha wrote some chord structures for "soma" and "mayonaise" 15 years prior

xp

like they played "hummer" and "starla" at my show iirc, if the rest of the setlist was "i'm going crazy" 30 times i would've been happy

haha. would've preferred that to the actual, dreadful "rawk-suite" I got during a Machina tour gig.

btw the spin list doesn't include "i'm going crazy" so it's irrelevant

otm

somebody should tell them

fwiw my top 10 post-MCIS songs (excluding for martha bc that's obv great)

blank page
i of the mourning
wound
vanity
slow dawn
if there is a god
appels + oranjes
behold! the night mare
crestfallen
the tale of dusty and pistol pete

does billy know who Pete Maravich is?

I recommend the acoustic Machina demos, he's got his guitar tuned to C standard or something, it sounds like Nick Drake. this is the best version of If There is a God imo. so many cool demos left unexplored further, particularly the instrumental "Autumn."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI_wQAO5Qn8

this video also includes a bunch of the leaked Machina reissue tracks, like the original and vastly different/more straightforward recording of Raindrops + Sunshowers.

i nearly included "pistol pete" in my list (and idk if it's gonna make my ballot or not)

btw i am regularly astonished that i care so much about a song called "the tale of dusty + pistol pete"

there's a "band demo" of "identify"?!??!?!?!?!?!?

yea! or at least, a version with Billy singing

Dusty & Pistol Pete didn't do too much for me until a very long car ride about six years ago - something about the chords, and the phenomenal lyrics. also another song that would've languished in the vault if not for D'arcy's insistence that it be included on the record (same goes for Appels + Oranjes).

I never liked "The Last Song" much but "metal fingers clutching dirty sheets" is one of my favorite Pumpkins lyrics. been stuck in my head a lot recently

fascinating that "raindrops + sunshowers" started out as a shoegaze song

great guitar tone on those verses, sounds something like an acoustic guitar put thru a mild distortion. and i really like the melodic variations on "rain falls on everyone," and the fact that it's not BRAYED at the very beginning of the song.

i for some reason couldn't find the studio version of what i think is the most fun pumpkins song in the whole discography but there's this really wonderful live version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlC2_pCxZm8

drummer is post-jimmy pre-aronoff so it must be... matt walker?

yea that's matt walker, he played with them from August 1996 to November 1997. there's this cool recording of the second to last MCIS era performance, 5 songs, Pumpkins opening for Jane's Addiction in Chicago: https://archive.org/details/tsp1997-11-03.csc.flac16

Thru the Eyes of Ruby
Zero
Tonight, Tonight
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
Muzzle

ah actually their last show together was December 5, 1997, opening for the Rolling Stones: https://archive.org/details/tsp1997-12-05.shn

Thru the Eyes of Ruby
In the Arms of Sleep
Where Boys Fear to Tread
Zero
Ava Adore
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
Bullet with Butterfly Wings
1979
Eye (with Marilyn Manson and Twiggy Ramirez)
X.Y.U. (with Marilyn Manson and Twiggy Ramirez)

ok ok i thought that one was the show with the surprisingly obscure setlist, they actually opened for the Stones in November too: https://archive.org/details/tsp1997-11-01.flac16

Thru the Eyes of Ruby
In the Arms of Sleep
The End Is the Beginning Is the End
Eye
Mouths of Babes
Zero
1979
Blissed and Gone
Ava Adore
X.Y.U.
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
Bullet with Butterfly Wings

have reached the "didn't quite make it" section of my spotify playlist today and galapogos feels like it is actually about me leaving it just outside of the top 25, which is breaking my heart

woah, just confirmed on genius.com that it is actually about that

For Martha was #26 for me. Sorry mom!

galapagos is perfect

"gossamer" is so controversial in if all goes wrong but... idk, i remember when recordings of it appeared on youtube and everyone on the particular sp message board i was on at the time (lol) was really enthusiastic about it

it was, like, one of the few sp-oriented things to be enthusiastic about at the time, maybe

tbf at least 60% were enthusiastic just because it was v long, I'm assuming

(I don't think I've ever successfully listened to a full recording)

i think it's just bc it's a weird psychedelic storm and there was no actual weird psychedelic storm on zeitgeist

formless 30 minute jam or no

was really weird to see Billy play a solo acoustic guitar version of Gossamer last fall. I wasn't a superfan in 2007 tho I do remember the enthusiasm for Gossamer, and yeah, a lot of it seemed based mostly around the fact that it was really long, a "super epic."

but that performance of Gossamer I saw was cool in that it made me imagine Billy playing instrumental solo acoustic guitar shows in chapels & churches & theaters - I'd be way more eager to see that than the hit parade this summer, but you know, $$$

most of the if all goes wrong/fillmore and asheville-residency songs are worthless and/or way too undeveloped to even think about but i enjoy these:

the leaving lament
the rose march
99 floors
if all goes wrong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd_5dVOsUfo

^^ my preferred version of "99 floors," the horn section adds a lot

brad I truly appreciate your dedication to diving deep into the corners of the catalog absolutely none of us are going to vote for any of

99 floors is good. and going back to the american gothic discussion, i really like sunkissed. that set they did on the chris isaak show in 2008 is p good, that has my favorite version of owata.

it's also my fav version of "owata," the recorded version doesn't quite capture it as well. (albeit the recorded version i only have as a brutally compressed mp3 so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

one + all from monuments to an elegy is worth a listen if only because it's based on an unused MCIS era instrumental called the viper

xp yeah p much all of the teargarden tracks sound awful

brad I truly appreciate your dedication to diving deep into the corners of the catalog absolutely none of us are going to vote for any of

― Simon H., Thursday, March 22, 2018 11:40 AM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol you're welcome

if anything i think they're interesting for the curious. there are some true "99 floors" believers out there who think that's the only song worth a shit from the resurrected pumpkins iirc

I'm listening to Monuments for the first time

if nothing else at least the mix breathes a bit

as far as SP mk II tracks go, "burnt orange-black" would be in my top 10. recorded for monuments but inexplicably left off the album. i was at this show, they closed with it. it's sort of a porcelina rewrite, but w/e, good chorus & sick shredding throughout

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os9lMxw0qmM

inexplicably left off the album

evergreen phrase in this thread

ahaha yes, sadly so otm

it is amazing to me that Billy fucking nailed the song selection and sequencing on MCIS. the vinyl sequence is cool as a curiosity, but the CD/tape sequence is just perfect. doesn't drag at all, flies by for me... and that's a perennial conversation with double albums even among fans, "what would you cut/what would you swap?" and I love so many of those era B-sides and the stuff on TAFH (many are on my ballot), but I've never been able to come up with a better running order than the one that exists. 28 songs, 2 hours. just remarkable. maybe he really did make a deal with the devil

i don't hear a lot in "burnt orange-black" but monuments could've used a pace-shifter anyway

sorta disagree about the mcis sequencing (as i think i stated upthread this morning) but i guess it works about as well as it possibly could. i've tried making my own tracklistings for years and it's just... so hard to even establish a consistent mood from track to track. he picked the wrong james song, still

many of the good loud MCIS songs suffer from a quiet mix that was maybe a product of the large range of moods on the album

yeah, and i think that's why it was cut: he was going hard on the short, concise, totally vapid pop songs angle.

xp to me the appeal of mellon collie is the lack of consistent mood that lasts more than 3 or 4 songs. i mean, putting Jellybelly after Tonight, Tonight is hilarious and appeals to me in that it's an album about everything. the mood swings throughout the record are a major part of what defines it. and then doubling down and putting Tales of a Scorched Earth after 1979, I love that.

songs like jellybelly sound so weak next to the Gish, SD, and PI tracks in a playlist. Love is the only one that breaks through in that context.

I think a lot of people didn't really catch or get the Pumpkins' sense of humor. it really leavens out the "pretentiousness" inherent in making a double album rock epic.

like I love that bit at the very end of Love after everything stops and the super flanged guitar makes one last little appearance

"the world is a vampire" was a goof

i don't really think billy has a sense of humor

songs like jellybelly sound so weak next to the Gish, SD, and PI tracks in a playlist. Love is the only one that breaks through in that context.

I've noticed this as well, it kinda helps MCIS to forcibly exist in its own little sonic universe imo

"tonight tonight" -> "jellybelly" transition is indeed hilarious but also seems painfully '90s to me now

i don't really think billy has a sense of humor

the is definitely true. unfortunately, he *thinks* he does

it makes me think of my best friend in grade school, who had some eating issues at the time*. he would over eat at lunch as a "joke". but a bit of pain and "I can't help myself" was always visible under the surface. this is how I'd view Billy's "joke" of a double album.

*my friend has been very healthy and in a good place since college

eh, that post seems gross now. Even if friend is well. Sorry.

"tonight tonight" -> "jellybelly" transition is indeed hilarious but also seems painfully '90s to me now

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, March 22, 2018 12:01 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

to expand on this, the loud-rocketing-out-of-quiet dynamic is really wearying over the course of the record, i think reaching its nadir around "1979" -> "tales" -> "ruby" -> "stumbleine" -> "xyu." i mean, i can't quite reduce each song to quiet vs. loud, "ruby" alone is a proggy composite, but it's, like, jesus christ, calm down, maybe focus on a mood for a second. that's why i like the last five songs so much, and i why i prefer adore: comparatively they're suites of almost singular moods

even saying that though i love the build from "love" to "porcelina" on disc one, each song feels like a more developed comment on the previous

Wasn’t the idea of putting out so much material for MCIS a farewell?

I remember reading somewhere that they originally intended this one to be their last album... which in a sense it was at least with the original lineup.

It might have worked better for the band if they had done it that way I think. It would have developed cult following instead of risible diminishing returns and they could have cashed in big every 7/10 years with a world tour.

Adore works better as Corgan’s first solo album either way.

Either that or they shoudl have saved at least 10 decent songs from the bsides for subsequent albums which is what a band like Radiohead have done... they’re still milking songs from sessions over 20 years ago... but they decided to dry the well instead and not deliver on the last album promise.

For someone who seems to think a lot about the money behind the music Corgan let’s his ego get in the way of business.

I still believe he’s one of the most balanced businessmen/musician of the 90s, though.

whoops i cried while listening to "thirty-three" at work today lol

Pair the huge success of SD with Corgan's massive ego, and a double album was the only way to go. I don't for a second believe Corgan is capable of humor, let alone self-criticism: he's dead serious. In fact, he was a way better song-writer when he was humourless. When he got the desire to let it hang loose, the songs, the "I just wanna rawk" stuff, got considerably worse.

I know we all know this but fuck "Here I No Why" is such a goddamn cool song

Fuck yeah.

This poll is fucking me up because my "short"list is only growing... sigh

25 songs... it should've been at least 33! Or 1979!

during fest a few years ago one of the secret after midnight hotel shows was a smashing pumpkins cover band ("billy corgan and the billy corgans") and it was the best night of my life, especially when they played "here is no why"

a 33 song ballot would've been real cute tbh

that is a smashing cover band name

("billy corgan and the billy corgans")

lmao holy shit

they were really good too! and i got so excited and drunk i took my shirt off

after them were a get up kids cover band but i was functionally asleep at that point

out of all the dumbass aggro moments on mcis i think the legit great one is "xyu"

it was also the song on the record that, when i was 9 years old, annoyed my dad the most

Glad I'm not the only one who feels that way.

i feel compelled by forces beyond my control to vote for "we only come out at night"

my single favorite moment of mcis is the bridge of "beautiful" ("i love you, as you love me, na na na na na na na na etc.")

I love the slightly unhinged fadeout

i'll be under your stairs, forever, neither here, nor there, just RIIIIIIGHT BESIIIIDE YOUUUU

yeah I love that song. a teenage pining anthem

when it was down to we only come out at night and beautiful for my ballot, i went with beautiful

it's a good album name but wow "siamese dream" is just the worst early pumpkins song

i guess one point toward billy maybe having some kind of a sense of humor: i can't decide which song would be the funniest fake-out no. 1

we could also make it not a fake-out and agree collectively to vote for "bugg superstar" and "french movie theme"

out of all the dumbass aggro moments on mcis i think the legit great one is "xyu"

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, 22 March 2018 19:59 (two hours ago) Permalink

I agree with this. Maybe it's because it picks up some of the swagger of "Love" which is obv not a dumbass aggro moment.

all pumpkin vocals would benefit from the love/kitty kat falling apart swag

it was also the song on the record that, when i was 9 years old, annoyed my dad the most

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, March 22, 2018 8:00 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm fairly certain I wouldn't have listened to MCIS had I been 9 at the time! I was 15 or 16, fully enwrapped in teenage angst, love and melancholy etc, so I had a sweet-tooth for it and gobbled it all up.

My dad was annoyed at Scorched Earth iirc, understandably, though they never heard much music that I was playing.

revisiting aeroplane rn, can't wait to get frustrated all over again that i can't find room for "cherry" in my ballot

If I may be so blunt, how were you turned onto them as a 9 year old? And did you experience a renaissance of their music when you were 16 or 17, when a lot of the emotions conveyed could mean something else entirely?

(revisiting Aeroplane only added about five new songs to my shortlist, le sigh)

I'm wondering if younger folks are more forgiving of the post-Pisces stuff? I was 14 for my peak fandom, coinciding with SD and the related b-sides. MCIS I was 15/16, and could feel it wasn't as good though I desperately wanted to feel it was. 'Adore' was 17, and I could barely pretend. Machina I was 19 or 20 and had moved on to a much wider world of sound and I just couldn't even pretend to find it anything but sad. But maybe for those who were 14/15 then, it all kinda blurs into the feelings a kid that age can invest with deep passion and conviction into really just about anything?

i saw the "bullet with butterfly wings" video on mtv and thought it was the coolest thing i'd ever seen, and the song did things i didn't think songs were allowed to do (that break at the end of every line in the chorus, for instance, sounded like the song was going abruptly in reverse to me) so it kinda hypnotized me. i would leave mtv on for hours just in case it came on again. i didn't really listen to rock music (or honestly watch much mtv) before that.

but as much as i loved the music immediately i don't think i ever really... emotionally inhabited it? "thirty-three," "with every light," sure, those songs i eventually developed really intense emotional connections to when i was a teenager, but the angst on mellon collie was always just another coat of paint for me. so there wasn't any teenage renaissance really, just me buying mellon collie at 9, listening to it while i did homework every night, and then eventually, weirdly, a year later, listening to the last five songs and reading the lyric booklet along with each song and thinking, "oh, this is my favorite band." and then they were my favorite band all through middle and high school

My dad was annoyed at Scorched Earth iirc, understandably, though they never heard much music that I was playing.

lol, same. I have a distinct memory of listening to MCIS while doing my homework and my dad commenting on 'that weird music' (i.e. Tales of a Scorched Earth).

Mellon Collie was the first Pumpkins album I got, around 12 or 13. It was also the day I got my braces, and my mom very nicely bought me a CD to cheer me up.

I am a year older than Brad, and got into Siamese Dream as the favorite of older brother and oldest sister's abandoned CDs left in the "family room": Siamese Dream, Nirvana Unplugged, Dookie, In the Dark, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers Greatest Hits, and Boston S/T

I'm wondering if younger folks are more forgiving of the post-Pisces stuff?

i guess, maybe? it probably trends that way. but i hesitate to attribute it mainly to that. and, like, ned loves adore

i mean, adore was the first record i loved that, as far as i could tell, no one else loved. everyone i knew who remotely liked the pumpkins before thought it suuuuuuucked. and it turned out to be the first instance in my life where i felt i was listening to music to not only figure out what was in it, what particular low stirring made the album what it was, and to figure out what i wanted from it, if i even wanted anything from it. before that i liked songs bc i heard them basically, but that record i loved bc i felt like i had gotten to know it, and in getting to know it i learned something new about myself and about my capacity to listen. my taste was just developing but i was also developing the ability to have taste. so that's why i also kinda bristle at the notion that "it all blurs into the feelings a kid that age can invest with deep passion and conviction into really just about anything?" bc, at least for me, in that instance, it wasn't just about anything

god i read that post a thousand times before submitting it and i still fucked up the grammar lol

in summary, you used to be a little boy, so old in your shoes?

exactly. what i chose was my choice

Mellon Collie was the first Pumpkins album I got, around 12 or 13. It was also the day I got my braces, and my mom very nicely bought me a CD to cheer me up.

I was *very* close to that age when I bought it used with my allowance. As a double it was a major investment at the time!

adore was the first record i loved that, as far as i could tell, no one else loved

My copy of Adore came from a friend's older brother, who hated it. This must have been pretty close to the release of Machina, because he attached a long note about what a disappointment the album was, and that he was hopeful their next album, "rumored to be a return to rock," would be their redemption. As a sullen trenchcoat-wearing teen I took to it immediately.

I just wonder because SP wasn't a band a lot of people my age liked well enough--they were a, or often *the,* band that people were rabidly passionate about circa SD. So it wasn't like we *wanted* to have diminishing returns with each successive album, and in fact it kinda tore us up. And yet, the consensus amongst those who experienced SD to MCIS to Adore to Machina in real time is that there was a huge slide downward. This in contrast with the other rock act that inspired similar fealty at the time, Radiohead: maybe the consensus is they've never topped 97-00, and theyçve had a couple clunkers, and yet it's possible for them to put out an album in 2016 that is critically lauded and was for me their second best album of their career. So it's possible to sustain the magic over a career, and we're left wondering what happened to Billy Corgan (and what the few who stuck with him are hearing that eludes us).

In the end I'm hugely thankful to the Smashing Pumpkins for becoming more or less terrible, because I think that broke the alure of "fandom" as the central locus of musical passion, and instead made me far more interested in investing my passion in the incredible breadth of amazing music humanity has produced. It freed me of interest in following individual artists through their ups and mostly downs, and let me focus on the best music I could find by whomever from wherever and whenever.

I have space for "Blue", right? Hmmmm

"pennies" is such a sweet song

it's not true but sometimes i think of "blue" as the smashing pumpkins song that invented trail of dead

iirc a mayan corn prayer invented trail of dead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8gBg9MeFQU

lol this rules. d'arcy's bass kinda... holds the verses together?

every song on the tonight, tonight single except "blank" is outstanding and should somehow be on mcis

Ha, Soundslike is pretty close to my age and experienced the Pumpkins' discography very similarly to how I did. Then, years later, I decided it would be a great idea to try all of it again, and had a weird Machina II phase, but, in the end, what sticks most is Siamese Dream and, to a lesser extent, Pisces Iscariot. (Will throw votes to "Real Love" and "I of the Mourning"; listening to Machina rn.)

Adore was the one I could never connect with.

lol i love the late machina ii phase

It's probably documented in the ILM archives somewhere.

I think I even bought Future Embrace and Zeitgeist.

i'm sorry

I always liked "1979." I would like to vote for that, and also "Homer Simpson, Smiling Politely."

Future Embrace had moments at least

Zeitgeist had "Tarantula"

no i'm just kidding i love songs on both of those records

(I voted for "Tarantula")

here's a rarity i have a lot of affection for, siamese dream-era iirc

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

“Pennies" is such a sweet song

― flamenco drop

top three song for me. Probably giving it #1 to see how far it gets.

Missed a lot, but I completely disagree with the idea that Billy has no sense of humor. Maybe now, but certainly not during the making of Mellon Collie. Gish and Siamese Dream are so dour in comparison, Mellon Collie is such a joyous, angry, happy, sad, beautiful mess of a record. Mostly because they were comfortable! Band was massive in late 1994 going into 1995, Billy actually had enough great material to fill a double album, and the members' personal relationships were at their best point. I think the carefree whimsy, fun, and comfort of the last 5 songs runs thru the whole record. per Brad's point:

but it's, like, jesus christ, calm down, maybe focus on a mood for a second.

I get this for sure, but that's what I love about Mellon Collie. it's completely crazy and relentless and serious but also full of humor. I'd say the same about Pisces, which lacks the pressure of a proper studio album, as Billy said, it was like a mixtape you'd make for a friend. But Mellon Collie knows how it ridiculous it is - it's in the album title! Watch the 666 Tapes, they're working really hard but having a pretty fun time, cracking jokes, it's such a nice atmosphere. I think there's a lot of humor to be found in the Pumpkins' music, it's just usually not on the proper studio albums. Vieuphoria has tons of it. The B-sides and unreleased tracks. Tons and tons of interviews, especially in 1995 and most 1996. Once Jimmy OD'd and Jonathan died the short-lived carefree whimsy left the band forever. But on Mellon Collie, I hear a group of people having fun making really insane and knowingly overblown music. It was brief, but it was their biggest album.

and the nah nah nah nah-nah-nah-nah break in Beautiful is one of my favorite moments on the album, too.

Adore is sounding better than I remembered rn.

it is good

re: Burnt Orange-Black i think that was intended for Day to Night before Billy abandoned that

completely agree that the break in Beautiful is incredible and one of the best parts of the album

the sequencing is the only real weakness with MCIS but I'm not sure there's really any way it could have worked with so much going on. the highs are so high and there's so many so it's still my favourite of theirs. most of the B-sides do feel like B-sides for a reason, the only ones that I wish would have made the album are Set The Ray To Jerry and the barbershop Jupiter's Lament I linked earlier

flamenco drop's comments about Adore being hated got me thinking ... SP never could pass themselves off as grunge because everyone knew that BC was no punk or nihilist, he was more of a Queen fan at heart. MCIS was the first album where they lived out all their outlandish White Album fantasies and didn't worry about fitting into any kind of scene. Then they released Adore and it seemed ... insincere? Like they were trying to bandwagon hop onto the electronics mini-craze of the time. With time is become clear that it was sincerity of a different kind, seeing how BC is as big a fan of Depeche Mode as he is of Queen.

Apologies for the grammar errors there ... I shouldn't type out extended rants on my phone's keyboard.

not sure. I remember being disappointed with it at first because it was all witchy and electro and absolutely nothing like the Pumpkins I'd come to know, even if in retrospect things like 1979 wasn't a million miles off

I didn't mind that Adore sounded different. I just didn't never found anything on the album that I could latch onto. "Perfect" sounded like "1979," but didn't have its emotional depth. "To Sheila" was gorgeous, but it always reminded me of "Soothe," which I still prefer even though it's a rough take. I don't know -- it was an album of odds and ends and I'll always maintain that it was simply a poor collection of songs. It was...ok. (One great memory I have about the album, though, is that my 82-year-old grandfather bought the CD for me when it came out.)

*didn't ever

I still don't get how people can listen to an album containing "Perfect," "Pug," "Night! Mare," "Shame," "For Martha" and "Blank Page" and conclude it was [insert any of the dismissive descriptors thrown at it itt]

(OK, OK, this is the last time I go on about this)

idk i've always liked "perfect" more than "1979," it's like a centrifugally accumulating breeze