Taking Sides: APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION vs. GISH by Smashing Pumpkins

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If you listen to the thrashy intro from the first song off each album ("Welcome to the Jungle" and "I Am One"), before the singing starts, you'll notice a real similarity.

I always thought of these two bands as kind of congruent in all sorts of little ways, musically and otherwise, right up to the Use Your Illusion/Mellon Collie big orchestral pomp double-LP career apex.

I'll take "November Rain" over "Tonight, Tonight," easily, but as for each band's first album... personally, I'd take a single CD with the best tracks from each.

― morris pavilion (samjeff), Monday, 25 October 2004 17:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Good lord, even I wouldn't take Gish over Appetite and I'm a Pumpkins fanatic.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 25 October 2004 17:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I would. Gish is their best album. Except for "Cherub Rock" it's all downhill from Gish. What a sad decline. G and R were never any good to begin with.

― martin hilliard, Monday, 25 October 2004 17:17 (twenty-one years ago)

taking sides: axl rose vs the rest of the band

― kephm (kephm), Monday, 25 October 2004 17:18 (twenty-one years ago)

"Gish" ¢¾¢¾¢¾¢¾¢¾¢¾¢¾¢¾¢¾¢¾¢¾¢¾¢¾¢¾¢¾

― Clusterfuck at the Baja Fresh Salsa Bar (Ben Boyer), Monday, 25 October 2004 17:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Gish has great guitar sound

― sometimes i like to pretend i am very small and warm (ex machina), Monday, 25 October 2004 17:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Good lord, even I wouldn't take Gish over Appetite and I'm a Pumpkins fanatic.

Gish is the only album I do like by the Pumpkins.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 25 October 2004 18:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Hate to say it, but I'm in agreement with Alex.
I've never understood what critics found so damned interesting about Siamese Dream.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Monday, 25 October 2004 18:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I always thought of these two bands as kind of congruent in all sorts of little ways, musically and otherwise, right up to the Use Your Illusion/Mellon Collie big orchestral pomp double-LP career apex.

I've thought of this, but I'm pretty sure it's because they were two favorite bands as a kid and not much else. It's interesting, though, because the members have never mentioned each other at all, and probably don't even know like each other's music either.

That said, it's a ridiculous comparison. I'd have to go with Ned as "pumpkins fanatic" siding with Appetite.

― Richard K (Richard K), Monday, 25 October 2004 18:13 (twenty-one years ago)

all these threads have taught me that I prefer pretty much anything to Appetite. Maybe if we compared it to NKOTB "Hangin Tough" (when did that come out?) there would be some competition in my mind

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 25 October 2004 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Shakey Mo more or less OTM. If it were Siamese Dream, Mellon Collie, Pisces Iscariot, or Machina II, this would be a landslide. As it is, Pumpkins do pretty well by default anyway. (Not that Gish is bad by any means).

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 25 October 2004 21:58 (twenty-one years ago)

(But, no, I've never thought of the Pumpkins and GnR as linked in any way.)

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 25 October 2004 21:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I really WOULD like to see GnR vs. NKotB tho (Hangin Tough is '88 a full year after Appetite). If anyone around here would defend NKotB that is... but for me pretty much anything of middling quality from the same period beats Appetite, which I just cannot listen to. Axl's voice is so clumsily affected and grating - I mean come ON, that is the silliest vocal style EVER, and it isn't even being used as camp or fun or comedy, he's fucking SERIOUS... it's just so ridiculous. He sounds like a bratty 10-year old girl.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 25 October 2004 22:11 (twenty-one years ago)

It's not even that I hate Appetite per se - I can even sort of appreciate his voice for what it is - it's more that I just find it to be totally conventional and uninspired and totally grimly joyless at the same time. So much so that anything I find at all interesting beats it in my books.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 25 October 2004 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Or maybe more to the point, I can rock to some GnR songs when they're on but they still seem less inspired or remarkable than anything that's, like, halfway creative or something or at least kind of lighthearted about its cheesiness, I dunno.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 25 October 2004 22:22 (twenty-one years ago)

It's more that I just haven't either heard Appetite or had the desire to hear it in eons and can't really imagine that changing (though of course as a result of all these TS threads, now I'm gonna have to outta curiosity!) So Gish as the first 2 Pumpkins albums were essential to me back then.

― Piers (piers), Tuesday, 26 October 2004 00:42 (twenty-one years ago)

"Gish is the only album I do like by the Pumpkins"

I'll go with that, and also take it over Appetite.

― pheNAM (pheNAM), Tuesday, 26 October 2004 04:23 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

Appetite is a great fucking album. I can't believe you guys seriously think Gish is better. LOLZ

― Pantheism F. Mohair, Sunday, 7 May 2006 05:06 (nineteen years ago)

[...] voice is so clumsily affected and grating - I mean come ON, that is the silliest vocal style EVER, and it isn't even being used as camp or fun or comedy, he's fucking SERIOUS... it's just so ridiculous. He sounds like a bratty 10-year old [...]

100% agree!

― fandango (fandango), Sunday, 7 May 2006 09:11 (nineteen years ago)

lol the funny thing is that that statement could be about either axl OR billy corgan!

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 7 May 2006 09:35 (nineteen years ago)

;-)

― fandango (fandango), Sunday, 7 May 2006 09:46 (nineteen years ago)

Appetite is well-crafted, but ultimately it's just the last trimphant gasp of old-school cock rock as THE reigning rock paradigm. After nirvana/grunge/whatever, even the cock-rockers (Limp Bizkit, Korn, Slipknot etc) adopt 'angst' as their stance. We're still riding the 'angst' wave with the Emo/Screamo/kiddiecore shit.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 7 May 2006 10:18 (nineteen years ago)

(of course there are plenty exceptions.)

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 7 May 2006 10:21 (nineteen years ago)

sorry, that was ponderous, half-baked douchebaggery on my part

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 7 May 2006 10:24 (nineteen years ago)

three years pass...

A weird pairing but there's no other thread about Gish so...
Been listening to it lately and I'm amused it's the only Smashing Pumpkins material that I still find listenable. Must be that Corgan still hadn't perfected his knackered croon. Rhinoceros, Crush, Suffer and Snail still sound great after all this years and are particular apt listening for this summer.

― Moka, Friday, 7 August 2009 19:13 (sixteen years ago)

three years pass...

appetite = axis
gish = allies

― i also enjoy in line skateing (spazzmatazz), Tuesday, 2 July 2013 16:32 (twelve years ago)

six years pass...

worlds collide(!!): https://pitchfork.com/news/smashing-pumpkins-to-open-for-guns-n-roses-on-north-american-tour/

― dad genes (morrisp), Thursday, 6 February 2020 23:09 (six years ago)

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