Smashing Pumpkins yay or nay?

Blackpitts

the best band of the 90's for me, I love gish, siamese dreams and mellon collie...everything after that was crap!
His voice was always out of tune, but it was good as it was! listen at tales from scortched earth for example, it's bloody brilliant even if you can't understand a word!
Re: last album, I reckon B. Corgan has tried to learn how to sing properly in the last 2 years, he set his voice louder than the guitars and the drumming ... he failed miserably!
what a pity!

boredatwork82

Yay. I think they are a class act. Actually came across my Rotten Apples cd so listened to that on my drive down last night.
I also really like the new album Zeitgeist.

stateofflux

love them or hate them....no other band could do what they did on gish, siamese dream or mellon collie....so that kind of answers the question....i am a fan but i do get annoyed by pumpkins obsessives who have no quality control....song wise.....zeitgeist is a terrible album...machina is ok....adore very good....but the other three....are classics ...FACT

Malice

fortuneg wrote: »

Personally I think Iha was responsible for a lot of the 'dreamy' ambiance during the slower parts of the early Pumpkins stuff & throughout much of Machina.
The newer stuff has been distinctly lacking those slower ambient breaks.

I agree on the lack of ambient breaks and it's quite possible that Iha wrote them but I like to give Billy the benefit of the doubt . Do you know if Iha has done any solo stuff since his exit from Smashing Pumpkins?

stateofflux wrote: »

song wise.....zeitgeist is a terrible album...machina is ok....adore very good....but the other three....are classics ...FACT

You do know that they have released more than 6 albums?

stateofflux

malice_ wrote: »

I agree on the lack of ambient breaks and it's quite possible that Iha wrote them but I like to give Billy the benefit of the doubt . Do you know if Iha has done any solo stuff since his exit from Smashing Pumpkins?

You do know that they have released more than 6 albums?

although they are amazing i don't class pisces iscariot or machina 2 as albums...more collections....

anonymous_joe

Den_M wrote: »

D'arcy played on Machina, which was their last album before the split, she left before the Machina tour began.

Yeah, you're right, my bad. :P

Dudess wrote: »

Brilliant. Gish and Siamese Dream are amazing. Mellon Collie is mixed but has plenty of great moments - self-indulgent is correct though. The ego of that man...
Adore is great too. Couldn't understand the hatred at the time.

I've seen no-one else ever stand for 10 minutes demanding applause at a gig, before it ended. :P

eljono

Den_M wrote: »

Got that a few months back:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58261357&postcount=17

Cool tattoo!

Love Mellon Collie and Siamese Dream and Adore when I'm in the mood... Mellon Collie is one of the most complete albums of the last 20 years for me, it touches and covers so much. Porcelina of the Oceans Blue and Bodies are my favourite tracks from it

Malice

stateofflux wrote: »

although they are amazing i don't class pisces iscariot or machina 2 as albums...more collections....

That seems like an odd distinction to make. I can understand not including a "Greatest Hits" compilation which will normally be made up of tracks that fans will already have but when it's a set of new/unreleased/generally unheard material why wouldn't you count it as part of a band's discography?

Penn

Only started liking Smashing Pumpkins lately. Great band. Love 1979, Mayonaise, The Everlasting Gaze and Disarm.

And dare I say it, their acoustic version of Thin Lizzys Dancing in the Moonlight is better than the original

eviltimeban

Corgan offered both Iha and D'Arcy the chance to rejoin the band - but neither of them got back to him. I don't blame them to be honest, if you hated being in the band the first time round you're hardly going to jump at the chance to do it the second time around. Not that they hated it per se, I just guess that their relationships fell apart and that was the reason for the split. Its not like they were into different music (although a listen to James Iha's solo album might tell you different).

I do believe, however, that Billy was responsible for all the music and although James co-wrote those two songs (and solo wrote a few more), that's nothing in the grand scheme of things. Anyway with Soma he just had the three chords, Billy wrote the song and the riff and everything else about it (as he notably demonstrates in the If All Goes Wrong DVD).

I am one of the few who likes Zeitgeist. I do have a problem with the volume and new vibrato effect in Billy's voice, and of course the lack of the softer, ambient, dreamy sections, with the sighing vocals (I'm thinking the likes of Obscured etc). But maybe we will see that in times to come. Good that they are taking a new approach to releasing new music, the three songs (Superchrist, GLOW and FOL) are all pretty good and certainly better than some of the latter songs on Zeitgeist.

As for their history, now more and more I am appreciating Adore for being an absolutely beautiful, amazing album. There's only two duff tracks, Shame and Annie Dog, but beyond that there is some fantastic music and stuff that stands up to the best of their work. Behold The Nightmare, For Martha, To Sheila, Tear... musically its brilliant, and vocally its Billy at his least whiney.

Of course Siamese is the recognised "best album" - it is for me too. I remember the summer it came out like yesterday, it was a great time for music. Gish too, my first Pumpkins album (with Rhinoceros being the first Pumpkins song I ever heard).

Mellon I feel was let down by the production and the slap dash approach to recording the vocals which often found them fighting for a place in the mix, rather than being nicely tracked and processed as on the previous albums.

Machina is my least favourite, some good songs but as an album has too many bad songs and bad production. I'd kill for a clearer copy of Machina 2 as I feel that had great potential - pity the versions out there are of such poor quality.

Pisces Iscariot is a good collection of b sides, even though some great great songs were left off it - Glynis, Moleasskiss, Slunk, Smiley, Apathy's Last Kiss, Drown. Also The End is the Beginning is The End is a classic. Judas O isn't as good but its alright.

Some nice sounding songs on the If All Goes Wrong DVD, but are these going to be released or just left as they are on the DVD? Pity they are not making any more albums but I like the approach and as long as the songs are all free then that's OK with me! 3 songs down, only 7 more to go and we've got an album. Hopefully a studio version of Gossamer will appear soon - in all its 37 minute glory!

dead air

Nice post, eviltimeban. I would agree with a lot of what you wrote. Gossamer is a spralling epic of a pumpkins track, I saw pumpkins twice on the last tour and really wish that they played it.

Nailz

NAy with a capital A!