Cast the POLLs Aside: the definitive SMASHING PUMPKINS albums poll

I care about nothing past Adore

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the answer is Mellon Collie.

sift *through* it

gish with paws chicago a close second

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

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

Siamese Dream without thinking

Siamese or Gish. Pisces is boring IMO

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

Teargarden by Kaleidyscope

he named an album Teargarden by Kaleidyscope

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

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

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

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

ranked

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

what did adore to you!?

see also:

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

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

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

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

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

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

1 siamese dreams
2 pisces
3 mellon collie

never liked the rest

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

take = place

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

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

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

insane!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

xxp

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

were CD singles more widely available in '96 though?

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

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

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

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

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

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

*2wards

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

*r

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

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

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

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

TAFH, even.

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

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

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

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

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

beliebe, belieber meat

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

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

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

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

^^^^ otm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*'o'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

i like let it come down ok

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

he's great with an ebow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

Results are about right.

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

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

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

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

bombs away!

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

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