Pre-Bald Billy Punkins were okay, but the appearance of Nosferfat-u and the rat in a cage was the end of me ever wanting to listen to them voluntarily. Also, they were hot garbage at the Lollapalooza I saw them play. When a zitty Pavement fan thinks that your band can't "bring it" live, the whole enterprise is in trouble.
― Cannonley Adderall (InternationalWaters), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 15:15 (six years ago) link
Counterpoint: they weren't good until he went bald
― Moodles, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 15:18 (six years ago) link
Mellon Collie is definitely where his voice begins to transition from weird to insufferable but I think it works well on "Bullet"
― crüt, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 15:21 (six years ago) link
yeah that's a killer song. first time I heard it was a live broadcast and he really snarled that opening line. made the song. was a bit disappointed when i heard the recorded version but it's still a great song.
― Badgers (dog latin), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 15:43 (six years ago) link
One of the many reasons Siamese Dream is their best record is that Butch Vig slathered enough reverb and processing onto his voice to make it tolerable, it's this barely human sounding wispy thing rather than this nasty weedly slimy thing.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 15:44 (six years ago) link
you know, despite liking the Pumpkins through the nineties Siamese is the one that never really clicked too well with me. I like 'Soma' off that one.
― Badgers (dog latin), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 15:50 (six years ago) link
In Spanish we refer to them as Smashing Pompis.
http://www.spanishdict.com/traductor/pompis
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 16:13 (six years ago) link
Corgan is pretty pompous ya
― F# A# (∞), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 16:18 (six years ago) link
Pre-Bald Billy Punkins were okay, but the appearance of Nosferfat-u and the rat in a cage was the end of me ever wanting to listen to them voluntarily.
Technically Billy still had his hair in the "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" video, so there!
I find it funny that people are still arguing so vehemently about Corgan's voice in 2018, about 25 years after my classmates and I did the same thing during recess in 8th grade. I never thought it was that bad...
― Sam Weller, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 16:26 (six years ago) link
it would be a bit weird if he'd sounded like Sade
― Badgers (dog latin), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 17:05 (six years ago) link
it's interesting how the 3/4 reunion announcement has made ppl talk about the Pumpkins and BC again for the first time in many years, IRL and on here it's mostly ppl that aren't fans or are casual fans. hence the voice discussion
and yea Billy sounds different on Gish and especially SD because Butch Vig made him do hundreds of takes, going so far as to comp individual syllables. on MCIS, not only did Billy record with a handheld mic w/o headphones, he didn't double track much, and Flood encouraged him to go for "passion rather than pitch," so... ymmv
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 17:08 (six years ago) link
I gave them 2.5 based on Gish alone, where I could 3, which were surely eroded to 2.5 by everything else they did.
― campreverb, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 17:18 (six years ago) link
which 3 tho
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 17:20 (six years ago) link
imo "good tracks" needs to be an integer. the line is set at 2.5 good tracks to set a clear threshold. so people claiming fractions of good tracks are misinformed rats in cages despite all their rages.
― Dat Login was the dname u doofus (Sufjan Grafton), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 18:14 (six years ago) link
his voice is good, his commercial sell out songs from the mid-late 90s are awesome
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 18:15 (six years ago) link
that suggests he ever had any indie hangups about 'selling out' to begin with. are you talking about the soundtrack songs, "Eye" and "The End is the Beginning is the End"?
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 18:25 (six years ago) link
.5 is symbolic
it means i like a couple tracks but i don't buy their whole shtick
kinda like when you like one or two things in a song and then the singer messes it up
― F# A# (∞), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 18:27 (six years ago) link
i didn't realize any of this wasn't symbolic. still, there are correct and incorrect ways to do things. going to flag your post, but note for the mods that it should only count as .5 a flag post. i disagree with the post's content, but i appreciate that you had the good sense to double space.
― Dat Login was the dname u doofus (Sufjan Grafton), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 18:34 (six years ago) link
i would resist aligning their whole schtick with my music taste personally but think they certainly have more than 2.5 good songs, think billy corgan possibly had a deluded view of what he was good at but was nonetheless talented & applied his passion in ways that did result in good music, maybe semi-accidentally (or more accidentally than most artists) i almost feel like 'intent' for corgan couldn't possibly align with what makes him good, but at any rate, what symbolic answer is that? i voted 'a lot'
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 18:55 (six years ago) link
anyone saying 2.5 to me feels like they're really pushing against the grain of history or just have a distaste for their work idk
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 18:56 (six years ago) link
like 0 and 2.5 might as well be the same answer
I think his intent, at least early on, was to make emotional rock anthems that combined 70s prog/AOR with 80s/90s alternative rock? Which is what he achieved?
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 19:00 (six years ago) link
yes. he said this re: the band's conceptual origins in a 1995 MTV 'Rockumentary' that aired the week that Mellon Collie came out: "It seemed very obvious to me that if someone could somehow combine everything that they liked about music into a almost like a hodgepodge band, that seemed obvious to me where I wanted to go, so I just picked like my 7 favorite bands." ---which is a low number tbh. he was equally influenced by Boston, ELO, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Queen, The Beatles, and Cheap Trick as he was Joy Division, Bauhaus, Mercyful Fate, Metallica, U2, R.E.M., The Cure, Jane's Addiction... it's funny, writing that out, I realize how similar Billy's curated 'hodgepodge' mentality is to Pavement's record collector nerd mentality, but without any of the coy / pretentious pose.
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 19:19 (six years ago) link
i mean obviously Billy is pretentious, but he was always open about the process and his own grandiosity. familiarity breeds contempt
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 19:20 (six years ago) link
I Am One, Siva, Tristessa+(1979-Bullet w/ Butterfly Wings) ____________________________________ =2.5 "You Hurt Me Deeply In My Heart"
― campreverb, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 19:22 (six years ago) link
im sure he had more ideas about his music than reductive genre formula mathematics but ok sure
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 19:28 (six years ago) link
Obviously
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 19:31 (six years ago) link
Thread is super-illuminating in that it proves decisively that NV is the only one who makes funny jokes on this board
― the man from P.O.R.L.O.C.K. (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 20:03 (six years ago) link
yeah, disliking the majority of a band's music pretty much means you have a distate for their work.
― sarahell, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 20:06 (six years ago) link
resist aligning their whole schtick with my music taste personally
― Planck Blather (darraghmac), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 20:18 (six years ago) link
"I realize how similar Billy's curated 'hodgepodge' mentality is to Pavement's record collector nerd mentality, but without any of the coy / pretentious pose."
wait, why are pavement pretentious? they were totally fun and goofy. i also don't get the coy part. they weren't shrinking violets.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 20:37 (six years ago) link
There are probably about 5 songs that I like enough that I won't change the radio station if I'm driving, I guess that's worth about .5 good per song, none of these are their biggest hits though so I never hear them anyway.
― silverfish, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 20:38 (six years ago) link
Smashing PumpKing's X might be a tribute band that could do well w/a v specific demographic
― scott seward, Tuesday, February 20, 2018 2:37 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
yeah i don't really get that at all
― It's not delivery, it's Adorno! (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 20:45 (six years ago) link
or i should say i think flapz just wanted to talk shit abt pavement and drag em into the pumpking patch
post/username combinations I have enjoyed xxp
― imago, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 20:46 (six years ago) link
princesscarolyn.jpg
― imago, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 20:48 (six years ago) link
As someone who was a teenager in the 90s in North America, I had a lot of friends who were really into the Smashing Pumpkins so I heard a lot of their stuff, but never really got into it that much. Always seemed like it was never quite as good as everybody was saying it was.
All that being said, I guess I'd probably be defending this band right now if in 1995 I had put my limited funds towards randomly buying Melon Collie the month it came out instead of some other well reviewed or hyped album (Garbage?). That's just how these things go.
― silverfish, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 20:50 (six years ago) link
been meaning to relisten to garbage again
― F# A# (∞), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 20:52 (six years ago) link
so have I. I keep listening to other stuff though.
― silverfish, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 20:58 (six years ago) link
that happy when it rains song is good
― sarahell, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 21:00 (six years ago) link
Really, I've been meaning to critically reevaluate (privately, in my mind) everything I've ever liked.
― silverfish, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 21:02 (six years ago) link
you should actually start a thread and chronicle this reevaluation in minute detail culminating in a poll
― sarahell, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 21:05 (six years ago) link
pavement had at least 8 great songs. and lots of good ones.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 21:07 (six years ago) link
zero good smashing pumkings song forever
ty for this thread some of us who hate this fuckin band need it
― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 21:08 (six years ago) link
despite all yr rage iirc
― F# A# (∞), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 21:11 (six years ago) link
I'm struggling through Mellon Collie and it's basically just this sea of bad music with two toweringly brilliant epics in the middle - TTEOR especially feels like the work of a different band
my theory is that they didn't have enough collective energy to fully work through their songs, so they put a lot into a few of them and basically knocked the rest out without really thinking. like, Zero is a nice idea that could really go somewhere and...doesn't. and then again that's one of the rare good ideas to begin with. most of these songs don't seem to have had much put into the original conception
― imago, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 21:13 (six years ago) link
have you struggled through pisces iscariot
― F# A# (∞), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 21:15 (six years ago) link
I can provide a Paypal address?
― imago, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 21:17 (six years ago) link
i don't own it but have u tried the internet?
― F# A# (∞), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 21:18 (six years ago) link
Pumpkins are over and done but have boatloads of great songs.
What most amuses me is how a topic like this actually brings all the ilm boys to the yard, in 2018. Well played NV, well played.
― Le Bateau Ivre, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 21:18 (six years ago) link