Bang Bang You're Dead... POLL In Your Head - ILM Artist Poll #87 - SMASHING PUMPKINS - Results

gonna have to crack open a thesaurus for more superlatives tonight

It's kind of smashing pumpkins' purple rain

yeap, will be in the Top 3.

holy shit Purple Rain comparison is OTM. they actually begin with the same chord (Bsus2)

i think it could potentially be no. 1

which, i'd be down

xp

and both feature Eb. but yeah. in mood and feeling it's totally their Purple Rain

flappy you've never liked "mayonaise" :O

:OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

it also features a toy guitar feedback track that adds loveless style studio intrigue. it won a rolling stone readership poll lol.

yeah it's either 1979 or Mayo at #1. i can't think of anything else that has more broad appeal among hardcore & casual pumpkins fans

xp yeah i don't know... it feels so on the nose, so much of a trad "power ballad," i mean that Purple Rain comparison is so so otm... the feedback squeals are great obv, i don't like the lyrics, but that hasn't stopped with me plenty of pumpkins songs lol... it feels stock somehow, whereas idk, Hummer is utterly of another world and impossible to categorize. Soma is maybe the other SD track most similar to Mayo, and I've never liked that one either that much, it just feels less obvious... like Mayo sounds like a song that was always written, but in a bad way... if that makes sense. it probably doesn't

no sentence with bad and mayonaise will make sense to me

but I can certainly understand preferring hummer and soma

i like to imagine that billy saw jimmy put a dollop of mayo in his chili at lunch. billy scooted his chair back, making a screeching sound that silenced the room. he exited the cafeteria and went straight to the tour bus where he wrote mayonaise. the feedback is a reference to the room-silencing sound of that chair.

all things relative with SP, honestly by anyone else a masterpiece imo. it feels out of place coming from them, being so obvious and... almost like an attempt by another band at writing a great smashing pumpkins song (and not a parody)

i ran this poll:

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream poll

Option Votes
9. Mayonaise 24
1. Cherub Rock 14
7. Soma 11
8. Geek U.S.A. 10
3. Today 7
5. Rocket 6
4. Hummer 4
11. Silverfuck 4
6. Disarm 3
12. Sweet Sweet 1
10. Spaceboy 1
2. Quiet 1
13. Luna 0

Luna getting shut out... I don't even know what to say

It's no "Hummer" or "Soma" but it... really doesn't sound like a generic ca. 1993 power ballad to me. I like how it takes its time. I don't think vocals even enter until about a minute and a half in? 2xp

the problem with ranking Siamese Dream songs is that something has to be last.

Disarm has to be last, not Luna.

I hope Disarm places. So easy to make fun of the lyrics, but unlike a few of the MCIS singles, the song is great

it will make the Top 66

Mayonaise just has a perfect chord progression (written by James!). I'd never thought about Purple Rain as a comparison point before but that's really otm. it's Purple Rain meets Loveless

"Today" is probably my least favorite from SD tbh

v likely Billy's most effortless-seeming set of lyrics, too xp

the guitar solo in the intro is so subtle and expressive

the pinch harmonics take me out of it a bit tbh

nice work on the thread title

you're welcome

intro to mayo made me love this tho

https://media.musiciansfriend.com/is/image/MMGS7/M-107-Phase-100-Effects-Pedal/151106000000000-00-500x500.jpg

The intro to Mayo (intro de Mayo?) is always what comes to mind when I think "what does a Strat sound like?"

my albums poll:

Adore
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
MACHINA/the machines of God
Siamese Dream
Pisces Iscariot

I've never quite gelled with Siamese Dream. Like someone said upthread, it's concise and monochromatic. I have difficulty discerning between all the songs, especially on the first side. And while I love certain tracks (Soma especially) it's just not as exciting as what else is on offer in the rest of their catalogue.

And I've always felt like Disarm is a massive drag.

if were doing a "Worst Smashing Pumpkins Songs" Poll, I'd strongly have to consider "Disarm" as my number one - and that's even though I either dislike/haven't heard/don't care about most Pumpkins songs after 2001.

had no idea Disarm was so bad and hated. Always assumed I was on my own in that one.

I don't know if it's universally hated? I've just always recoiled from it - when I was a teenager who listened to Siamese Dream too much, it was that song I always rushed to skip. Why? Not the music so much, but the lyric and the vocal, maybe because - as I think about it now - it was too direct, too personal, too naked, or something. And it's not the only early Pumpkins song that was extra intimate, but this took that to an uncomfortable level, with a drama (?) that turned me off and still does.

Disarm is the first one I heard and I have massive affection for it. Siamese Dream in general is the one where they just nail and perfect their aesthetic, they never quite get it right after that so I suspect Butch Vig was a masssive influence.

I can sometimes get into it if I'm really in a mood for it but I usually skip it (and "Spaceboy" *ducks*). U mad otherwise though, dog latin.

I really like "Tonight Tonight" and "Thirty-three" so it's not just ballad hate.

Knowing that Disarm lurks inside of Siamese Dream is probably the primary reason I don't go on Smashing Pumpkins kicks more often. Goddamn overplayed black-and-white old man Unforgiven video was a plague on MTV.

To echo something a few people have said above: I find it hard to return to SD at all now, for the same reason that it's hard to listen to a lot of albums I listened to too often in high school. See also Nevermind and early Pearl Jam.

Maybe I'll learn to like it in this poll, but it was pretty traumatic for me at the time.

'Disarm' was also the first song I heard by them (a Now compilation I think). It wasn't until I heard a student band do a cover of 'Today' in a school assembly that I figured the Pumpkins might be worth checking out. Then I got '1979' and thought 'huh this is nothing like I was expecting'

I loved this strange wonderful album of washed-out guitar epics. It was kind of a letdown when the song the world loved from it was this one atypical over-emoting ballad with a ridiculous tautology in its chorus.

Same with Mellon Collie I guess. For an album that indulges in its diversity, the favourite and big single (1979) sounds absolutely alone in terms of style (and lyrics)

Lol, now I want to listen to "Disarm". I'll admit that when I first listened to the album, even "Disarm" seemed like a weird song to be 'the ballad' in a world where Aerosmith was still making the most popular rock ballads.

Play bass like you're barely alive!
https://media.giphy.com/media/9Y5ddKxG7nULYJUZhT/giphy.gif

Breathe through your mouth, James (don't breathe too much).
https://media.giphy.com/media/1XhrmivUUrrxtCPRrH/giphy.gif

Drink of this cup, for it is...oh, maybe better not.
https://media.giphy.com/media/fiwkwEt2SpwNhwrU7L/giphy.gif

Yeah, I mostly remembered why I usually skip it.

I can sometimes get into it if I'm really in a mood for it but I usually skip it (and "Spaceboy" *ducks*).

I don't like Spaceboy either, it just kind of drags. Disarm isn't a terrible song but the strings and bells are too much for me.

I like "Spaceboy" a lot

Currently trying to reconfigure the MCIS era tracks as one long single-dsc album + one "outtakes" album a la SD + PI. For some reason I never tire of resequencing these songs.

my albums ballot:

Siamese Dream
Pisces Iscariot
Adore
Gish
Mellon Collie

except for 1979 I could exchange Mellon Collie & the first Machina. Mellon Collie has a few other good singles but as an album experience I'd rather avoid it (oh & Galapogos is good too).

I kinda feel about Siamese Dream vs Mellon Collie the way I do about Monster vs New Adventures In Hi-Fi : I strongly prefer the earlier of each pair but ILM seems to lean the other way, & I wonder if it's related to which one you got into first.