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

1994

https://78.media.tumblr.com/1a83933de3ab2f7cb13b97c7a4df6b0f/tumblr_inline_ni8wo3wTPY1qaotc0.png

1997

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b9/02/68/b902684cb8f40e4b24a189f729b20a1a.jpg

Lol I've spent almost the entire morning listening to 1989 shows trying to pinpoint the exact nature of the break from the goth-pop mode that Rhinoceros represents

With Bury Me and I Am One, it's easier because of the Jane's Addiction influence; I used to think Bury Me came first because imo it bites Nothing's Shocking harder*, but Bury Me is a lot more sophisticated than I am One (which meh tbh East>>>> ) but Bury Me defines itself not in the cycling riff but in the breaks, most notably how the chords that lead tino 'that outro' basically reprise the "bury me in love" melody

I think I grew to like BM mostly just from trying to figure out how Billy made that outro work

courtney love conversation is mainly reminding me of how good all of the songs he’s written with her are

Speaking of Courtney Love, I saw the Pumpkins play in Biloxi, MS the day they found Kurt's body. He didn't mention it. Their openers Red Red Meat did. It always seemed weird to me. At the time I didn't know he and Courtney had ever had a thing. It was still weird that he didn't bring it up. It seemed like an important thing that was obviously on everyone's mind.

The show was incredible. "Starla" tore the roof off the place.

Wow you were there? I've listened to tapes of that show just to see if he said anything about Kurt. I still maintain that "Malibu" was the best song about Kurt written in the wake of the suicide. Pretty crazy that it was co-written (written?) by Billy Corgan, the guy whose rumored meeting with Courtney in London led to Kurt's Rome suicide attempt. Or do I have that wrong?...

Man, "Glynis" only made 20% of ballots at all?

What's the weighting again for the song poll (i.e. #1 = 50 points, #2 = 48 points, #25 = 2 points)?

Speaking of Courtney Love, I saw the Pumpkins play in Biloxi, MS the day they found Kurt's body. He didn't mention it. Their openers Red Red Meat did. It always seemed weird to me. At the time I didn't know he and Courtney had ever had a thing. It was still weird that he didn't bring it up. It seemed like an important thing that was obviously on everyone's mind.

The show was incredible. "Starla" tore the roof off the place.

he wrote about that day & how he heard the news in his “confessions of billy corgan” livejournal circa 2005. here it is:

As is often the case after a show, we board the bus and hit the road, watching movies and eating bad food to pass the time…this drive is about 5+ hours, so the sun is just about to come up when the bus hisses to a stop…the damp breeze of the ocean rolls up onto me in my half-sleep, and I can spy the water just over the road, so I make a small mental note to come back around during the day and check out the beach…turning, I am a bit stunned to see that we are staying in some sort of motel nightmare, splashed down here on a whim in the 60’s as a heady mix of Jetson’s futurism mixed with hurricane reality…I ask no one in particular, “what the fuck is this place?”, but no one listens cause they have heard it all before and all they really want is a closed door with a bed behind it…my room stinks of mildew and is just big enough for that same sought after bed, but out goes the light, and I am fast asleep…

The phone rings way too early, jarring me out of a sweet, humid sleep…the window is open and the sun pours in as the ocean air sweeps through the room…it looks like a beautiful day…”Did you hear the news? He’s gone and killed himself”…my first twilight thought is that it can’t be true, because even I have been reported dead two separate times in the last year (driving down the road, my father had recently heard a report that I was dead, so it must be a rumor or a bad joke)…the t.v. in the room is one of those standard pieces of shit where you need a remote to turn it on, cause they hardwire the front controls off so you can’t jack the channels around to get the movies for free…I flip on CNN with the sound off, figuring if there’s any truth to it that they would have it…there is nothing on at this moment except a general news report, so it must just be a mistake…then I start to think that maybe they won’t care at all and that this might not be the source for information…about 20 seconds in they flash his picture…the talking head is talking away, and my stomach drops about 1,000 feet…I mumble to whoever is on the line for a minute or so, but I don’t remember what I said…they remind me that they are very glad I am still here…I put down the phone, and all is really quiet now…his picture is still up on the screen, frozen…it is one of those rare moments in life where the entire world seems to be stopped, waiting for the next breath…my mind races around to “where is she? I hope she is alright”…I sit on the edge of the bed and just stare at the screen…I cannot believe my eyes, it is just all so sad…I don’t pray, but I do now…I pull myself down to the floor, my back pressed up against the bed, the t.v. screen just a foot away from my eyes…I say a prayer for his soul, thanking him for all the good he has done…I pray a lot for his child, who is now without a father…and I start to cry and I don’t stop until there are no more tears to cry…

Admission: I totally forgot about "Glynis"

Oh wow! thanks for the recording and all the context for that Biloxi show. I am listening to it now.

https://i.imgur.com/SbYZsBA.jpg
39. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
218 points, 11 votes
From: No Alternative, 1995

uh that's

https://i.imgur.com/SbYZsBA.jpg
39. Love
218 points, 11 votes
From: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, 1995

Voted for this one. Love the drum hook and the flanger.

Awesome!

Nice detail to match the typography with the original ones used in the albums. The Adore font is my favorite and the one I think I’d have chosen if making a standard banner for the poll... what’s the name of it?

I don't think I voted for "Love," but it's definitely a favorite.

(I KNOW I voted for "Beautiful" - hoping that places close to the end of this rollout.)

yeah you have the ballot weightings correct there Soundslike.

The Adore font is Novella. I'm glad people like the images.

https://i.imgur.com/IKdPug2.jpg
38. Bodies
226 points, 8 votes
From: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, 1995

My #5

least fave MCIS track tbh

didn't make my ballot but it's great

It's one of the heavy tracks I like the most on MCIS. a little repetitive but I love Billy's "NO BODIES EVER KNEW" scream

https://i.imgur.com/pPtY1IK.jpg
37. Bullet with Butterfly Wings
228 points, 9 votes
From: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, 1995

Does the first verse feature little volume fluctuations?-I've always heard that and wondered if it was real or my imagination.

It's so weird that because I got into SP just after Siamese Dream, that I still regard MCIS with a little suspicion as "new" Pumpkins. The photo at the top of the thread presses that button a little.

wtf @ ILM

granted this was towards the bottom of my own ballot but this song is the fucking bomb and this is way too low

iconic single, no doubt

betrayed desires

Damn, ILM!

The world is a WHAMpire

One of the few MCIS tracks they spent real time on the vocals, only because it was gonna be a single. Billy wanted Jellybelly as the first single until Virgin rejected that (insane) idea, but that one has more double tracking than most MCIS songs

Bridge is nuts thanks to the Fender Blender

CAAAAAAAGE

I think this was the first Pumpkins song I ever heard.

Is it just me or are the lyrics particularly execrable on BWBW?

I love the way that last line sounds - “AND I STILL BELIEVE THAT I CANNOT BE SAVED” - glorious multitracking & perfect pitch that probably took hours for him to nail lol

home from work and yeah wow at this placement. was on my ballot one of their most iconic songs.

Ugh, so my #1 song only placed 52 in this poll.
'Crush' was on every high school mixtape that everyone I knew made in 1992.

It's not my all time favorite Pumpkins song, but it's definitely the Pumpkins song that sounds most to me like it desperately NEEDS to be a single? I'm good with it, it's on my ballot somewhere.

I was so turned off by this at the time. I think it's the reason I didn't even listen to all of MCIS until years later. At the time, it felt to me like a generic quiet verse/loud chorus alt-rock song and the lyrics seemed so hollow, especially with the singsongy melody. As I approach middle age, it sounds like a classic rock anthem but it still missed my ballot.

I finally got my mom to stop trying to get me to go to church by wearing my "the world is a vampire" t-shirt to mass.

Is it just me or are the lyrics particularly execrable on BWBW?

― startled macropod (MatthewK), Friday, April 6, 2018 5:44 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk i love them. they're fuckin dumb and great

as i said on the other thread when i first saw the video for this on mtv i thought it was the coolest thing i'd heard/saw. i also think it was the first song i ever heard where the title didn't appear at all in the lyrics

If anyone is interested, I have the “Sequence IV” bootleg, which is the MCIS rough mixes as of 5/31/95. It’s just the first disc plus Lily. Mostly scratch vocals and synth guide parts for strings (title track sounds so goofy, like a Final Fantasy score). But some of those scratch vocals made it onto the album, like Galapagos (which also has a brief guitar solo right before the “too late to turn back now” part that was wisely deleted)

It's not my all time favorite Pumpkins song, but it's definitely the Pumpkins song that sounds most to me like it desperately NEEDS to be a single? I'm good with it, it's on my ballot somewhere.

One of the first performances of Bullet, from spring 1994: https://youtu.be/4l6frzcRBps

https://i.imgur.com/MZLzJ4P.jpg
36. Quiet
232 points, 9 votes
From: Siamese Dream, 1993

We're up to eight MCIS tracks in the rollout so far.

the opening of "quiet" is the actual coolest thing i've ever heard