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

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

(I was going to self-deprecatingly post '"Love is suicide" obv a much more credible statement than "despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage" or "the world is a vampire"' but I think I actually believe that.)

Anyway, "Quiet" is obv classic and placed solidly on my ballot.

omg, Billy says "Please clap"

(in the spring 1994 BWBW)

The best was when Bullet came on at our grade 7 school dance. A couple hundred kids jumping up and down to the chorus.

now this is a great tune

i should have knocked half my ballot down a peg so i could put this on it

Nerdy, sure, but to continue the count

6 Adore tracks so far
4 SD tracks so far

Where are all the Pisces tracks?

in the top 35

BWBW was when I knew deep in my heart it was all going to fall apart. I knew the video was premiering, waited around for it age 15, superfan... And while I couldn't admit it to myself or friends, my heart sank. MCIS has a few moments that get pieces of the puzzle, but it never comes together as a whole (in any individual song nor as an album). Still frustrating after all these years that they lost it.

That is to say, surprised and not surprised BWBW placed so high--apparently from a few folks putting it in their top few?

(The contrast with 'Quiet' placing only just above it is fascinating. "Quiet" has genuine angst and anger and "rawk" and all that. BWBW is a weird pantomime of those things, but more boring than even that suggests.)

my bold prediction, all of SD will place.

i can imagine "sweet sweet" might've fallen outside of the 66

https://i.imgur.com/u8DmLmL.jpg
35. I Am One
234 points, 9 votes
From: Gish, 1991

https://i.imgur.com/USrKYMP.jpg
35. Beautiful
234 points, 9 votes, 1 #1 vote
From: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, 1995

your probably right, should have looked at all the tracks before saying something. it will blow past Adore with no issue though.

xpost

Anytime we got to hear D'Arcy sing was a blessing.

"beautiful" just missed out on my ballot but it's perfect

OK here's a challop: the heavy songs on MCIS sound forced, and if SP weren't buzzbinned and earmarked as the next Nirvana (and of course complied with that) then the album would have been Beautiful, Thirty-Three, Tonight Tonight, Galapogos, Porcelina, Lily, 1979 et al.
SD sounds like Billy had some jams to kick out, and with Vig achieved the zenith of the guitar rock assault record, but on MCIS the rawk is a facsimile, and the beautiful melodic songs are where their hearts were. Adore was a relief for that reason.

(tho I guess Porcelina is plenty heavy when it needs to be!)

MatthewK, you may be onto something there

Maybe I'll have to try an "All Softies" MCIS, though I suspect it'll still ring false (and poorly/overproduced). But that was part of the disappointment--with MCIS, SP fragmented the whole of what they could do into discrete, siloed categories. With SD and "Starla" and "Drown" and parts of Gish, while a song might *lean* "rock" or lean "beauty," there was always a push-pull synthesis of these (and other) feelings and sounds within almost every track.

I definitely prefer the soft songs on Mellon Collie to the heavy ones. Beautiful lives up to its name as one of their most beautiful tracks and I had it quite high.

Na na na na na na na na

https://i.imgur.com/DFZRRTv.jpg
33. Appels + Oranjes
250 points, 9 votes
From: Adore, 1998

who voted Beautiful as their #1? thank you.

Porcelina is the only song on MCIS that captures (almost) every side of the band.

xp oh fuck yeah.

:)