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

"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.

:)

i have only had three tracks that i voted for place so far, either i'm way off or most of mine are going to show up later. i think i'm going to be more of a hivemind fan.

I love how "Appels..." chugs to life.

this is my favorite from Adore.

i'm listening to Music Choice Classic Alternative channel right now. they just put on "Mayonaise."

they are probably watching this rollout. :-)

Getting the sinking feeling that "The Imploding Voice" has no chance of showing up here

https://i.imgur.com/JPVse9o.jpg
32. To Forgive
266 points, 9 votes
From: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, 1995

"appels" was right at the end of my ballot

higher than i expected. and yeah ray, seems like it... bummed, that song is great, one of the only songs that benefitted from the maximalist Machina production. the barebones Arising version is p boring in comparison

to forgive i meant

the bridge in To Forgive is really great

GS: Did you use any other guitar amps on the record?

CORGAN: On "To Forgive," I used a Fender Bassman that I bought during the recording of Siamese Dream. It's an old, fucked-up amp, one of those "silver face" models from the late Sixties or early Seventies. I paid to get it fixed, but it still doesn't work right. The amp makes this weird sound, like a storm coming. While we rehearsed the song, the sound got worse, and then started to go away,at which point we started to record. Right about the time we did the rake that's on the album,the sound started to come back. If you listen closely, you can hear a little bit of the storm sound coming again.

GS: Is it like a rumble?

CORGAN: No, it's more like KKKkkkccchhhHHH, like something's definitely wrong with the amp. I've had problems with tubes going harmonic, but this is something else altogether. I've tried kicking that head as hard as I can, and sometimes that makes the sound go away. But other times it makes it get worse, so you have to know just when and how to kick it!

GS: How do you play the first verse of "To Forgive"?

CORGAN: It's mostly based on arpeggiated 1st-position chords. At the chorus, I break into full chords combined with single-note arpegiations.

GS: The bridge of "To Forgive" has a very cool cyclical feel to it.

CORGAN: That's because it's based on a chord progression that actually cycles around.

rest of the interview is pumpkinhead heaven, lots of detailed stuff about the production of MCIS: http://www.starla.org/articles/crsh4_96.htm

https://i.imgur.com/mR3YbzD.jpg
31. Shame
274 points, 10 votes
From: Adore, 1998

last one for now

is this happening over the weekend or are you going to wait to post the next batch on Monday?

I will probably keep going over the weekend

:thumbsup:

SHAME TOO LOW

this was my gateway song into loving Adore and a lot of other music, too (eg slowcore)

My #25

god "shame" is so wonderful

starting from when I was about 16 I always took "you're gonna walk on home, you're gonna walk alone" as an invitation. it's scored a lot of walks.

my gateway song into loving Adore and a lot of other music, too (eg slowcore)

Smashing Pumpkins 'Shame' but sung by Mark Kozelek

lmao

ahahahaha bless u crut

Shame is a little too long but it's still glorious, I love when it finally opens up into "hello, goodbye, you know you made us cry"

Shame was in my top 10. A majestic abstraction

Bodies & Quiet also placed high on my ballots. Quiet in particular has some of Billy's best-ever lyrics

(Seriously the Quiet chorus is such a sharp evocation of child abuse from the vantage point of the victim)

wait, "ballots"?

Lol no thats a typo, my bad. I only got one vote

been listening to softer tracks at night while winding down with fam, and I now see that I made very caffeinated morning listening at work selections for my ballot

I've been listening to it for 25 years but I don't think I have any idea what the words to the chorus of "Quiet" are, unless they actually are "We have shown/Mess you've made my eyes/I'll never forget your sweet behind". Don't tell me the real lyrics pls. I really enjoy the vocal timbres with the guitars there.

One of my favourite Corgan solos.

be ashamed
mess you've made
my eyes
never forget
you see
behind me

OK, I looked them up. The real lyrics are definitely better.
xp

behind me the grace of falling snow
cover up everything you know
come save me from the awful sound
of nothing

that’s one of my favorite corgan verses

I like "Behind me the grace of falling snow/Cover up everything you know". His diction seems really obscured to me on that song.

"Shame" was my #7. It's maybe the only long SP track whose epic-ness doesn't sound forced. There are no extended solos, shifts in tempo, weird vocal interludes or any other cues that might imply that they're planning to go long. The groove just locks in and keeps going.

I figured it was a given that all of SD would place in the top 66 but never thought that all, or nearly all, of Adore would.

Spotify: ILM The Smashing Pumpkins

up to date and at 2:42 long (31-88) so far...

thanks for those who are keeping the Spotify up to date!