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

This was my #3. What a magical song.

Re:whir

https://i.imgur.com/Q5s5ADJ.jpg
24. Silverfuck
338 points, 13 votes
From: Siamese Dream, 1993

LIIIIARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

yeah the structure of Behold! The Night Mare is really odd and I love it. it's something like this:
verse A
verse B (the wind blows etc.)
pre-chorus
chorus
verse B
acoustic bridge
beautiful 2 note guitar noise solo
second bridge
pre-chorus
chorus
verse A

good song. the swirls in the background make it for me.

Cripes, I'm already just totally behind. Well, here's a Saturday morning wall of text catching up, don't mind me...

"The Boy" - nice discovery! pleasant little James number. i'm okay with it not being on the album; it sounds like such a completely different band - like the Lemonheads/Gin Blossoms college-y wing of alt-rock. "Farewell and Goodnight" clicks in well and I think the trading-off of verses for a "farewell" song is a nice, sweet-feeling move.

"Glass and the Ghost Children" - - - I switched to skipping this very early in owning this album so I really feel like I'm listening to this for the first time. The bassline is like someone playing "X.Y.U." slower and without much interest. The mix is bad, over-busy and washy without getting anything like the shoegazey quality of the dreamier early-90s tracks. Chord changes are meant to be emotional and evocative but there's no hooks. Everything I didn't like about Machina really. Maybe it's a grower but there's very little to grab you on a first-time listen and it's so long. I like the little bits of other ideas like the flute........... and now several minutes later it's a muffled telephone call over piano? This is just a mess. The more classically Billy part coming in after that is at least kind of pretty and atmospheric I guess. Feel like if it was just a song by itself it'd be an OK b-side but still a hookless one.

"X.Y.U." itself ruled when I first got the album but I just burned out on it. The "Mary's got a problem" section is really cool and the KAAAAAAAAAABOOOOOM! was such a great sugar rush of rat-in-a-cage rage but I just can't get interested in the plodding and thrashing elsewhere.

"Suffer" is one of the many Gish tracks I don't know by name but immediately remember, and like, as soon as the first few seconds start. Nice sound, kinda evocative of something dark or queasy. Without all the layers of guitar and classic-rock soaring, this is a very tight band playing kinda gothy, kinda shoegazey songs in dingy smoke-filled clubs while you bob your head and sway a little. Agreed with BN about the "secret chorus" and its psychedelic qualities. Was just about to say that it would do well soundtracking generic 1967 footage of tripping hippies doing weird dances in the park. Versus "Glass and the..." the spacey aimlessness makes it good atmospheric music rather than suggesting a band out of ideas. Same basic story with "Crush," though that's lighter and more hopeful. Super lovely tracks, and great evidence for the discussion we were having a while back about whether the bass playing matters in this band.

"Tear" almost made my ballot in honor of my teenaged self. I was just getting into Zep and the Kashmir quality totally won me over. I wish it came back more to the hushed Lost Highway verses, which nail some of what I was hoping for on this album after "Eye." The busy/muddy quality of the mix does suggest where we might be headed on the next album. Oddly it's reminding me more than anything of some the loop-based tracks on Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, some of which I think also went for a bit of ""Eastern"" sonic affectation.

"Real Love" didn't stand out to me when I first got ahold of Machina 2 but it sounds okay now! VERY much a Machina-era recording and would have done fine in the midst of the album. Still hard not to want to hear a serious remix, get the drums to really rock and pop out of the wash of guitars and vocals.

re: "Ava Adore": lol at "Behold this tableau of grotesquery!", otm.

"Wound" stuck around in my shortlist until the very end, kinda suprrising given my feelings about that album but it was getting stuck in my head a lot while working on the ballot. The hookiest thing on the record? "Last night I turned around...."

Always forget about "Pug." Another very Eye-like track but maybe missing some of its intensity. The "KISS KISS" bit is great.

Dope to see "Age of Innocence" place!!! I made room for it at #17, higher than I thought it'd be, but every time I looked at the list, it just made sense above the stuff below it. The best song on Machina IMHO and the most focused for sure. Great, great closer, hitting appropriate notes of apocalyptic gloom without losing a sense of urgency - whatever's going on here, grim though it is, it's happening, not just being described or sketched in as part of the concept or w/e. "I of the Mourning" is also great, didn't make the cut for me but was in there til the end.

Love "Cupid de Locke" in all its doe-eyed "I'm writing poetry!" sweetness, "hath" and all.

Voted "By Starlight" as my representative of the late Disc 2 suite though I kinda wish I'd gone with "Beautiful" or "Lily" for their quirkiness. But that "at laaaaaaast" really pushes it over the top.

Hoooooly cow "Where Boys Fear To Tread" is TOO LOW!!! My #5. The exact right kind of heavy rocker for this band at this point - gives me everything, renders like three or four other songs on the album redundant. That riff! That opening! Get on, get on, get on the bomb... Great track.

I also think "Eye" is too low but I couldn't really explain why without resorting to "it seemed like such an exciting thing for this band to do when it came out." Love the distorted section towards the end, though now I wonder how much it was inspired by NIN (which seemed obvious) versus Tom Morello's record-scratch guitar playing...

Never given "Glynis" the time of day before. Nice track though in that Gishy way, turning more SD-like as it goes somehow. I like the little burst of very weird solo-ing (which now is again making me think of Morello!) thrown in there. Is that a harmonica? One of the more positive-vibe Pumpkins tracks? "I believe - yeah!" Cool song!

"Night Mare" just barely made it onto my ballot at #24, and I'm glad to see it make it this high! Not a song you hear much about I think but I think it's one of the most completely-written things on Adore - good verse, good chorus, good bridge. The "special effects" in the mix feel like they're adding to the mood rather than just layering it up.

"Bury Me" - I hear the Jane's Addiction connection but this also makes me think a lot of Badmotorfinger. There was this general stew of pre-grunge "alternative" that the Pumpkins were marinating in, but Billy's vocals and writing give it a very distinct quality. The backing vocals are nice too (actaully James and D'Arcy, right, and not more Billys?). I love where it goes in the last minute with the fast, high harmonics - these Gish tracks have so many great instrumental parts that I always forget are coming.

"Bodies" rules but I honestly think of it as an extension of "Where Boys Fear To Tread," like a This Beat Goes On/Switchin' To Glide deal.

"Bullet..." is a dope rocker IMHO but I wouldn't fault anybody who finds its self-serious goth teen preening insufferable. IMHO it's one of their best "singles" in terms of a tight little rock song with big hooks and hidden variety to keep you coming back, like the little guitar line that comes in under "...and what do you want?" Dialing back down for a quiet version of the chorus only to then give us the CAAAAAAAAAAAAGE and then "still just a rat in, still just a rat in a..." A brilliant update of the bass-heavy gothy sound of Gish, now married to one of the biggest, most telegraphed choruses they ever did (great pre-chorus getting us there). Cheap Trick or the Sweet couldn't have done better. At the time I found it strange that this was one of the random current songs my dad could kind of get behind but I think even he had to respect that hook.

great post doc

https://i.imgur.com/sSIxeYR.jpg
23. Tonight, Tonight
348 points, 14 votes
From: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, 1995

Wow, Dawn to Dusk singles all out of the top 20.

"Quiet" - kind of confused how I left this one off. The "mess you MADEmy eyyyyes" part is sooooo head-sticky for me.

"I Am One" is such a great first album first song, "here's what we do" track. Does the same work as "Cherub Rock," introducing the band and their current sound, one by one. If anything it's just a little too mosh-ready for the rest of the album but mannn Jimmy is on fire here. One where I've never known most of the words or what they're adding up to (still sing the chorus as "Sail! Downhill on a windmill!") . So many ideas here - another band would fill a couple bars between verses with just strumming the main chords or whatever, Billy's packing in another cool idea he found through hours and hours of guitar nerdery or just going off into another solo. I wish they had covered "Three Strange Days."

"Beautiful" almost made my 25 just from y'all bringing up the "na na na na" part.

"Appels + Oranjes" did make mine at #19, and probably should have gone higher. This was the standout track on the album to me at the time.

Shocked at "To Forgive" beating so many of these!! Probably one of my least favorite songs on that album. The vocals sound horrible!

"Frail and Bedazzled" I almost voted for but it was such a recent discovery for me and I had to make room for my core, heart Pumpkins tracks. Rationalized cutting it by thinking that "Mayonaise" was in some sense a superior rewrite of the same kind of song, or something like that, but if we'd had 33 tracks to work with I bet I'd've made room for it - awesome song.

"Zero" is so fuckin focused man. The razor-sharp, riff-based counterpart to "Bullet" in terms of crafting a really cool, interesting single that goes places and packs in the surprises. Maybe closer to the band's core strengths, for those who heard "Bullet" as a Nirvana rip? Love the trippy, SD-esque guitar work, and yes, the self-indulgent GOD IS EMPTY JUST LIKE meeeee part. "WANNA GO FOR A RIDE?" I had it way at the top of my ballot but I also totally grok "Silverfuck" beating it by a couple places cause they are sort of the same song except "Silverfuck" is a nine-minute epic album track with "emptiness is loneliness" spread out into the extended, eerie, unsettling "Bang bang you're dead" section, then ripped back away from you by the reverse-echoed exploding voice: IIIIIIIIII HEAR! The groaning ending is what I think they were going for on several of the "heavy" MCIS tracks but it feels so much organically like guitar nerds having a guitar freakout here, versus the kinda "forced" quality MatthewK sums up above.

"Bodies" rules but I honestly think of it as an extension of "Where Boys Fear To Tread," like a This Beat Goes On/Switchin' To Glide deal.

Ha, tangent but I didn't think "Beat Goes On/Switchin' to Glide" was known in the US, let alone by someone who has a thread devoted to classic rock songs he's never heard!

(I always skip that disc straight to "Bodies" tbh.)

I mean, I've got gaps in my knowledge but I know some things, y'know??? Twelve years on ILM will end up adding some stuff to your canon in any case, pretty sure I got to know that song from this place...

listening to "to forgive" rn and i love the bridge of this song too bc it seems to express the emotion being suppressed in the chorus. also: the synth figure at the end of the bridge which is the only appearance of a synth in the whole song(?). it transitions really nicely into "shame" on the playlist. two really beautifully wrought atmospheres

Tonight, Tonight is too low imo, the strings are absolutely gorgeous and the way it shifts between the huge strings and the intimate guitar arpeggios is lovely, always been a favourite.

https://i.imgur.com/B0e3FwX.jpg
22. Muzzle
358 points, 14 votes
From: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, 1995

i love the harmonics(?) in "zero" so much

"muzzle" too low

oh shit i didn't vote for it lol

yeah that synth always gets me. It only plays six notes

Would’ve been in my top 10 years ago but didn’t make my ballot. Great, super simple song.

god everything about "snail" is just amazing

Muzzle is one of the best. It has this breathless quality, like it's all just tumbling out in a rush.

i love that "muzzle" is sequenced next to "porcelina" bc i think of it as a miniature porcelina, a summary of the band in a 3.5 minute pop song

i put together my ballot in about 10 minutes, and i'm bummed i somehow didn't even include "shame", even though it's one of my favorite tracks on adore. errors of exclusion, and also misallocation errors like putting "tonight, tonight" at #4! i do really like "tonight, tonight", but i didn't mean to throw it that many points.

was MCIS anyone else's intro to SP? it pretty much was, for me. i didn't have cable and completely missed out on siamese dream, and then picked up MCIS on the advice of a friend. from that perspective, opening pair of tracks were the perfect demo of their range, the quiet piano-led overture (with those mellotron strings that i still love today) opening up into the cinematic sweep of "tonight, tonight". as a budding drummer i loved the way such a majestic song could be driven by a single snare drum, and the way the strings and the majesty of it all piled up in the last section entranced my 14-year-old mind (i didn't come across MCIS until 1997).

"Muzzle" just missed my ballot.

it was my intro karl! i bought mellon collie at a tower records a few weeks after i saw the "bullet with butterfly wings" video. one of my first cds and my first ever double album

the drumming on Muzzle is really great and the solo & bridge rule but it's a little too repetitive otherwise I think

yeah, i think maybe my first double album as well! i think i got The Wall around the same time, which seems appropriate. :)

My introduction to this band - and I'm dating myself here - was the Lull EP. I probably would've bought Gish but my local record store - the long-defunct Pikesville, MD Record and Tape Traders - only had this EP on cassette, so that's what I went with after reading some brief press items about this up-and-coming Chicago band with the weird name.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2503723CB22F84D0

i completely missed out on sd too but that's bc i wasn't allowed to watch mtv before i was seven (the "scream" video premiered on mtv and there was no way my parents were going to stop me from seeing that, and that kinda broke the seal)

I've been pointlessly amending my ballot as we go and already made four substitutions and a number of reallocations. I definitely needed Glynis on my ballot, and probably needed Drown and Luna to be higher.

jmm, maybe that's a new thread after this poll is over? revised ballots

i've never loved "silverfuck" bc it's the most tossed off bullshit lyric on siamese dream but it does rock and... it was certainly an event live

"Muzzle" was my #2 and is the closing track on all my mental re-edits of MCIS. A tremendous anthem and encapsulation of so many of the things the band did best and unashamedly, the tortured guitar-angel poet whining his barbaric yawp into the starry night. The succession of the "and I knew" sequence, the "and the world" sequence and finally the repetition of "I knew the silence of the world" makes it feel three times as epic somehow. A different version of the Zero-Silverfuck link: they've folded what would have been an eight-minute SD track into under four minutes (my station at least took the promo-single cue and gave this significant airplay for a while) but it still feels like it has the scope and drama of the epic. BN's "miniature Porcelina" is a great way to think about it.

MCIS was 100% my intro. I knew people with SD t-shirts in sixth grade but I didn't really hear or get into any current music until right around 95-96 as I started high school. Probably got it as a Christmas item in 1996. Not sure if it was my first double CD - I probably already had All Things Must Pass. I didn't get Siamese Dream until late in '97 (it was on my birthday list and my brother obliged).

MCIS was my real intro, but I may have heard SD at my cousin's house while listening to his CDs a year or two earlier. He had Radiohead, Pumpkins, and NIN CDs, and was wearing a Tool t-shirt, and had Shining and Reservoir Dogs posters, and a girlfriend with a Marilyn Manson shirt. It was all very overwhelming.

https://i.imgur.com/TqBzIxI.jpg
21. For Martha
380 points, 15 votes, 1 #1 vote
From: Adore, 1998

yessss

"for martha" was the first song i learned on piano.

too low!

This is a pretty amazing song.

it wasn't my no. 1 or anything but it's probably his most accomplished song imo

Great, great song. You listen to this and realize how much restraint and balance Corgan had then. He - or the band, or whatever - could seemingly do ANYTHING for a while there.

I really should've had For Martha on my ballot, had a realisation literally just this morning how amazing it is.

it was also like in the middle of listening to this song at 3am when i was 13 years old that i was like "yes actually adore is my favorite album of all time"

there's an alternative version of Adore in my head that excises the more electro-goth songs (which i really like, don't get me wrong!) and instead leans heavily on the ballad-goth songs:

to sheila
once upon a time
tear
shame
behold! the night mare
for martha
blank page

only 7 songs and ~40 minutes, but for me these are the core songs of adore

the heart songs

WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR placing this high just lifts the heart, damn

OTM, Whir is all-time.

I'm guessing that "Crestfallen" is somewhere up ahead. Right?

RIGHT?!?

For Martha was the only song that made sense to me when I first heard Adore. really incredible song and one of their most moving. the way the guitar solo explodes into existence!

that's the last one for now