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

weirdly the Gene Austin version of "My Blue Heaven" is the only one I've heard & I didn't know the Pumpkins did a cover of it!

This has to be one of the least weird things someone could post on ilx, surely.:)

Anyway, yeah, listening to the playlist was cementing how much I like the pre-Fester period, even more than my ballot already suggests. Will definitely buy a copy of Gish soon. (I know I have owned one but idk where it is. Shamefully, I'm unsure where my PI is, too; will def replace that.)

i took guitar lessons when i was ~15 with this dude who pretty much only liked Yngwie/Satriani style shredders & had clearly expended much effort over the previous 10 years trying to convince kids that Kurt Cobain sucked. I brought in my Siamese Dream CD one day to see if he could teach me how to play Soma. he thought the guitar solo was terrible b/c it's mostly pentatonic scales with a few bent notes thrown in but iirc he did think the little melodic part right after "so let the sadness come again" was kinda cool

Satriani loved SP and considered Corgan an heir to the shredder tradition, if my memory of 90s guitar mags is correct.

xxp I heard that version because my college radio station had a decades-old vinyl copy of this that I got curious about: http://www.newworldrecords.org/album.cgi?rm=view&album_id=80279

since the uncle fester comparison was brought up, and there are lots of people itt who were around when the band was relatively young, how did you react to Billy shaving his head? he was clearly losing his hair for about 3 years before he shaved it, and I always thought it was really canny & impeccable timing & media spin when he shaved it and said "I did it as a statement / it's a character / I was sick of having to think about my appearance".... and people bought it! I still run into people who think he shaves his head by choice. Did everyone know in 1995 that he was going bald or did his spin actually work?

at the time i assumed he did it bc he was going bald. "1979" video was a bit of a shock initially

that's cool about Satriani! I think Corgan is an incredible guitar player obv. I think my guitar teacher thought that shredding on pentatonic scales made you a poser but shredding on diatonic scales — or even better, ~harmonic minor scales~ – made you a super cool Paganini-god surfing with the alien

he's also the one who taught me that rap isn't really music it's just talking over some drums #musicwisdom

I don't think it ever occurred to me that the shaved head was a choice unrelated to male pattern baldness.

crüt: Oh, nice re: TPA LP. I've been using Gene Austin's song as an example of TPA-era crooner recordings in pop history classes for about 10 years now, esp since it's the example included with Starr's/Waterman's American Popular Music.

I'm pretty sure it was in the Nov 1993 issue of Guitar World ("Shred Is Dead... NOT!") where Satriani made the comment about SP/Corgan I'm thinking of but I can't find a free digital version now.

Billy should grow his hair long and go for the Croz look imo

I don't remember it being clear that he was losing his hair before he shaved it off. Maybe I didn't really see enough photos of him? I dunno, in those pre-internet days you only really saw these people occasionally on MTV News or in magazines. He never really had cool rock star hair anyway, so when he unveiled The Dome it was like, eh, whatever.

84 Fuck You (An Ode To No One) 58 3 0
100 Landslide 34 4 0
120 The Everlasting Gaze 8 1 0

sadly not the locks on the top tier that some thought. who on earth voted for "The Beginning is the End is the Beginning"?!

― explosion from DOOM courtesy of id software (Doctor Casino), Sunday, April 8, 2018 10:04 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Tracks (ordered):
Hello Kitty Kat
1979
Frail & Bedazzled
Tristessa
Cherub Rock
Mayonaise
Hummer
Perfect
Drown
Siva
Rocket
Silverfuck
I am One
Ava Adore
Thirty-Three
The Begninning Is The End Is The Beginning
Soma
Today
Once Upon A Time
Eye
Love
Jellybelly
Disarm
Geek U.S.A.
Cupid De Locke

kitsch batman soundtracks are sacred. The Watchmen was terrible but The Beginning... >>> The End

Ok, so a bit of data crunching: ranking each "album phase" by average track score; and sub-rankings of the tracks within each album phase.

Album Phases Ranked by Average Track Score:

01. Siamese Dream Phase - Avg. Score = 317
(26 tracks ranked, Avg. Track Rank = 51.1)

02. Gish Phase - Avg. Score = 234
(16 tracks ranked, Avg. Track Rank = 58.7)

03. Mellon Collie Phase - Avg. Score = 194
(44 tracks ranked, Avg. Track Rank = 64.4)

04. Adore Phase - Avg. Score = 160
(18 tracks ranked, Avg. Track Rank = 58.8)

05. Machina Phase - Avg. Score = 76
(23 tracks ranked, Avg. Track Rank = 86.8)

06. Post-Breakup Phase - Avg. Score = 9
(2 tracks ranked, Avg. Track Rank = 120)

Track Ranks Within Album Phases

I. Gish Phase
Avg. Score = 234
Avg. Track Rank = 58.7
(001) 3 Drown 920 26 3
(002) 8 Rhinoceros 602 23 0
(003) 9 Starla 564 18 1
(004) 28 Siva 314 13 1
(005) 29 Snail 310 11 0
(006) 35 I Am One 234 9 0
(007) 40 Bury Me 214 10 0
(008) 52 Crush 154 6 1
(009) 59 Suffer 128 5 0
(010) 72 Tristessa 92 4 0
(011) 79 Plume 72 3 0
(012) 86 Daydream 52 5 0
(013) 96 La Dolly Vita 40 2 0
(014) 106 Blue 28 1 0
(015) 116 Window Paine 10 1 0
(016) 121 Slunk 8 1 0

II. Siamese Dream Phase
Avg. Score = 317
Avg. Track Rank = 51.1
(001) 1 Mayonaise 1258 33 3
(002) 4 Hummer 888 24 5
(003) 5 Soma 844 24 4
(004) 6 Cherub Rock 830 25 1
(005) 13 Rocket 518 19 2
(006) 14 Today 502 18 0
(007) 18 Geek U.S.A. 430 17 0
(008) 19 Obscured 426 15 0
(009) 24 Silverfuck 338 13 0
(010) 25 Whir 336 11 1
(011) 27 Frail and Bedazzled 322 11 1
(012) 30 Hello Kitty Kat 294 14 1
(013) 36 Quiet 232 9 0
(014) 41 Luna 208 10 0
(015) 44 Glynis 184 8 0
(016) 56 Spaceboy 142 6 0
(017) 60 Disarm 124 6 0
(018) 67 Blew Away 102 5 0
(019) 75 Soothe 78 3 0
(020) 76 Pissant 74 4 0
(021) 90 Sweet Sweet 50 3 0
(022) 100 Landslide 34 4 0
(023) 114 Pulseczar 16 1 0
(024) 126 Purr Snickety 2 1 0
(025) 128 Apathy’s Last Kiss 2 1 0
(026) 129 Bugg Superstar 2 1 0

III. Mellon Collie Phase
Avg. Score = 194
Avg. Track Rank = 64.4
(001) 2 1979 1152 31 3
(002) 7 Thirty-Three 720 27 1
(003) 10 Thru The Eyes of Ruby 558 17 2
(004) 11 Set the Ray to Jerry 520 18 0
(005) 13 Galapogos 518 18 0
(006) 15 Porcelina of the Vast Oceans 460 19 0
(007) 16 Here Is No Why 432 15 1
(008) 22 Muzzle 358 14 0
(009) 23 Tonight, Tonight 348 14 0
(010) 26 Zero 328 13 0
(011) 32 To Forgive 266 9 0
(012) 35 Beautiful 234 9 1
(013) 37 Bullet With Butterfly Wings 228 9 0
(014) 38 Bodies 226 8 0
(015) 39 Love 216 11 0
(016) 47 Where Boys Fear To Tread 170 7 0
(017) 48 By Starlight 162 9 0
(018) 49 Cupid de Locke 156 9 0
(019) 61 X.Y.U. 122 5 1
(020) 62 Farewell and Goodnight 120 4 0
(021) 64 The Boy 116 4 0
(022) 65 Stumbleine 112 6 0
(023) 66 Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness 110 3 1
(024) 69 Pennies 98 3 1
(025) 70 We Only Come Out At Night 96 4 0
(026) 71 Jellybelly 96 5 0
(027) 81 Mouths of Babes 62 3 0
(028) 84 Fuck You (An Ode To No One) 58 3 0
(029) 85 In the Arms of Sleep 58 2 0
(030) 91 Medellia of the Gray Skies 48 5 0
(031) 94 Rotten Apples 46 2 0
(032) 95 Meladori Magpie 42 1 0
(033) 97 Jupiter's Lament 38 1 0
(034) 99 Dreaming 36 1 0
(035) 102 Cherry 32 3 0
(036) 104 Tales Of A Scorched Earth 30 2 0
(037) 105 Ugly 30 3 0
(038) 107 Take Me Down 28 1 0
(039) 108 Lily (my One And Only) 24 1 0
(040) 109 Believe 24 1 0
(041) 112 Clones (We're All) 20 1 0
(042) 118 Pastichio Medley 8 2 0
(043) 119 ...said sadly 8 1 0
(044) 125 Marquis in Spades 6 2 0

IV. Adore Phase
Avg. Score = 160
Avg. Track Rank = 58.8
(001) 20 Perfect 402 17 0
(002) 21 For Martha 380 15 1
(003) 31 Shame 274 10 0
(004) 33 Appels + Oranjes 250 9 0
(005) 42 To Sheila 196 10 1
(006) 43 Behold! The Night Mare 188 8 0
(007) 45 Blank Page 180 9 0
(008) 46 Eye 172 9 0
(009) 53 Pug 150 6 0
(010) 56 Ava Adore 142 6 0
(011) 58 Tear 134 4 0
(012) 68 Once Upon A Time 100 4 0
(013) 74 Annie-Dog 82 3 0
(014) 77 Daphne Descends 74 3 0
(015) 78 Crestfallen 72 3 0
(016) 92 The End is the Beginning Is The End 48 1 0
(017) 110 Once in a While 22 1 0
(018) 111 The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning 20 1 0

V. Machina Phase
Avg. Score = 76
Avg. Track Rank = 86.8
(001) 18 Stand Inside Your Love 430 16 1
(002) 52 Age of Innocence 154 5 0
(003) 52 I of the Mourning 154 5 1
(004) 56 Wound 142 7 0
(005) 58 Real Love 134 7 0
(006) 63 Glass and the Ghost Children 118 4 0
(007) 73 This Time 90 4 0
(008) 80 Home 62 3 0
(009) 82 The Imploding Voice 60 3 0
(010) 83 Let Me Give the World To You 58 5 0
(011) 87 The Sacred and Profane 52 2 0
(012) 88 Try, Try, Try 52 3 0
(013) 89 Here's to the Atom Bomb 50 1 1
(014) 93 Cash Car Star 46 1 0
(015) 98 Raindrops + Sunshowers 36 1 0
(016) 101 With Every Light 34 1 0
(017) 103 White Spyder 30 1 0
(018) 115 Vanity 12 1 0
(019) 117 If There is a God 10 1 0
(020) 120 The Everlasting Gaze 8 1 0
(021) 122 Dross 6 1 0
(022) 123 Satur9 6 1 0
(023) 124 Go 6 1 0

VI. Post-Breakup Phase
Avg. Score = 9
Avg. Track Rank = 120
(077) 113 Tarantula 16 1 0
(087) 127 The Chimera 2 1 0

how on earth did this song never make it onto a comp like Pisces

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA0Mo9C9Cnk

in case anyone wanted a poppier Frail and Bedazzled

also lol at the only two post-2000 songs to place. both are ok, p good for SP2

'Tristessa', 'Daydream', 'Jellybelly', 'Fuck You (An Ode To No One)', 'In the Arms of Sleep', 'Once Upon a Time', 'The Tale of Dusty + Pistol Pete' (No votes!? WTF!), 'This Time', 'Try Try Try' and 'With Every Light' were all robbed.

As were 'Panopticon', 'Pinwheels' and 'Pale Horse' ...

Because you know you want to see this video again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro8shNTlzTY

I love that no matter what, everything official uploaded to YouTube before 2010 looks like shit and will always look like shit unless it's re-uploaded.

still my favorite document of the band. 27 min = my favorite performance of Porcelina ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U7QGPz4xmA

Interesting that after all the discussion, the rankings by album phase really held to form re: perception of the band's trajectory back in the day: SD > Gish > MCIS > Adore > Machina >>> Post-Breakup. I guess a lot of the early-days fans were being relatively mum? Or, as others pointed out, there's maybe not as much to say about the stuff we (statistically on the whole) like best?

I'm actually slightly surprised after all the discussion to see that as a whole the Gish era rated higher than the MCIS era--though it seems to be very much buoyed by 'Drown' and 'Starla' being so beloved, it seems like. MCIS is dragged down somewhat by the inclusion of a lot of tracks that had only one or two votes fairly low in the list--but all the album phases have some of those.

'Adore' is interesting because it has a lot of tracks bunched in the 40s-70s and not as many as others lower in the rankings--which maybe suggests when it's tracks were ranked on ballots, they were often voted high in their rankings?

that was the case for me. Blank Page was in my top 10, and the only Adore song I voted for. but it was my #2 album.

Adore is for me what a lot of noise albums are: a whole as an album, tough to think of as individual tracks.

me too. even though each song is pretty different. really strange

Right? Adore has this gauze over it that gels so many disparate styles and songs together and makes it even more of a whole than Gish or MCIS.

i think the strong visual aesthetic of Adore contributes at least a bit to the cohesive feel of the music. when i think of adore i instantly think of the cover and the CD booklet, the dark monochrome colors, festering billy
prowling around the 'Ava Adore' video, the everpresent gothic vibe. some of the other albums also had iconic imagery (the cover of MCIS bleeding into the world of the 'Tonight Tonight' video, the SD twins) but didn't present as complete a world as the pain in the Adore imagery (imo). i know it's kind of bullshit to claim that all that has an effect on how you hear the music itself, but for me it did.

i've been listening to a lot more earlier SP as a result of this poll! it's been a very enjoyable ride. one idea that i'm considering is that the earlier stuff (through SD) really needed guitars in order to work, but as they progressed the songwriting got a bit more conventional but also more refined - most of Adore could be performed on non-guitars and it would still work just as well, and i'm not sure that's true of SD.

1. Thru the Eyes of Ruby
2. This Time
3. Muzzle
4. Behold! The Night Mare
5. 1979
6. Mayonaise
7. Here Is No Why
8. Tear
9. The Sacred and Profane
10. To Forgive
11. Galapagos
12. For Martha
13. Wound
14. Shame
15. Glass and the Ghost Children
16. Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
17. Soma
18. Let Me Give the World To You
19. Spaceboy
20. The Imploding Voice
21. Real Love
22. Perfect
23. Thirty-Three
24. To Sheila
25. Daphne Descends

KM totally otm though I'd add that I "hear" the music on SD as more "red" and warm-toned and daytimey and MCIS as more "blue" and night-timey. No matter how sonically similar they are in places - like, the riff on "Silverfuck" has this messy fiery roaring quality, the riff on "Zero" is meaner, steelier.... idk this is pretty dumb and utterly subjective but it's there in how I hear the records.

I agree. SD is very orange / beige / white, Gish is purple, but MCIS is all over the place. Adore is very grey. I realize these are more or less the colors on the albums' respective colors. alas-

I am longtime lurker on the ILX, but this is the first poll in which I voted. Been following the rollout with much excitement the last few days. Drown was my #1, but I was also the lone vote for Apathy’s Last Kiss, which I initially had much higher but ultimately put it at 25. It was a song that I remember spending so much time tracking down from my early days as a fan. Never could track down a copy of the Siamese Singles box set, so I first heard it on the Japanese-only import of the Today single. I must have played that song hundreds of times in the 90s, but hadn’t played it in at least 15 years until this poll. Still love it. Another song I would have loved to include was Blissed and Gone, but I think they kind of ruined that one in the studio. I used to play the early live version all the time.

thank you for voting!!

agreed the final studio version of blissed and gone blows

Yeah, the studio version always bothered me. I really think it could have been a perfect fit for Adore if done differently. I also read the posts about how older fans at the time were disappointed in Adore, but I didn't have any misgivings about SP until Machina. Saw them on the Adore tour in Nashville and I will never forget that version of Crestfallen. Depending on the day, Adore could just as easily be my number one as SD or PI. For this poll, I rated them SD > PI > Adore > MCIS > Gish.

i think the studio blissed and gone sounds awesome haters

1. Thru the Eyes of Ruby
2. Today
3. 1979
4. Here is No Why
5. Appels + Oranjes
6. We Only Come Out at Night
7. Soma
8. Raindrops + Sunshowers
9. By Starlight
10. Shame
11. For Martha
12. To Forgive
13. Behold! The Night Mare
14. Mayonaise
15. Once in a While
16. Farewell and Goodnight
17. The Sacred and Profane
18. Hello Kitty Kat
19. In the Arms of Sleep
20. Thirty-Three
21. Pug
22. Set the Ray to Jerry
23. Zero
24. Obscured
25. Starla

Great show, 24 years ago today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taHmIjIDOXc

Rocket
Quiet
Disarm
Snail
Cherub Rock
Soma
Hummer
Geek U.S.A.
Luna
Today
Siva
---
Starla
--
I Am One (with rant)
Mayonaise
---
(instrumental jam)
> Suffer (tease)
Silverfuck
> Never Let Me Down [Depeche Mode] (tease)
> Over the Rainbow [Harburg/Arlen] (tease)
Sweet Sweet

Rocket
Cherub Rock
Daphne Descends
Bodies
Silverfuck
Stand Inside Your Love
Shame
1979
Luna
Mayonnaise
Disarm
Real Love
Thirty three
XYU
Tonight Tonight
Drown
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Sweet Sweet
Zero
Love
Cupid de Locke
Perfect
To Sheila
Let Me Give the World to You
Rhinoceros

This was such an amazing poll, probably the best one I've participated in on ILM. It'll take me a while to unpack everything that came up during these long, long discussions. Thanks ufo!

We should have a "best moment on an SP song" poll. In my top 5: how Billy sings "Cheshire cat" on "Frail and Bedazzled": "caaahahahat!"

Thanks so much for doing this UFO.

Thanks so much for running this poll, ufo.

Drown
Mayonnaise
Soma
Geek USA
Siva
Stand Inside Your Love
1979
Whir
Cherub Rock
Starla
Bury Me
Where Boys Fear to Tread
Frail and Bedazzled
Crestfallen
Bodies
Set the Ray to Jerry
Hello Kitty Kat
Shame
Rocket
Thru the Eyes of Ruby
Glynis
Thirty-Three
I Am One
Silverfuck
Apathy’s Last Kiss

Adore is for me what a lot of noise albums are: a whole as an album, tough to think of as individual tracks.

― The Harsh Tutelage of Michael McDonald (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 8 April 2018 23:12 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

me too. even though each song is pretty different. really strange

― flappy bird, Sunday, 8 April 2018 23:16 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Right? Adore has this gauze over it that gels so many disparate styles and songs together and makes it even more of a whole than Gish or MCIS.

― flappy bird, Sunday, 8 April 2018 23:16 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think the strong visual aesthetic of Adore contributes at least a bit to the cohesive feel of the music. when i think of adore i instantly think of the cover and the CD booklet, the dark monochrome colors, festering billy prowling around the 'Ava Adore' video, the everpresent gothic vibe. some of the other albums also had iconic imagery (the cover of MCIS bleeding into the world of the 'Tonight Tonight' video, the SD twins) but didn't present as complete a world as the pain in the Adore imagery (imo). i know it's kind of bullshit to claim that all that has an effect on how you hear the music itself, but for me it did.

― Karl Malone, Sunday, 8 April 2018 23:31 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This all rings very true to me although the poll has had me focussing on individual Adore tracks more (e.g. the discussion about the structure of Behold! The Night-Mare), which has definitely elevated the album in my estimation. I might rank it above Machina I at this point.

That's a great top 10, can't find much to fault with the possible exception of the high placing of Thirty Three. I didn't vote but Hummer, Drown, Mayonaise, Rhinoceros, Cherub Rock and Thru The Eyes of Ruby would all have been in my personal top 10. I guess I have a type.

Oh and 1979 but everyone says 1979.

We should have a "best moment on an SP song" poll. In my top 5: how Billy sings "Cheshire cat" on "Frail and Bedazzled": "caaahahahat!"

― Sam Weller, Monday, April 9, 2018 4:35 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

-when the guitars come in on Porcelina
-beginning and ending of Jellybelly
-second verse of I of the Mourning
-"i catch the rainfall" verse in Blank Page
-"angel / barbed wire / FUCK YOU / deeeesiiiiiiire" at the end of Marquis in Spades

Pretty sure it's the bridge/change soaring into "YEAHHHH I WANT SOMETHING NEW" in Hummer

wonder if hummer would win a poll of all tracks by any artist that begin with the telephone filter intro before BIG MOMENT OF CLARITY

on one hand, I want the full results (>66) in the spotify playlist. on the other hand, it's so perfect that this playlist opens with mellon collie.

best sp moments:

- last three minutes of "for martha" really
- the entire chorus of snail but especially "softly... SIIIIIREN! coming home! SIIIIIREN! ....snaiiiiil"
- "what is it you want to change"