Smashing Pumpkins: Fresh Fruit or Rotten Veg?

i did not feel that a cd release on a major label that i was out there trying to hawk with a bunch of immoral band mates (that does not include jimmy, by the way...he is one of best men i know) was a place to talk about the deepest of issues...no, the internet is!!!

In other news, he's now gone public with an email address. Guess who's gonna have 1000+ emails by Sunday?

01. Melon Collie And The Infinite Sadness
02. Tonight, Tonight
03. Jellybelly
04. Here Is No Why
05. Bullet With Butterfly Wings
06. Where Boys Fear To Tread
07. Thirty-Three
08. 1979
09. Thru The Eyes Of Ruby
10. We Only Come Out At Night
11. Beautiful
12. Lily
13. By Starlight
14. Farewell And Goodnight

Truth be told, I could live without "Tonight" and "Thirty-Three" -
I guess I included them out of some obligation to remain in the
realm of the remotely possible. Billy is rather proud of these
songs, I highly doubt he would have dispensed them.

(after years of more or less rejecting Mellon Collie as the watershed "Billy is a snotty bastard" moment)

A couple of days and a harrowing plane flight later, the band makes it to a resort town called Surfer's Paradise, which is more or less the Miami Beach of Australia, a skinny coastal town about an hour south of Brisbane, pounded by waves and plagued with jellyfish, crowded with high-rise hotels popular with JApanese honeymooners. Surfer's Paradise is the jumping-off point for the Big Day Out tour, a sort of Australian Lollapalooza that Soundgarden will headline this year. In the lobby bar of one of the tallest hotels, Cornell and Thayil are settling back with a couple of beers when Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins wanders through, and decides to join them for a strawberry margarita. Corgan chatters about the pain of his life, the supposed incompetence of his band (everybody rolls their eyes), the lifesaving virtues of Jungian therapy, bands that suck. Cornell gets up to leave. Corgan tells Thayil how important Soundgarden used to be to him, and he baits him by saying that the Pumpkins sometimes do a cover of Soundgarden's "Outshined" that segues into a Depeche Mode song or something.

"I'm thinking of making my next album really new wave," Corgan says, "like '83-'84 new wave, not like Berlin. I spend all my time doing things that may be a bit tangential, but I think I'm going to go back to the core, the heart music. Echo and the Bunnymen."

This is standard stuff to anybody who has read even a single Billy Corgan profile, the basic curriculum of Pumpkins 101. But Thayil isn't buying. He's sore.

"Don't you see," Thayil says, "you're this incredibly talented guy. People like your music. You have a good band. You sell a lot of records. You don't need all this...stuff."

"What sign are you?" Corgan asks.

"What do you mean, what sign am I?" Thayil says. "What difference could that possibly make?"

"C'mon," wheedles Corgan, "when is your birthday?"

"All right, goddamn it: September 4th."

"Aha!" Corgan says. "A Virgo. You're argumentative."

"Damn right, I'm argumentative," Thayil says, and takes a long, angry pulll at his beer, "which you should know because I've been arguing with you for half an hour, not because of any sign."

"I'm a Pisces," Corgan replies. "We pick up on those things."

A minute later, Corgan, still probing, finally finds the key to Thayil's heart: "I hate how in magazine pictures, they always stick me somewhere in the back."

Thayil explodes: "What do you mean? You write all the songs, and you do all the interviews. You play the instruments on the album. You control the band to the extent that most people think of Smashing Pumpkins as the Billy Corgan Experience, and all you care about is some photograph?"

"But I hate it," Corgan says, "it means they don't think I'm the cute one."

"Ooh," Thayil says a little too loudly as Corgan walks away, "I'll bet he's going to call his therapist in Chicago, wake her up at four in the morning, and tell her about that big, mean bear who made fun of him."

The next day at the Big Day Out festival, Thayil is talking to Kim and Kelley Deal in the Breeders' dressing room when Corgan walks past wearing a long-sleeved Superman T-shirt like the one your four-year-old nephew probably owns.

"You hurt me deeply," Corgan says, touching the giant S on his chest and pouting. "You hurt me deeply in my heart." The Pumpkins go on to play the best set anybody has ever heard them play, their usual passiveness and precision overlaid with an unfamiliar scrim of anger that throws their music into brilliant relief.

Matt Cameron is a little astounded. "Kim should rent himself out as a tour shrink," he says.

I did like part of Siamese Dream back in the 90's.. in high school we used to torture certain punX0rs with deliberately off key and absurd renditions of "Disarm." And I still regard "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" as a watershed moment in the evolution of my musical tastes - the moment when I fully realized how rock lyrics could really, really, really suck. ("Holy shit, did he just say despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage???") It opened a new portal in my awareness of language, I think.

pffffAHAHAAAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
wooo!
man, that's good stuff right there...
there was some other spin article (same time frame i think) where corgan's downing screw drivers and bitching about the fans that's equally as classic.
geez, billy + co. were better when megadoses of LSD were involved. which they were up until the end o' 94. the anger, the lovely unfocused anger and confusion, the manic panic hair.

one thing i'll give billy c., his style of 'rawking out' has far surpassed many, i love the way he used to "throw" his guitar down for a big chunky sludge deal! it was over-dramatized but highly entertaining to watch. especially when he jumped and did it.

everything after MCIS (and even parts of that) were utterly suspect and 'meh'. machina 2 being the exception, where free+rawkin collided to make 'good'.

so, classic 91-95(6?) then a little at the end. dud the rest of the way thru. SD=the album that made me listen again and again, on headphones, because i couldn't tell what the fuck that noise was @ _____ time in the song ______. few albums seem so dense, still! i know it's because of vig and his "HUGE" production, but it really works there!

hahahah....wow! What a jackass I was. I still kinda believe it, but what a needlessly obnoxious statement.

There are some fine moments on Gish (notably "Bury Me"), but I found Corgan entirely insufferable after that.

I've been misquoting this all these years! I forgot the 'deeply'!

OTM.

I'm always disturbed to find that something I've been saying for ten years came from some rock star interview circa 1995. It has happened. WTF.

Also, Chamberlin = vastly underrated drummer.

Heheh. I've been using the line since I read it because I was, "Oh, so perfect as ridiculous OTT 'WAAAAAAH!'" 'Deeply' almost ruins the flow of it in my mind!

Anyway, why isn't there more love for Siamese Dream? "Cherub Rock" and "Today" still hold up, I think. But maybe I can like them because I paid approximately zero attention to the image side of the band and never read any of Billy Corgan's interviews. I'm interested to know what he brought to Hole's Celebrity Skin record as well - maybe that collaboration worked because, say what you will about Courtney Love, she's not precious.

I'm relieved to hear you say so, Ned.

I doubt whatever Billy Corgan does with the Smashing Pumpkins name now could be much worse than the last couple albums he made under the original incarnation (or the things he's done since). 'Machina: The Hand of God' or whatever has to be one of the top two or three worst records I've ever heard, by anyone, ever.

But, I grudgingly admit to enjoying a Trent Reznor/TV On the Radio cover of "Warm Leatherette" the other day (though I suspect maybe Peter Murphy was on vocals). And the idea of enjoying something involving Trent Reznor would've seemed about as unlikely as Billy Corgan ever producing anything of any worth after 1994 (barring "Set the Ray to Jerry"). So who knows. . .

Unlike you I loved the end years of SP without reservation, but personally I was both interested and content to see what he'd do after all that, if anything -- personally I was fine with whatever solo or group things he's done since. But this just feels like the big Jane's Addiction reunion(s) mistake redux, and in combination with a (natural) moving away from hyperobsession on my part towards other things, it's all a bit desperate.

It's funny that the article is so defensive about it not being "for the money"--which of course surely means it's about little else (or else why not just call it Zwan II, or Billy & The Corigans?).

As for TVOTR--I'll admit I've never heard any of their music, but assumed they were harmless alterna-rock (though I did read that Bowie was riding their bandwagon, which it seems he was doing with Trent Reznor a decade ago or so).

I tend to do that with a LOT of artists! But these days it's more like the fact that you can pretty much have access to anything at little/no cost and therefore instead of playing something into the ground it's just part of an overall flow, which is good, I think. Everything is process -- I have a few key touchstones still, but even so.

I think meeting Billy Corgan circa 1996 finally put me off of what was, 93-95ish, my last bout of fanaticism with any act.

Upthread I talk about how I probably wouldn't be able to stand him if I ever actually met him! Not having or wanting actual heroes among those cultural figures whose work I enjoy was a good realization.

See, that's interesting. Because it seemed to me at the time (post-95, the twighlight years of Smashing Pumpkins) that a lot of the continued fandom of the band had to do with heroic, mythological rock-god-ness, the Billy Corgan "Zero/Rat In A Cage/Uncle Fester" persona. That you liked the band through that period based solely on the merit of the music--well it seems like that might make you pretty rare. I'll have to go read your review of 'Machina' at AMG if you wrote one, to see what you were able to salvage musically from the record. . .

But it's possible my aversion to "rock gods," or extra-musical projection of "persona" in any form, made me less than open-eared toward 'Adore' and 'Melancholy & The Infinite Sadness'. But I just remember a sinking feeling in my stomach with those records that. . . they just weren't as good as I wanted them to be. It took a couple years of indie rock dissappointment after that to decide that never again would I try to will myself into liking something.

Maybe it is? I have no idea, really.

Every quote from Corgan or Chamberlain on this seems to emphasize that the new songs will 'harken back to the glory days' (i.e., when their records sold), so at the very least I'm hoping I'll get to geek out to Corgan's guitar heroics/Chamberlain's insane drumming/Corgan's incredible use of the studio.

Then again, if they're referring to those glory days as ca. 'Stand Inside Your Love' or something, I'm bummed.

But that Machina II thing that floated around had some pretty interesting tracks on it (granted, smothered in garbage).

Speaking of Garbage, who is producing this new stuff?

what is this? where is this from?

Then he stormed off the stage as the crowd chanted Bullshit over and over again. It was a total fiasco.

Kim's making great solo records, Billy and Courtney are making podcasts.

― an uncharacteristically irritated Mr. Rogers (stevie), Thursday, April 16, 2026 3:24 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

making great records doesn't exclude you from being an asshole

yeah, but at least you're an asshole who's making great records

Also, I really don't think Kim's an asshole. She's super-shy. I think a lot of people interpret that as assholeness, but.

I think they were characterizing her as being the worst type of gatekeeper and being controlling or something like that?

I think Aghori Mhori Mei is great, "War Dreams of Itself" in particular is a lot of fun. I listened to Atum once and I'm dragging my heels about getting back to it.

The only thing I know about Draiman was the poll about him speaking in cliches, so I'm skipping that one. I'm assuming Disturbed is nu-metal.

I can imagine Kim being shy and that appearing aloof.

I can also imagine Kim not having any time for William’s drama nonsense.

In someone's photo collection, there's got to be at least one photo of Billy dressed as a clown at Brixton, sonewhere

Shaking hands with Rosalynn Carter

I think Aghori Mhori Mei is great, "War Dreams of Itself" in particular is a lot of fun. I listened to Atum once and I'm dragging my heels about getting back to it.

"Goeth the Fall" is great!

There's a lot of Billy content these days. It was easier to take him in the 90s when his pomposity was limited to 60-second bursts on MTV or the radio. Even his early 2000s blog was interesting. But I can't really stand listening to 60-minute podcasts with him.

I've listened to about a quarter of them. Aside from the horrible Alex Jones appearances and occasional conspiracy theory stuff, I don't get why people hate him so much. He interrupts his guests a fair amount (Linda Blair seemed a bit annoyed by this) but it seems like he genuinely has a wishlist of questions he wants to ask all these people.

Kevin Cronin interview was a great listen. Don’t give af about Reo S., but listening to clearheaded stories about rock in the 70s was great

lmao at billy trying to create 'mutual understanding' between the disturbed singer (who is incredibly pro-israel) and roger waters over the iran war, only to create a feud where none previously existed (mostly because waters was previously unaware of disturbed)