Number of Good Songs Had By the Smashing Pumkings

anyone saying 2.5 to me feels like they're really pushing against the grain of history or just have a distaste for their work idk

like 0 and 2.5 might as well be the same answer

I think his intent, at least early on, was to make emotional rock anthems that combined 70s prog/AOR with 80s/90s alternative rock? Which is what he achieved?

yes. he said this re: the band's conceptual origins in a 1995 MTV 'Rockumentary' that aired the week that Mellon Collie came out: "It seemed very obvious to me that if someone could somehow combine everything that they liked about music into a almost like a hodgepodge band, that seemed obvious to me where I wanted to go, so I just picked like my 7 favorite bands." ---which is a low number tbh. he was equally influenced by Boston, ELO, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Queen, The Beatles, and Cheap Trick as he was Joy Division, Bauhaus, Mercyful Fate, Metallica, U2, R.E.M., The Cure, Jane's Addiction... it's funny, writing that out, I realize how similar Billy's curated 'hodgepodge' mentality is to Pavement's record collector nerd mentality, but without any of the coy / pretentious pose.

i mean obviously Billy is pretentious, but he was always open about the process and his own grandiosity. familiarity breeds contempt

I Am One, Siva, Tristessa+(1979-Bullet w/ Butterfly Wings)
____________________________________ =2.5

"You Hurt Me Deeply In My Heart"

im sure he had more ideas about his music than reductive genre formula mathematics but ok sure

Obviously

Thread is super-illuminating in that it proves decisively that NV is the only one who makes funny jokes on this board

anyone saying 2.5 to me feels like they're really pushing against the grain of history or just have a distaste for their work idk

yeah, disliking the majority of a band's music pretty much means you have a distate for their work.

resist aligning their whole schtick with my music taste personally

"I realize how similar Billy's curated 'hodgepodge' mentality is to Pavement's record collector nerd mentality, but without any of the coy / pretentious pose."

wait, why are pavement pretentious? they were totally fun and goofy. i also don't get the coy part. they weren't shrinking violets.

There are probably about 5 songs that I like enough that I won't change the radio station if I'm driving, I guess that's worth about .5 good per song, none of these are their biggest hits though so I never hear them anyway.

Smashing PumpKing's X might be a tribute band that could do well w/a v specific demographic

"I realize how similar Billy's curated 'hodgepodge' mentality is to Pavement's record collector nerd mentality, but without any of the coy / pretentious pose."

wait, why are pavement pretentious? they were totally fun and goofy. i also don't get the coy part. they weren't shrinking violets.

― scott seward, Tuesday, February 20, 2018 2:37 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i don't really get that at all

or i should say i think flapz just wanted to talk shit abt pavement and drag em into the pumpking patch

post/username combinations I have enjoyed xxp

princesscarolyn.jpg

As someone who was a teenager in the 90s in North America, I had a lot of friends who were really into the Smashing Pumpkins so I heard a lot of their stuff, but never really got into it that much. Always seemed like it was never quite as good as everybody was saying it was.

All that being said, I guess I'd probably be defending this band right now if in 1995 I had put my limited funds towards randomly buying Melon Collie the month it came out instead of some other well reviewed or hyped album (Garbage?). That's just how these things go.

been meaning to relisten to garbage again

so have I. I keep listening to other stuff though.

that happy when it rains song is good

Really, I've been meaning to critically reevaluate (privately, in my mind) everything I've ever liked.

you should actually start a thread and chronicle this reevaluation in minute detail culminating in a poll

pavement had at least 8 great songs. and lots of good ones.

zero good smashing pumkings song forever

ty for this thread some of us who hate this fuckin band need it

despite all yr rage iirc

I'm struggling through Mellon Collie and it's basically just this sea of bad music with two toweringly brilliant epics in the middle - TTEOR especially feels like the work of a different band

my theory is that they didn't have enough collective energy to fully work through their songs, so they put a lot into a few of them and basically knocked the rest out without really thinking. like, Zero is a nice idea that could really go somewhere and...doesn't. and then again that's one of the rare good ideas to begin with. most of these songs don't seem to have had much put into the original conception

have you struggled through pisces iscariot

I can provide a Paypal address?

i don't own it but have u tried the internet?

Pumpkins are over and done but have boatloads of great songs.

What most amuses me is how a topic like this actually brings all the ilm boys to the yard, in 2018. Well played NV, well played.

my gourd is better than yours

resist aligning their whole schtick with my music taste personally

― Planck Blather (darraghmac), Tuesday, February 20, 2018 2:18 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

im basically saying i dont buy into the mythic grandeur of the Pumpkins project but i do think they made a decent number of good songs, idk what's weird abt that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps3SQJhn1aI

I agree with D-40 on the "there is no mythic grandeur to this high grift" but disagree on the "is even one note of theirs worth playing twice" position

have felt like the world was trolling me on this band for two-plus decades now, Christ they suck

or i should say i think flapz just wanted to talk shit abt pavement and drag em into the pumpking patch

Your outright hatred surprises me. I mean, you can think they suck, for sure, but it's almost as if it's personal.

You're such diametrical opposites it's hard for me to grasp why you'd invest in hatred for this band instead of, y'know, shrug it off. (though I will always defend your right to hate bands with a passion, obviously)

xp to j0hn

Heard Garbage pink and orange albums today at the gym. They have at least 2.5 good songs in them.

Garbage One: Vow and Stupid Girl are 1.5. Queer and Only Happy When it rains a .5 each.

2.0: the first four singles are a .5 each. The rest of the album a .5

if you don't like their music, you have to at least give billy some credit. he had a good contract while playing the human brother in Small Wonder, and he could have sat on those millions.

Never liked Stupid Girl.

just started listening to this album (garbage). Supervixen is reasonably enjoyable, looking at the track list, I'm remembering that "As Heaven is Wide" is the track I liked a lot. I'll post an update when I get there.

Supervixen, OHWIR, Vow and Stupid Girl would have been a stellar EP

Rest of the album isn't too bad either. Much better than any SP record anyway

how were the ideas, though?

You don't like Siamese Dream, imago? I'm actually a little surprised.

LJ, I refuse to believe you really think the second disc of Mellon Collie is a "sea of shit". It simply must tickle even your specific progge fancy.

(you said sea of bad music, sorry :)

does the drummer use sticks to strike the drum heads? that seems like a fine idea for any song.

Siamese Dream never really clicked with me although I'll probably try it out again. Is it Soma that's the OK one, or Hummer? I forget haha

Second side of Mellon Collie has better hit-rate than first. Apart from the enormous Ruby we've got...I mean, TOASE is pleasingly abrasive, as is XYU, and By Starlight is nice I guess

"Soma" and "Hummer" are probably my two favourites.