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

It's funny--it's late and my wife is sleeping and I don't have headphones at hand, so I can't listen to that--but I feel like I can absolutely SD-ify "Jerry" in my head as a heavy track, and it could've been great. But I think it's actually remarkable that instead they went all restraint and tension and implied-rock through misty almost-jazzy feints and hints. It's something they didn't really do much, or at least not without building it up beyond restraint at some point in a song. It makes me want to listen to the few MCIS tracks that I generally like (production/approach aside), and "Jerry-fy" them in my head to imagine that alternate history more vividly. . .

Like the Knife doing a record updating old tracks to their last sound. . . Maybe we can convince Billy that path back to relevance is to tackle MCIS/Adore-era tracks and set their rays to Jerry.

Porcelina rules

Galapagos rules

Rocket was my #1

I shall be free

I love quiet Pumpkins but Jerry does nothing for me, I wonder why.

(also I thought Porcelina was a lock for #1 so what do I know)

may blather more in the morning but mainly I'm stoked to see Galapagos this high. feels like a song every listener must have had their own individual discovery moment with, holy shit this bridge! amazing that this record has room for this and for "porcelina" - a clear argument for why it has to be a double - and then they put them almost back to back. gutsy.

You're not alone re:Jerry, Matthew.

"Obscured" was my #2!

I am having to relisten to "Galapogos" right now to remember how it goes. I think I always skipped this one! It is really pretty, though. Apparently my individual discovery moment is right now.

top 10 prediction:

1. 1979
2. Mayonaise
3. Soma
4. Drown
5. Rhinoceros
6. Cherub Rock
7. Hummer
8. Thirty-Three
9. Thru the Eyes of Ruby
10. Starla

No offense to Rhinoceros, but I have a hard time seeing it place and Daydream not.

this version of Daydream is so good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZZjdStK9ho

Rocket was my #1. There are very few SP lyrics that I would describe as "inspiring", but this is the best of them, an almost Springsteen-like dream of escape (or burning out and fading away, but I tend to look at the positive, more life-affirming interpretation).

And yes, fantastic stretch from 20-11, with the exception of "Porcelina" which is Billy at his proggy worst. Not a terrible song, but one I usually don't have the patience for.

how the... what... i just found this... billy wrote a song for some band called taproot in the mid 00s? this video was uploaded in 2006. wtf it's great & why would he give it to someone else

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPP0ebGrNiM

I didn't really know Galapogos was such a favourite but it's one of mine so it's great to see it so high

same here! *high five* to everyone for the latest stretch. it's making for an excellent playlist.
(but i don't like 'today' and never have)

'stand inside your love' is fantastic musically but is so completely empty lyrically. even still it stands as the last thing they did that i flat out love. i feel like such a dummy for not listening to more pisces iscariot before throwing my ballot together. i had most of the pumpkins' cds back in the day but somehow never picked it up, and for some reason to this day i often forget it's there. 'obscured' is an incredible song that i would have put high up on my ballot had i listened to it anytime recently.

Im not a huge fan of Porcelina but it has a bit of a Future Days vibe imo

Cherub Rock was like #4 in the 90s singles poll, so I had expected that to be #2 behind 1979, but admittedly that was almost a wholly different message board back then

There's no way Rhinoceros doesnt make it

sweet line in porcelina: "In my mind I'm every one of you"

the climax of galapogos speaks so directly to the all or nothing life or death outlook of the teenage heart

Too late to turn to turn back now
I'm running out of sound
And I am changing, changing
And if we died right now

Great run of songs here, I was the #1 voter for Stand Inside Your Love, remember hearing that on Radio 1's Evening Session and being blown away. Glad to see so much love for Here Is No Why and Galapogos - Galapogos always takes me right back to the first time I listened to Mellon Collie in full.

I have to confess that I wasn't actually a Pumpkins superfan in the '90s - I loved the stuff I knew but due to limited funds only owned MCIS and I think a taped copy of SD at some point later on. I bought the CDs of Gish, SD and Machina around 2002/03 and then everything else I discovered through downloading a few years after that so large chunks of the discography still feel relatively new to me.

Daydream is the Loveless Unplugged missing link between MBV and SP.

Huh, I guess I spoke too soon - 'Perfect', 'Obscured' (I like it, but really!?), 'Porcelina', 'Today' and especially 'Galapagos' all far too high.

Would it improve "Obscured" to know that it's a single shape (Cmaj with a G in the bass) moved up and down the fretboard?

Soundslike: it surprised me a bit too when I first realized how important Adore was to a lot of people who were about five years younger than me (us?). I had an ex-gf who loved Machina and Adore, didn't listen to the pre-MCIS material, and thought of Gish as worthless. I think MCIS sold about twice (?) as many copies as SD so I definitely don't think there's a popular consensus on the Vig-era material being superior (even though it's what I prefer too). I've actually been pleasantly surprised to see it doing as well as it is here. I was expecting that there might be more of a slant towards the later mk 1 material.

Huh, opposite for me (as someone else who hadn't revisited them since the 90s) - decided not to put anything from SD on the ballot as the removal of emotional investment etc makes me realise I can listen to My Bloody Valentine if I want layers of guitar etc, without those techniques smeared over what might as well be Rush/Aerosmith/etc songs
― etc, Saturday, April 7, 2018 10:44 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I get that it's what a lot of indie fans dislike about it but this is exactly what makes SD so great for me; obv, if you don't like Rush and Aerosmith, ymmv. I like MBV a lot but, really, they gave you those techniques smeared over what might as well be idk Pastels songs or something, which isn't an inherently better fit imo. Of course, a lot of the time, I want to hear those kinds of guitar sounds without songs at all and then I listen to Fennesz.

I had an ex-gf who loved Machina and Adore, didn't listen to the pre-MCIS material, and thought of Gish as worthless

(Before someone asks, this wasn't why we broke up.)

Been lurking for this poll, some crazy nostalgia here. I thought about contributing some votes when I saw it on the board, but couldn't really bring myself to - SP are so bracketed for me with some of my most emotionally intense teenage years, and a lot of the music pretty much captures that sense of overblown melodrama, feels awkward even listening back to it.

I did just want to just echo Soundslike's posts though. Couldn't have put it better myself in terms of the sense of diminishing returns at the time - for me, Adore was the turning point where ultimately we parted ways. Although not right away, there was a period of "denial", not only due to the significance and attention I'd pay to any CD in my small collection at the time, but also the emotional/subjective investments of being a totally dedicated fan, a true believer.

Wow, all night long? Holy crap. I've got a busy Sunday ahead of me. Hope I don't miss out on the top 10.

Good morning, catching up here...GALAPAGOS?!? My people, you are!

Adding to my growing list of embarrassments about this poll: somehow, I forgot to vote for "Perfect".

KM otm about the climax of Galapagos. Appropriately, it arrives with a guitar crash straight out of Baba O'Riley or Come Sail Away. Love that moment.

here's the top 10

https://i.imgur.com/0wtYVoB.jpg
10. Thru the Eyes of Ruby
558 points, 17 votes, 2 #1 votes
From: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, 1995

Fewer votes than the previous 5 - I don't get the love for this myself, but the coda is good.

the chorus is great but to me all the sections feel a little slapped together compared to some of their other similarly structured songs

i love everything about “ruby” and think it’s a way tighter-constructed than “porcelina.” the chorus is also... maybe billy’s best

“galapagos” so deserved to place this high. cutting it off my ballot SUCKED. good work everyone

https://i.imgur.com/PmdHTkL.jpg
9. Starla
564 points, 18 votes, 1 #1 vote
From: I Am One single, 1992 and Pisces Iscariot, 1994

lol i listened to this three times before voting. still mind-blowing. felt like i heard about it a lot before i ever heard it and it still kinda lived up to all that

My #4. Insanely cool song.

ridiculously cool song

This is going to be a perfect top 10.

i think “1979” or “mayonaise” will top this but i’m kinda pulling for “hummer”

THE NIIIIIIIIIGHT HAS COME

That's a moment where you're reminded that 'oh yeah, this is a concept album about nighttime or something'

https://i.imgur.com/uzzYlFx.jpg
8. Rhinoceros
602 points, 23 votes
From: Gish, 1991

i ended up voting for this song real high which surprised me. but it’s so groovy and gentle and then suddenly enormous

sorta their first masterpiece

"Ruby" was my favorite cut on the album and probably still is. I think the joins between parts are brilliant, especially the "so let me TELL you" transition into the second chorus. I'm not sure I could have told you what it was *about* but I just loved listening to it. The piano intro is one of the best uses of the expanded sonic palette on this album. The chorus has this swirling kind of rhythm to it, can't articulate it, but it *felt* like something was being spun around, like the camera is making a graceful arc to take in the breadth of the song or of the guitars or of the album. In a way it belongs with the disc one epics but it's so badly needed where it arrives on disc two.

"Starla" was my #1. If I only had one SP song the rest of my life to give me everything I need from them, "Starla" would be it. The hush, the whispers, the tension, the tightly-shaped bombast, the big-set painterly-yet-intense drumming, and just about the only dose of Guitar Godding I need--it's all there, with campfire bongos to boot. It's even absent Corgan's absolute megalomaniacal control of his world, with the timely bleed in of the cop siren.

Through its ascending repetition, it's almost like a Reich or Glass piece, except as an ode to the elevating potential of Rock. It's in many ways the opposite of most things I look for in music, especially in guitar-and-bass-and-drums-based music. Which only makes me trust my love of it more--and it's been almost the only SP song I've felt the need to put on periodically over the last 20 years since I otherwise walked away. It still gives me the same feeling of soaring, yearning possibility as when I was 14 and Smashing Pumpkins meant the world to me. For me, "Starla" is Smashing Pumpkins.

Rhinoceros was my #3.

I remember trying, as high school freshman, to write decent poetry that had the feel of this song and failing miserably.

i ended up voting for this song real high which surprised me. but it’s so groovy and gentle and then suddenly enormous

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Sunday, April 8, 2018 9:21 AM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nailed it