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

dammmmmmn what a top ten. would never in a million years have imagined "hummer" so high. it's such a great album cut, never think of it as one of the great anthems or anything but it is hard to find much wrong with it and clearly it has much to appeal both to Vig-era fans and the Gish die-hards. and i for one think "life's a BUMMER!" is an awesome moment and a major enhancement to the song. lol at "I like to imagine this song predicts the commercial failure of Hum." hot damn at Drown as #3. strong chance it would have been #1 if it'd been on an album?

mayonaise, which i had at #6, beating 1979, which i had way down at #23, is what seals the deal for me. this is an awesome countdown. thanks ufo, this rocks, and let me also join the chorus praising the rollout graphics and typesetting.

i almost had "here's to the atom bomb" in my ballot and then the only version i could find for my listening playlist was the one from the greatest hits which i'd never heard before and was SO WRONG that it kinda put me off thinking about or listening to the song.

i also like the o.g. machina version as a two chord raveup, it doesn't really work but it's interesting xp to ray

Where is the other version of "Atom Bomb"? There's only one on Machina II, right? (Going to admit that I don't remember what it sounds like.)
2xp I guess that's the answer but lol that it was on a greatest hits album.

Doctor Casino I feel this

Gish IS Vig-era!

the other version of Atom Bomb was a Machina b-side

Sund4r this is the greatest hits version, which has always seemed like the wrong version to my ears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjUklMu7H3I

Bolded ones are the ones that placed in the top 66.

Here's to the Atom Bomb (New Wave)
<b>Zero</b>
<b>Rhinoceros</b>
<b> Appels + Oranjes </b>
<b> Pug </b>
<b> Wound </b>
Jupiter's Lament
<b> Galapagos </b>
The Imploding Voice
Crestfallen
<b> Spaceboy </b>
<b> Beautiful </b>
<b> Bullet with Butterfly Wings </b>
<b> For Martha </b>
<b> Glass and the Ghost Children </b>
<b> Today </b>
Landslide
Tarantula
Jellybelly
Try, Try, Try
Let Me Give The World to You
The Everlasting Gaze
Dross
Medellia of the Gray Skies
The Pistachio Medley

Man, I can't do HTML to save my life

lol duh oops abt Vig. sub "SD era"

came close to this being my first ILM poll where my entire ballot placed. "This Time" at #25 (73 in the results) was the exception. "Rocket," my #1 made it to 13, and all of my top ten made the top twenty except for "Muzzle" which I had at #2 and "Where Boys Fear To Tread," my #5.

your HTML is fine but sadly ILX uses bbcode (trust that button next to "Submit Post" on desktop)

and let me also join the chorus praising the rollout graphics and typesetting.

Oh yeah this as well! Always really liked the band's choice of similar-but-different fonts across the SD/MCIS/Adore art so was really happy to see them being used on the rollout images.

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Luna
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
Galapagos
Meladori Magpie
Rotten Apples
Blank Page
1979
I of the Mourning
Snail
Jellybelly
Here is No Why
Hummer
X.Y.U.
Thirty-three
Rocket
Beautiful
Today
Cherub Rock
Vanity
If There is a God
Tales of a Scorched Earth
Hello Kitty Kat
Marquis in Spades
Wound

My list, bold didn't place:

Mayonaise
Thirty-Three
Whir
To Forgive
Perfect
Starla
Soma
Spaceboy
1979
Medellia of the Gray Skies
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Stand Inside Your Love
This Time
Tonight, Tonight
Cherub Rock
Galapagos
Luna
Pulseczar
The Imploding Voice
Silverfuck
Thru the Eyes of Ruby
Cupid de Locke
Daydream
Bury Me
X.Y.U.

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"?!

no one else voted for Blank Page?

I like the cover of "Landslide" fine but that would have been a hilarious pick for a top 10 entry.

Blank Page was 45

blank page placed flappy

Oh shit lol my b

Dang i must’ve missed that round

i even posted the live video in your absence

Ha, I actually prefer the GH version of "Atom Bomb".

The GH version isn't horrible - it's probably just that thing about preferring the first version I heard of a song.

i even posted the live video in your absence

Whoa, that was a near-perfect Top 10. Only problem I have with it is 'For Martha' isn't in it.

To elaborate: the M2 version of "Bomb" feels like some heartsick, washed out, electronic end-of-the-world. It's as far removed from the band's beginnings as possible; it's barely human except for the singing, super programmed, cybernetic, weird. So when Corgan's voice cuts out at the end there it's as though he's been deleted, and the vocal or lack thereof becomes the gap he's been singing about for the length of that song (though the song itself seems to be about Corgan himself, or the persona he put forth, and being older but still kind of being the same outsider figure, etc). It's a quietly devastating ending to this song.

The GH version has this sunny, twangy guitar that lends it feel that's totally different and somehow less sad and final.

He's been deleted, or he's deleted himself - that's another way to think about it. This is probably the only Pumpkins song I've spent time overthinking this way.

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

i associate "atom bomb" strongly with kid a and amnesiac-era radiohead bc i was listening to both a lot at the time so i definitely understand the "lead singer erasing himself" vibe you get from it

Interesting angle - I wonder if Corgan was/is a Radiohead fan?

suspect he liked the records but hated their success. critics always putting him in the back.

Made a playlist of my ballot, which I think will be a v enjoyable way to listen to this band: https://open.spotify.com/user/1297256761/playlist/6EaySAiougJgnxwZdXSaiQ?si=UpkfjWPRT0OLWa92NJ7zDQ

think the only song i don't like in the complete results is the "dreaming" cover

Sorry, Brad.

1979
Zero
Galapogos
Thirty-Three
Muzzle
Tonight, Tonight
Once Upon a Time
Dreaming
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Cupid de Locke
Try Try Try
Here Is No Why
Jellybelly
Rocket
Clones (We're All)

it's ok i just don't think the arrangement adds anything to the song. good ballot!

Thanks!

It's a radical enough transformation that I feel that it and the original come off as different songs, which happens far less often with covers than it should.

None of us voted for

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeDiARw8q78

true enough xp

oh what's everyone's favorite sp cover. i hate most of them but wow do i love their "never let me down again"

As an aside, the other cover I voted for ("Clones") is one where I had never actually heard the original until very recently. I was surprised how faithful the Pumpkins version turned out to be. Never expected something so New Wavey from Alice Cooper!

I like "Girl Named Sandoz" but tbf I think I only know the two on PI + Corgan's version of "To Love Somebody". xp

the "dancing in the moonlight" cover was also the first thing i encountered that suggested thin lizzy had innumerable jams beyond "the boys are back in town." good choice and pretty faithful iirc

I like all of the covers on Aeroplane well enough, minus "My Blue Heaven," which is such an ill-advised mismatch of song and performer that it comes off as genuinely unpleasant, to me.

Dreaming is my favorite cover of theirs. Had I woken up earlier I would've posted a fake #1/#2 entry for Jackie Blue/You're All I've Got Tonight

the Landslide cover is classic obviously. Never Let Me Down is the best from Aeroplane. as far as live covers go the Space Oddity one they were doing a few years back was solid

I thought about doing a fake entry for United States in the top 10 but didn't have time to make an image for it

'Never Let Me Down Again' is a great version which even got the seal of approval from Depeche Mode themselves. Their cover of 'A Night Like This', on the other hand, is fucking shocking.

Should we have a separate covers poll?

Mayonaise
Stand Inside Your Love
1979
For Martha
Set the Ray to Jerry
Here Is No Why
Perfect
Soma
Behold! The Night Mare
Galapagos
Pug
Thirty-Three
Blank Page
Tonight, Tonight
Muzzle
Blew Away
Real Love
Geek USA
Hummer
Cherub Rock
Bury Me
I Of the Mourning
Go
Wound
Medelia of the Grey Skies

Siva
I Am One
Drown
1979
Silverfuck
Rhinoceros
Bury Me
Starla
Eye
Frail & Bedazzled
Perfect
Set the Ray to Jerry
Rocket
Pissant*
Quiet
Suffer
Whir
Tristessa*
Hello Kitty Kat
Snail
Window Paine*
Soma
Landslide*
Mayonaise (sic)
Obscured

Obviously I’m a “I like their earlier stuff better” dummy (probably because I got Gish when it came out and it was the torpid meandering summer after high school and I played that mysterious cassette over and over until it disintegrated) but this rollout got me listening to the whole catalog again and finding all sorts of gems I’d slept on all these years. Thanks!

1. Hummer
2. Set the Ray to Jerry
3. Muzzle
4. In The Arms of Sleep
5. Blank Page
6. Frail and Bedazzled
7. By Starlight
8. Soothe
9. Appels + Oranjes
10. Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
11. Farewell and Goodnight
12. Suffer
13. Starla
14. Glynis
15. Here Is No Why
16. 1979
17. Drown
18. For Martha
19. Love
20. Pennies
21. Thru the Eyes of Ruby
22. Obscured
23. Whir
24. Soma
25. Annie Dog

Beautiful
Farewell And Goodnight
Shame
Tear
1979
Eye
Set The Ray To Jerry
Love
We Only Come Out At Night
The Boy
Through the Eyes of Ruby
Take Me Down
Daphne Descends
Believe
Apples & Oranjes
Blew Away
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
Blank Page
Muzzle
Perfect
Galapagos
Pug
By Starlight
Bodies
Bugg Superstar

Didn't think I'd submit a ballot until the last day or so, and whether I'd submit a 2.5 song ballot or an all-James ballot, but ... eh. Always wish the Neu!-ish opening of "Cherub Rock" had breathed for a little longer ... flappy, I guess you're the person who'd know if there's a demo/live version around which does that? Glad "... Jerry" placed as high as it did!