Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream poll

i admit i could be won over by The Smashing Pumpkins feat. Brad Delp

His voice is this weak, mewling thing and it fits perfectly - particularly on Siamese Dream. I'm happy with both of these things being true.

I don't have a working cassette deck to play the 1989 demo tape that comes in the Pisces Iscariot box, but of course I found it on YouTube... some real Cure influence happening back then, huh?

It's not that he isn't James LaBrie, it's that sometimes he sounds like he's recreating a scene from Deliverance.

His voice can be unpleasant as hell to listen to. I like SP but I don't begrudge someone who can't get past his voice.

I mean, Kurt Cobain wasn't exactly Mario Lanza and generally people like his vocals.

should have gotten the guy from Smash Mouth if he really wanted to sell to the masses

We've talked about it a lot but in the context of the music, I really like what he did pre-95. After that point, his voice got really unpleasant for me and was also foregrounded in the mix a lot more.

I mean, I probably would like Kurt Cobain or Chris Cornell better on "Tonight Tonight".

iirc the mcis vocal takes are all flood egging billy on and getting this deliberately raw and in your face and ott performance but i still think moments like "galapogos" are really lovely (and moments like "in the arms of sleep" are.... very rough)

adore has his best vocals but ofc they're not always cushioned by guitar noise and they are really mixed upfront

Kurt doing "Tonight Tonight" is extremely funny when I play it out in my brain

I mean, it was off the top of my head and Cornell might have been a better example but I don't really think his ballad voice would have been more ridiculous than what's actually on the record.

"And they all want you to change..." ;)

Kurt doing "Tonight, Tonight" would probably involve him screaming part of it an octave higher for no reason at one random point

Replace "an octave higher" with "out of tune" and that's what it sounds like to me rn.

I’m having a hard time picturing anybody else who could sing the lyrics of “tonight tonight” convincingly... maybe Neil diamond?

Prince maybe

I want to hear Julien Baker sing of crucifying the insincere, and she'd kill those long held notes.

Cracklin' Bullet (with butterfly wings)

Phil Collins could do "Tonight, Tonight" just to add to his Tonight collection

This might have been Neil Diamond-informed, actually: https://youtu.be/7iosnvKSBIo

what kind of voice would slide better into these layers of sound?

I get exactly the style of vocal he's aiming for and it one that would fit very well with the music, and most of his instincts regarding vocal phrasing and dynamics are very good ones - but he just doesn't have the skill to pull it off, and always somehow sounds like he's simultaneously making too much and not enough effort.

It's an odd voice. It's like an angry late teen and a scared 8 year old in the same body.

agreed, it's so perfect

corroded Gordon Gano

e only sd-era b-side i'd want on the album is "whir," and god knows it doesn't fit and is perfect where it is on pisces iscariot

"Whir" really is a gem.

That makes sense about Flood btw, Brad.

tried to post this yesterday but got shut out by my "you're wasting too much time on fun stuff" browser plugin ---- i do agree there's a point after which billy's voice stops being an asset. for me it's noticeable on some of Adore and a huge problem on the less "lush" tracks of Machina. as some of you have already touched on (and which i think we got into in detail on one of the ballot poll threads?), it's a combination of a changed singing style, a different way of mixing his vocals, and the changing sound of the band overall. for whatever reason it doesn't bother me on the MCIS tracks where this greater prominence is already happening, but maybe it's also that i've sort of phased out listening to the most abrasive tracks on that album anyway.

Corgan’s vox are awesome on “Frail & Bedazzled”—his voice is given that flat, dry treatment and slid into the middle of the mix (also great when everything else drops out, leaving just his vocal).

Helps that it’s a kick-a$$ song!

you could maybe cut idk one song from SD, if you had to, but more than that and it'd be diminished in grandeur no matter what the songs were.

This gets at the core at what makes this album so mercurial and distinctive, while at the same time imho only decent & not-great: it's an album with, like, eight beating hearts

The Core, The Eight-Beating Hearts Music...

been thinking about this and can’t help but believing J. Mascis would crush the vox dept

I'm a bit of a Butch Vig sceptic but I'm listening to Mayonaise on a different setup (ftr: laptop/my boys' flash new speaker) and goddamn I can really hear just how fucking awesome Jimmy Chamberlin's drums sound.

"Sliverfuck" 100% rules

Yup. And the insane/insanely longer live versions even more so.

I love how “Mogwai Fear Satan” is kinda like a drawn out “Silverfuck” jam. Better guitar/drum sounds on SD, tho.

File under 'things I did not expect'

https://fruit-bats.bandcamp.com/album/siamese-dream

Every so often, like now, I get into a mode where nothing else really sounds good to me except Siamese Dream, and I listen to it over & over. I can't really account for it -- I'm not much of a Pumpkins fan otherwise these days; I was lukewarm on this album for decades; I don't particularly vibe with the lyrics, or even many of the musical stylings; and I'm not generally into big rock albums that were Painstakingly Produced for Perfection and recorded over months (instead of weeks)... yet somehow it doesn't feel like that. It's like the band & Vig pulled off an impossible balance, making the album "just right" without it sounding too deliberate or overpolished... an impressively shiny & fearsome artifact that retains a human touch, real immediacy (and awesome drumming).

Somehow it's still "revealing itself" to me after all this time; or maybe it's just now clicking w/me because I've dropped aesthetic baggage of my own that was keeping me from appreciating it? (I dunno). Either way, it's quite a thing.

It's funny--I *was* a super-fan up through (but cracks showing at) 'MCIS'. And yet I feel similarly about 'Siamese Dream' (and the b-sides collected on 'Pisces Iscariot' + "Drown"). It has no relationship to any music I like from before or sfter it, and is conceptually a type of album I'd disdain. But for all of the "fan" baggage that fell away hard a quarter century ago, it still sinks its hooks in me if I happen to hear it.

It somehow manages to be the album equivalent of some big CGI-laden self-serious action extravaganza starring some in-real-life repelant schmuck that nevertheless actually is thrilling and engrossing. It's totally uncool, and almost cool for it (accidentally).

I think I agree with all this. I'm not really a Pumpkins fan either and basically own two albums (including MCIS) and a homemade "best of" CD-R covering 1991-2000. MCIS doesn't come close to sustaining it's enormous run time and I rapidly lose interest in the CD-R when it gets through the back half. Siamese Dream is really the only one I can enjoy all the way through.

Siamese Dream is really the only one I can enjoy all the way through.

For me it's Gish, but though consistent, it doesn't have any of their really great songs.
If brevity was all that was needed to make a great Pumpkins record, Shiny and Oh So Bright, Vol. 1 / LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun would be their masterpiece, but it's the worst.

This bump seems like a good excuse to play one of my favorites from this decade again.

The one I can enjoy all the way through is Adore - I've not entirely been able to work out why that is. It goes on an age (mind you so do the two around it) and has a lot of slow stuff which I don't quite think is them (or Billy at least) playing to their strengths but unlike their other 91-00 albums I'm generally unlikely to want to skip anything.

I don't think it's odd that Adore is well regarded by many Pumpkins fans. It's my favourite too, it has a serene vibe that they never had reached before or since.

I wouldn't identify as a Pumpkins fan, though. An Adore fan and a fan of certain songs from (or whole parts of) other albums, though.

A chin-stroking observation (after going back & forth a few times btw. the orig CD and the remaster): "Geek USA" is an even more interesting/complex song than "Silverfuck" - even though I think conventional wisdom would hold the opposite(?)

Silverfuck has always been my least favourite SD-track. Too long, and just not a good as most of the other rockers on the album. Shares some weaknesses with Fuck You from MC.

Only makes sense as a live “indulgence song” really

They played it when I saw them in Oct. ‘91(?), before I had even heard Gish… I didn’t know the song, of course, but I remember Billy singing “I feel no pain…” over the bassline.

One thing I’ll add is that when SD first came out, those are the two songs I least enjoyed… “Geek” sounded too tryhard-aggro and hookless to me, and “Silver” too much like, idk, Jane’s Addiction or something.

So I think learning to like/appreciate those songs was key, in terms of the whole album clicking with me… no more “second half, time to skip” syndrome.

happy 30th (and two days)

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