The Smashing Pumpkins is one of the bands I really hate. OK,
I don’t hate them, but I really dislike them. The only one actual person is
guilty in that – Mr. Billy Corgan, main songwriter, vocalist and guitarist of
the band. While being overly pretentious and having a damn bad personality and
voice (whiny and irritating, but I guess I can forgive it t him. Blame it on
Mother Nature), Billy CAN’T WRITE GOOD SONGS!
In fact, he could write them and wrote some (mainly on Siamese Dream and Mellon
Collie And The Infinite Sadness), but absolute majorities of his tunes are either
unlistenable or just lame. Can you name a good song from MACHINA, for instance?
Neither can I. He also, as I said above, have a great problem with his vocal
abilities. In fact, Billy Corgan is the worst vocalist I have ever heard in
my life. Ever. He always sings with his ordinary whinny voice in damn monotonous
tone, and when he tries to scream... In such moments I wish I wasn’t born at
all. Or, and one more thing I hate about Billy Corgan (read: Smashing Pumpkins)
– this guy hasn’t got a talent of arranger. Of course, he has done that bombastic
orchestration in “Tonight Tonight”, but the simply Corgan formula of arranging
the song is to make as more electric guitar overdubs as possible, cover it all
with the strange noise in which no man can divide instruments. Add to it a lame
melody, stupid drum machine and pretentious keyboards on Adore and dumb cheesy
synthesizer on MACHINA, and you’ll get The Smashing Pumpkins song.
Besides Corgan, there are other people in this band, imagine it. But, in fact,
the only one of them really matters – Jimmy Chamberlain, the drummer. He is
probably the most talented musician ever stuck in the mediocre band. He rules.
Unfortunately, he REALLY liked heroin, so he was trashed out of the band and
didn’t do anything on Adore. Fortunately, he’s allright now and still touring
with Corgan in Billy’s new band Zwan. There were also two more people in Pumpkins
line-up, but they didn’t do anything. Yeah, guitarist James Iha got a credit
for a pair of songs and even sung on a pair, and bassist D’Arcy Wretzky was
hot for one tour, and sung some tunes, but you can’t hear them at all. They
all are covered by massive guitar attack from Billy and massive booming drums
from Jimmy. That’s it. D’Arcy left the band in 2000, by the way, and was replaced
by the other chick – Hole’s bassist Melissa Auf der Maur (and there’s the other
chick on bass in Zwan. Cool!), but that doesn’t really interest me, since The
Smashing Pumpkins have disbanded in 2000.
- GISH
- MELLON COLLIE AND THE INFINITE SADNESS>
- ADORE
Quite unpretentious album by The Pumpkins’ standards, I must
say. No prog-rocking or multi-part suites, no guitar overdubs, no double album
format, almost no orchestration, no keyboards – just plain, straightforward
grunge, alternative rock, or whatever it’s called. It results in that all of
these songs sound all over the same. Brainless rockers are fast, dumb and rocking
as possible; ballads are long, boring and draggy. Plus, some of them are REALLY
terrible. Have you heard “Window Paine”, for instance? No? And I don’t think
you should – non-existent melody with a deadly dull grunge tone doesn’t help
this song to be good. There’s a strange moment when Billy Corgan sings without
any musical background at all, but it all sounds so dumb and unambitious, that
I can’t help to put a smile upon my face. And it’s pretty long. Not longer than
the other horrible tune – “Rhinoceros”. It has the most irritating, stupid and
repetitive chorus I have heard for a long long time – “She knows, she knows,
she knows, she knows...” Man, it gets in your head, but I wish it wouldn’t.
And the song itself doesn’t have anything to boast, anyway.
There are, however, some good tunes. The opening “I Am One” is simple alternative
rock classic and even I’m not gonna argue with you about that one. From a FANTASTIC
drum solo to A class melody in the whole song, this album is one of the rare
moments of Billy Corgan songwriting brilliance. My second favourite Pumpkins
song of all time, just after “Tonight Tonight”. “Daydream” is melodic and simple,
but whoever let D’Arcy sing it is idiot. However, I love the orchestration.
And after some seconds of silence, Billy goes with a little “hidden” song about
him going crazy! “I go crazy, motherfuckin’ crazy”. Hilarious! “Suffer” is pretty,
with FLUTE solo in the middle. My favourite moment on this album is that solo.
No contest.
However, all other songs are the same. Not only by the overall sound, but also
by the melody and everything else. It is pretty useless to describe all that
stuff, so I leave you right now. A 5.5. May be 6, but it’s Smashing Pumpkins
debut album, so fuck it all.
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No step from Gish or whatever. Siamese Dream is the same boring
grunge, only a little bit more pretentious (string quartets, 8-minute epics...
You know the stuff), and the songs are much better than on Gish for sure (even
the worst number, “Silverfuck”, isn’t as bad as, say, “Window Paine”), but,
man, does this album bore you TO DEATH. There are so many unmemorable and dull
filler songs on here, that an hour of Siamese Dream with songs that sound like
they have the same tone and chord progression is a nightmare for not very patient
listener. Billy Corgan could kick everyone’s ass if the album was filled by
catchy rockers as the opener “Cherub Rock” or ballads as beautiful as “Disarm’,
but, instead, he just penned a bunch of songs like “Spaceboy” or “Quiet”, the
songs that nobody in this world needs. I’m pretty sure that the fans’ appeal
of the album is based on appeal of everyone’s favourites like “Mayonaise” or
“Today”. Nobody even mentions fuckin’ “Spaceboy” or something. Just like, you
know, Bob Dylan’s fans and critics who bring Blood On The Tracks to heaven never
say a word about presence of “Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts” on it.
And if I love Blood On The Tracks and can easily give that one a ten or something
just because the quality of other songs makes me forget about “Lily”, I don’t
feel the same about Siamese Dream – I don’t like half of the saongs on here
or something. I once liked the album very much, to be frank, but, after a pair
of listens that I’ve done before reviewing the album, I felt that I can’t give
the album more that 6.5. It has grown off me.
Back to the actual music, the album opens on a very high note with “Cherub Rock”.
A pretentious (in)famous drum roll, awesome melody, drive, cool guitar break
– no surprise that the song became a big hit. “Quiet” is just about nothing,
because I’m pretty sure that nobody can even remember how the song goes. “Today”
was yet another hit single, and it sounds quite poppy in times. You know, something
like grunge-pop. And if that genre exists, “Today” is its’ masterpiece for sure.
“Hummer” is awful, though – boring grunge pretending to be progressive rock
or unimaginative progressive rock pretending to be grunge. The song is long,
complex and has various twists, but Billy didn’t even try to make it attractive
and NOT boring. Following “Rocket” is better, though, with pretty eastern guitar
lines and crap like that.
“Disarm” is my personal favourite, simply because it’s schokingly, breathtakingly
gorgeous. Acoustic guitar, bells, cellos – it all works. Plus, Billy’s voice
sounds better than ever. It sounds emotionatly, even achingly. Why couldn’t
the man always sing like on “Disarm”? I dunno. “Soma” and “Geek USA” are both
“Hummer” twins – very messed, vry pretentious and awful. I can actually enjoy
“Geek USA”, mainly because of the last part, which simply rocks harder than
almost anything Smashing Pumpkins have ever done. “Mayonaise” doesn’t rock at
all – it’s just a ballad, and a good one. It is ruined by Bcorgan, because,
for some fucking reason he made this song to last for SIX FUCKING MINUTES. It’s
pretty and everything, but I’m getting bored at the beginning of the third minute,
so how can I actually stand SIX?
“Spaceboy” is a track number ten, and that’s everything I can tell about that.
“Silverfuck” is an epic that is just the same as, “Soma’, but it clocks at,
you knoiw, 8:42. Isn’t that way too long to a mediocre boring epic played by
Smashing Pumpkins? I suppose that Billy could gave these epics like “Silverfuck”
or “Hummer” to Tool, and they would make them rule for sure. With a terrific
Keenan voice (who could re-write al lthe lyrics – no loss), and a splendid hypnotising
instrumentation of the band, Tool can make rule even “Third Eye”, so what, can’t
they make “Silverfuck” rule? Back to the album, “Silverfuck” is followed by
a 1:44 acoustic “Sweet Sweet” that doesn’t mean anything at all, and Siamese
Dream closes on a very pretty and beautiful “Luna”. I love that song. Don’t
love the album, though. Don’t buy it. You’d better spend all our money on feeding
kittens or something. I don’t know. Just download “Diarm”, and forget that the
rest exists. The album isn’t that bad, but I don’t think that you’d be willing
to listen to it after it hits your CD player once.
Any comments or reviews to grant us with?
There’s a little to be said about this album, simply because
it’s a collection of draggy b-sides from Gish and Siamese Dream singles. Half
of them are brainless and awful rocking crap like “Frail And Bedazzled” and
half of them are boring acoustic ballads like “Obscured”. It is still somewhat
saved by a terrific Fleetwood Mac cover “Landslide”, pretty “Soothe” and James
Iha’s “Blew Away” and one of the best Smashing Pumpkins songs ever – an eleven
minute epic “Starla”. The song is just a hypnotising rock epic with a really
good six minute closing instrumental part at the end when the band shows that
they can jam.
Now, please, can someone name to me at least ONE reason why the ordinary band
should put a compilation of b-sides right after two first albums released? I
understand that you may have a lot of material, but, you know, you are NOT fuckin’
rock legends and the material you have IS NOT very good. Damn this cruel world.
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“I fear that I’m ordinary, just like everyone,” – Billy Corgan
proclaims at the very beginning of “Muzzle”, the 12th song on this album. And,
I must say, he has no reasons to fear, simply because Melloncholy And The Infinite
Sadness is one of the most pretentious rock projects of modern music (or maybe
even one of the most pretentious of all time). Judge for yourself: two CDs with
an hour of music on each; a musical concept, in which Corgan tries to show the
passing of the 24-hour day; a presence of simply everything in terms of music:
from overblown progressive rock epics to piano novelty tune to noise tunes to
power pop. It’s all here.
But, damn, it isn’t even close to masterpiece, as many Smashing Pumpkins fans
around the world say. It’s just a good album. Billy finally reached his peak
as a songwriter and a lot of the songs on here are clever, catchy, complex and
do not bore me to the state in which I can agree to listen to any Orgy song
in existence. I’ve got only two MAJOR problems with this baby: a) the length;
b) the presence of some really awful filler. Seriously, some of these songs
are absolutely needless and do you REALLY think you can sit through two hours
of Smashing Pumpkins music?
Butr, anyway, speaking about the album, it’s good. It opens with a title track,
a pretty little piano/Mellotron instrumental. It’s boring and too pompous, but
fine, so I’ve got almost no problems with it. And I definitely have no problems
with the second song – “Tonight, Tonight”. I don’t really like Smashing Pumpkins,
but this song is damn GENIUS. It opens with grandiose intro, and the whole song
is majestic, full of melody and absolutely gorgeous. String quartets play, Billy
Corgan sing with immortal passion and Jimmy Chamberlain works for all orchestra
drums (even though there are no orchestra drums in there). Incredible. The song
could work even better as a climax, a closer of the album, but, since the album
is two hours long and the song was a single, it was pretty wise from Corgan
not to place it to the end.
“Jellybelly” just sucks Sorry, but I can’t listen to this pseudo-punk noise
through the whole song. I’d better listen to “Zero”, which has a great riff,
awesome vocal melody and totally killing middle part. “Here is No Why” is a
good rocking ballad, led by twisted guitar riff. A great stuff. Famous “Bullet
With Butterfly Wings” goes next, and it’s good pop song with rocking chorus.
The song is kinda spoiled by awful Corgan’s vocals (“DESPITE ALL MY RAGE I’M
STILL JUST A RAT IN A CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE”), but it’s pretty good overall. “To
Forgive” isn’t that good, but I can’t remember how the song goes, so skip it.
“An Ode To No One” is angry, raw and energetic, but that doesn’t always make
a good song, isn’t it? “Love” is ugly, but have a great and memorable chorus.
I like it.
“Cupid De Locke” and “Galapagos” are both ballads and I don’t like them very
much, because of the bitch of Smashing Pumkpins (or any) music: it’s boring
as hell. I’m pretty sure that reading Leo Tolstoy’s “War And Peace” all night
long in a room with no funiture but some chair is more exciting than listening
to “Cupid De Locke”. “Muzzle” is great, though. Melody is raw, fantastic and
careful. Lyrics are good too. So good that I even quoted them at the beginning
of my review. Oh, and I just love “Porcelina Of Vast Oceans” – a nine minute
progressive rock ballad with awesome verses and weird synth effect here and
there. Cool. And a James Iha’s ballad “Take Me Down” is just gorgeous. And he
sings pretty good too. He could be a singer while Billy doing all the other
stuff.
The second disk opens with “Where Boys Fear To Tread”, and that song has one
of the most crazy, chaotic and awesome intros I have ever heard in my life.
Marching bass line, weird e-bow-crossed-with-feedback guitars and everything
like that. Unfortunately, the song itself is shitty pile of noise over actual
music. There is even an effect from fuckin’ DOOM there, so whatever. “Bodies”
is even worse. “Thirty Three” and “In The Arms Of Sleep” are boring. The REALLY
BIG single “1979” is good pop song, with clever bass/guitar melody and even
better vocal melody, but it gets somewhat boring towards the end. And then “Tales
Of Scorched Earth” comes. Now you may have your “Where Boys Fear To Tread” and
“Bodies”, but this song breaks new ground for terrible. It simply lacks any
melody (noise, noise and noise again), and Bill’s vocal is HORRIBLE BEYOND WORDS.
He sings through some Vocoder or something and he SCREAMS, so, man, it’s one
of the worst sounds I have EVER heard in my life. EVER.
“Thru The Eyes Of Ruby” is big, pretentious multi-part grunge-prog epic. I like
it – it has a lot of equally good parts and almost never gets boring as, say,
“Silverfuck” (fuck you, Siamese Dream). “Stumbleine” is a ballad; “x.y.u.” is
yet another big epic, but, man, it’s probably the only time you can hear Billy
Corgan singing in SUCH fantastically agressive and IMPOSSIBLY ANGRY tone. The
song has a lot of parts, and they all rock pretty much, but Billy’s vocals (and
I’m a bit ashamed to tell this) make the song. Now there’s “We Only Come Out
At Night”, and it is so dumb, infectious and pretty that it’s impossible not
to like. Man, I love this song. My third favourite Smashing Pumpkins song ever.
No joke.
Unfortunately, four closing songs are boring ballads, but they aren’t very offensive.
And the final song is even a little bit cool. “Farewell And Goodnight” is another
James Iha’s tune, and it rules. And isn’t it cool to hear how SmashingPumpkins
wish us goodnight? Not “farewell”, of course – they would appear more times,
but they would never release an album better than Mellon Collie And The Infinite
Sadness. Get it some day.
Any comments or reviews to grant us with?
Wow. This is what you’ve been waiting for all of your life –
Smashing Pumpkins releasing an album fully consisting of ballads. You know,
without Jimmy Chamberlain (who had gone away for one album), Billy couldn’t
really rock, so he decided to put an album with a lot of ballads. You know,
Corgan’s balllads always were either boring or just stinky. Yeah, “Disarm” or
“We Only Come Out At Night” are excellent, but, on occasion, James Iha could
write a ballad better. Here, on Adore, Corgan’s ballads are even worse because
of three factors: a) they all sound the same; b) the album lasts for 73 minutes;
c) it’s a personal record.
Yeah, a very personal record from Billy Corgan. Seems that he had just lost
his mother and struggled with big depression around the time of writing these
songs. Of course, I can do nothing like pity Billy and I’m actually glad that
he had came out of this state, but, man, if you want to know, one thing on this
album rules: lyrics. They are great. This album isn’t full of crappy “thoughtful”
messages like “God is empty just like me”, and even although Corgan sing “You’ll
be perfect just like me” in “Ava Adore”, lyrics on here don’t seem to be very
self-indulgent. This is Billy Corgan who writes gorgeous and wise lyrics that
may seem simple at the first sight, but have a lot of emotion.
Unfortunately, concentrating on personal and emotional sides of the songs, Billy
simply forgot about music itself. He decided that it would good to use a lot
of keyboards for this songs, but melodies are boring, forgettable and repetitive.
He decided it would be cool to include some acoustic numbers, but they al lsound
the same. He decided to write some complex, multi-part songs, but they don’t
work at all. Finally, he used drum machine. For the band whose drummer is one
of the best drummers of modern rock, it’s an unforgiveable sin. Overall, this
album sounds comatose, overproduced, overelectronic and comnpletely lifeless.
Songs? They aren’t very good at all. The openig “To Sheila” is a gorgeous song,
one of Pumpkins’ best, but other songs? Boring, muti-part monsters like “For
Martha” or “Behold! The Night Mare”? Awful electronic atmosphere and non-existent
melody of “Apples + Oranjes”? Repetetiveness of “Shame” and “Tear”? What do
all of these sonds suppose to do, actually? Just waste my time? And why I should
listen to generic synthesizered pseudo-rockers like “Ava Adore”? Because Billy
Corgan wants me to do it?
One more thing: Billy Corgan does everything on this album. Everything. Even
more than he did on Siamese Dream, and that says something. James Iha and D’Arcy
must be somewhere on this record, but they are buried in mix. I can’t even feel
that two guitars play or that bass exists somewhere in the sound of this album.
There is a new session drummer (I forgot his name, unfortunately), but he was
too busy with making Up with R.E.M., that on most of the songs, there is just
drum machine.
Speaking about Up, haven’t you noticed similarities between Adore and that R.E.M.’s
album? Drummer leaves, the sound of the band becomes more electronic and the
songs are mostly ballads. And I don’t even need to mention that both of these
albums were released in the same year. But, Up, apart from Adore, isn’t a one-man
show and have better songs than anything on here. Plus, they do varue, from
hopeless acoustics of “Sad Professor” to ambient of “Airpotman’ to pretentious
electronic pop of “Lotus” or optimistically high-on-the-clouds “Falls To Climb”.
Adore is the same balladering that has the same sound. It’s the first and the
final step before Corgan will hit the rock bottom with the next album- MACHINA.
But that’s another story.
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