Gish (Caroline ’91/Virgin ’94) Rating: A-
“With a dynamic range as great as that of The Pixies and with a twin guitar attack thicker and more dense than Nirvana and Pearl Jam combined, the Pumpkins have been quite consistent in their ability to churn out material that veers from delicate ballads to crunching arena anthems.” So said Alan Cross in proclaiming the Smashing Pumpkins one of the 25 most important alternative rock bands of all time, and Gish presented a readymade and highly original hard rock force. With screaming guitars cutting through the (by now famously) propulsive Pumpkins chug, “I am One” and “Siva” start the album off with the band at their most hard edged and rocking. However, “Rhinoceros” presents a softer side to the band that is also apparent on most of the other songs here, most of which inevitably erupt as well. The lush “Crush” is an especially beautiful ballad, and the soaring “Snail” is the album’s most impressively epic arena rocker, while the Eastern-influenced “Suffer” would later be brilliantly sampled by Tricky, and “Daydream” is a dreamy, My Bloody Valentine influenced change of pace (sung by bassist D’Arcy in her only lead vocal with the band). In retrospect, Gish was the blueprint for even better things to come, but the album should still thrill the band’s legions of followers. Led by Billy Corgan, this was a band born for big things that knew exactly what they wanted right from the start (according to Corgan, he wanted to “combine the atmosphere of goth-rock with heavy metal”), aspiring towards everything that all of their indie “peers” despised by refusing to check either ego or ambition at the door. Granted, Corgan’s geeky and grating vocal whine takes some getting used to, but producer Butch Vig manages to smooth out its rough edges just enough, and his voice certainly is uniquely his own. Though it pales in comparison to its subsequent big brothers, on which Corgan’s songwriting would grow by leaps and bounds, Gish was the necessary first step that made those breakthrough albums possible, and it remains an exciting and estimable first effort.
Siamese Dream (Virgin ‘93) Rating: A+ Gish got people buzzing about the band, and an excellent contribution to the essential Singles soundtrack (“Drown”) furthered an alleged connection to the grunge scene and bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Next came a severe case of writer’s block for Billy Corgan before he penned the brilliantly uplifting anthem “Today,” a significant hit that put the Pumpkins on their way to stardom. The grungey power chords of “Cherub Rock” starts the album off with a classic rocker that’s an angry putdown of the indie community who had shunned them for not having “paid their dues.” Sorry, but greatness couldn’t wait, and with this big (in every way) second release the band blew away their competition (sorry, Pavement). Layers upon layers of guitars seamlessly intermesh to form the backbone of louder tracks like the rumbling “Quiet” and epic arena rockers such as “Hummer” and “Rocket.” The band also proves adept at switching gear, as their dreamy melodies often erupt into blasts of power chords and shards of feedback. The band’s reliance on these soft-to-loud dynamics (the changes in volume of which can be quite jarring) can seem inevitable at times, but the end result still thrills on songs such as “Today,” “Soma,” and “Mayonnaise” (my favorite song here which also has an absolutely gorgeous guitar intro going for it). Elsewhere, “Disarm” (a major hit), “Luna” (which ends the album on a beautifully optimistic “I’m in love with you” high), and “Spaceboy” (about Corgan’s handicapped stepbrother Jesse) are all highly impressive, lushly orchestrated ballads. If the album has a flaw it's in a little too much doodling down time (after all, progressive rock is a primary influence), but though the willful experimentation on songs such as “Silverfuck” seemingly outstays its welcome, the band becomes well worth indulging when the screeching guitars search for transcendence. Apparently the album caused much friction among the band members, as it was later revealed that band leader Billy Corgan insisted on playing the majority of the guitar parts himself, untrusting that his cohorts could capture the many textured splendor of the sounds roaming inside his head. So call Corgan an arrogant control freak if you must (he thankfully let Jimmy Chamberlin put in an incredible drumming performance), but don’t deny that with Siamese Dream he crafted a landmark ‘90s masterpiece.
Pisces Iscariot (Virgin ‘94) Rating: B+
Following the Nirvana blueprint, Smashing Pumpkins decided to follow up their breakthrough album with a compilation of various b-sides, cover tunes (Fleetwood Mac's “Landslide” and The Animals' “Girl Named Sandoz”), and previously unavailable tracks (“Frail and Bedazzled,” “Whir,” “Spaced”). This album is better than Incesticide, however, as most of these songs are good enough to have been included on their previous albums. Although it contains some heavy rockers in the band’s customary style, the best of which is the turbo-charged “Frail and Bedazzled” (which was also a minor hit), the majority of Pisces Iscariot showcases the softer side of Billy Corgan’s songwriting. The frail and gentle “Whir” is probably the best of several strong ballads, while the beautifully breathy “Blew Away” is an excellent James Iha vehicle. Elsewhere, “Plume” and “Hello Kitty” both rock hard and feature guitar heroics aplenty, but these songs are easily overshadowed by the album’s centerpiece song, “Starla.” This 11-minute epic starts by showing off the band’s psychedelic side (so much for all those Nirvana comparisons) before surging at the 2:50 mark and then ending with 5 minutes of thrilling guitar mayhem. Granted, as with most of these types of compilations not everything here connects, but most of these songs do, as Corgan’s songs are well worth hearing even when he records just himself and his acoustic guitar in his bedroom.
Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness (Virgin ‘95) Rating: A+
After the magnificent Siamese Dream made them superstars, the Smashing Pumpkins came back a mere two years later with this sprawling double album. Though decried by critics as being too “pretentious” and containing too much filler, I don’t find the band guilty on either count. First of all, the band simply sport grand ambitions and are one of the few bands around today that actually dares to be great; if that makes them pretentious then so be it. Secondly, I only see one weak song (“Where Boys Fear To Tread”) among the 28 here (almost all of which were written by lead Pumpkin Billy Corgan), making this not only easily the best album of 1995 but a decade defining monument that’s one of my favorite albums of all-time. Much more of a band effort than its infamously Corgan dominated predecessor, this is a rawer, more spontaneous effort that shows off all of the Pumpkins’ many sides, as they expand their sonic palette and rely less on the soft-to-loud dynamics that had previously been their trademark. Though the angsty (detractors would say “whiny”) lyrics are at times embarrassing, it is the band’s spectacular sound that matters, though Corgan’s unique voice, presented here in a less processed form, is still to many an acquired taste. Dreamy, angelic piano pieces (“Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness,” “Cupid de Locke,” “Thirty-Three”) stand beside spare pretties ("Stumbleine," "Farewell and Goodnight") and soaring ballads with sweeping orchestrations (“Tonight Tonight,” “Galapagos”), while mellotron laden prog rock epics (“Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans,” “Thru The Eyes Of Ruby”) fit snugly alongside explosive/soaring hard rock (“Jellybelly,” “Here Is No Why,” “Love,” “Muzzle,” “Bodies"), raging heavy metal (“Zero,” “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” “Ode To No One,” “XYU”), breezy pop (“1979”), and lightly catchy sing alongs (“They Only Come Out At Night,” “Beautiful”). The amazing end result encompasses everything that was great about alternative rock in the mid ’90s, as this well-balanced collection of songs can be both inconceivably beautiful and fragile, and deliberately ugly and abrasive, sometimes within the same song! Mellon Collie contains the bands prettiest ballads as well as their hardest rockers (really, what more could a fan want?), and this smartly paced, all over the place masterpiece has been in heavy rotation on my stereo ever since its release. A Physical Graffiti for the ‘90s, this was a brilliant band triumph that sold like hotcakes and briefly made the Smashing Pumpkins the biggest band in the world. Note: Longtime drug addict and dynamite drummer Jimmy Chamberlin was booted from the band in July ‘96 after another drug binge with touring keyboard player Jimmy Melvoin resulted in Melvoin’s deadly overdose. The band gamely continued on, but things would never be the same.
Adore (Virgin ‘98) Rating: B+
In stark contrast to the brilliantly bombastic double disc monstrosity that was Mellon Collie, Adore is a stripped down affair that can in retrospect be seen as a transitional effort. As expected, Jimmy Chamberlin is sorely missed, as his relentless drum attack has been replaced by more subdued replacement drummers and faceless electronic beats. Gone too are the arena rock guitar heroics and big production values, as the band prefers to keep things simple this time out. Indeed, the album is completely unlike what I expected, barely qualifying as a rock record but for a few tracks (in his February 2002 article about the Smashing Pumpkins for Guitar World, Greg Kot describes the album as a “nocturnal folk album dressed up with touches of electronic texture”). Yet the band still entices in their new style, for the album is a quietly haunting, graceful, and generally beautiful affair that sees Corgan’s subdued, breathy vocals telling typically angsty but surprisingly poetic tales. The problem with the album lies in its lack of variety, a somewhat sterile sound, and an overly long running time (73 minutes). But Corgan remains a highly accomplished songwriter with consistently appealing melodies, though the album admittedly lacks the edgy excitement of its predecessors. This cost the band big time at the box office, and they never really recovered their fickle fan base, though Adore will likely be reappraised as “an underrated gem” in a few years time.
Machina/The Machines Of God (Virgin ’00) Rating: B
With Chamberlin back in tow, the big brutish guitars of “The Everlasting Gaze” (which I enjoy despite it being an obvious rewrite of "Zero") lets listeners know that the Pumpkins are back to rocking out. Next comes the lush, dreamy “Raindrops & Sunshowers,” as the band immediately delivers the two types of songs that they do best. Later on, “Try, Try, Try,” “This Time,” and “With Every Light” are even better examples of the Pumpkins’ airy pop side, featuring Billy Corgan’s breathy vocals and the band’s beautifully layered guitar melodies. What’s interesting about these songs, and harder hitting, intensely building tracks such as “Stand Inside Your Love” and “I Of The Mourning, ” are that their soaring guitar melodies owe as much to the less critically hip likes of Journey as to their much commented upon grunge connection. Elsewhere, “The Sacred And Profane” shows that the Smashing Pumpkins haven't lost their knack for successfully building up a song to epic proportions, but Machina/The Machines of God is far too long for its own good at over 73 minutes, and its second side in particular gets bogged down by long winded dirges such as the 10-minute “Glass And The Ghost Children” and “Blue Skies Bring Tears.” Fortunately, this album’s plusses still outweigh its minuses (such as the grating "Heavy Metal Machine"), and it was good to see the band turning up the amps again. Unfortunately, the mellow Adore had alienated the band’s fan base, and this grungier goth rock epic likewise failed to stir the masses as Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness had done.
Greatest Hits (Virgin ’01) Rating: A-
Despite a history of uneven live performances, an often-obnoxious frontman, and a sound that could be downright grating, the Smashing Pumpkins were still one the best bands of the past ten years (1991-2000). With a combustible chemistry as unique as Jane's Addiction and a songwriter as brilliant as Kurt Cobain, Smashing Pumpkins briefly ruled alternative rock in the mid-90s, peaking with Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness. However, the underrated, much-misunderstood Adore and the fine (if meandering) finale Machina/The Machines Of God were major commercial disappointments by comparison, and the band broke up earlier this year rather than continue to fight a losing battle against today’s mediocre chart toppers. All the proof that one needs of the band’s greatness is on this compilation’s first cd (subtitled Rotten Apples), which plucks songs from each of the band’s previous albums and collects most of the bands biggest hits in chronological order. If you don’t like this disc, which contains heavy hard rockers (“Cherub Rock,” “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” “Zero”), pretty ballads (“Disarm,” “Tonight Tonight,” “Perfect”) and many other high points in between (the perfect pop of “1979;” the edgy electronic rock of “Ava Adore”), then chances are that you don’t like the Smashing Pumpkins. In addition, the disc contains the excellent psychedelic epic “Drown,” which was previously only available on the Singles soundtrack. Two enjoyable, previously unreleased tracks also appear in the form of the melodic, orchestral pop of “Real Love,” and “Untitled,” whose upbeat “to feel love all around” message is a far cry from the Gen-X angst that’s typically associated with the band. For fans that already have most of the songs on the first disc, a second disc of b-sides and previously unreleased tracks is also included subtitled Judas O. A case could be made that this disc is overly generous, as it contains several sub par offerings and at least one cringe inducing misstep (a cover of David Essex’s “Rock On’). However, much like Pisces Iscariot, their previous fill in the gaps compilation, this album of songs that were deemed unworthy of their original albums is still better than 90% of most “real albums” out there. Huge sounding, angry rockers such as the intense epic “Aeroplane Flies High” and “Marquis In Spades” are well worth checking out, as are delicate ballads such as Iha’s “Believe” and Corgan’s “My Mistake” and “Set The Ray To Jerry.” The atmospheric, gothic chants of “Because You Are,” the groovy mid-tempo rocker “Here’s To The Atom Bomb,” and the pretty electro pop of “Waiting” are other successful songs that have rightfully been rescued from obscurity. Given the band’s diminishing success, and the fact that they likely had already released their definitive statements in the above-mentioned masterpieces Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, a case could be made that the band broke up at the right time. After all, though somewhat shaken their reputation remained largely intact, and this Greatest Hits collection serves as a fitting goodbye that further enhances the band’s back catalogue.
