THE SMASHING PUMPKINS

Even more than U2 the Smashing Pumpkins suffer from their musical legacy being overshadowed by the unavoidable figure of an odious and obnoxious frontman. Little matter that the Pumpkins at their peak pumped out the best melodic mainstream rock music this side of Cheap Trick the fact that Billy Corgan is almost universally regarded as being an insufferable whinging prick means the actual output of the band will forever struggle for its rightful level of critical acclaim. Of course, Corgan's faults are not just personality-based. His nasal, piggy whine of a singing voice takes some getting used to (or, indeed, tolerating) and his cliched 'oh woe is me' lyrics, clearly designed to cash in on Cobain's gravy train, are some of the most grating around. A fifteen year old might think it is really cool to base a chorus around the line 'despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage' (as, sadly, I once did) but it is simply ludicrous to think it was written in all seriousness by a (supposedly) grown man. These are largely superficial claims, though, and should not obscure the real strength of the band - a monumental ability to match intelligent hard rock arrangements to a wonderfully unpretentious set of melodies. Yes, Corgan is an ass and his overbearing personality can take some getting used to but it is simply churlish to deny that some of what the Pumpkins released represents a large chunk of the very best rock music the nineties had on offer.

But just as Corgan should be praised for exhibiting such a depth of songwriting ability there is no doubt it is his ego and narcissism that has contributed most to the weaknesses of the group. In a neat encapsulation of what makes his country equal parts respected and ridiculed Corgan always wants to be the centre of attention and revered as the very best in his field. For a while, this burning egotistic determination got him there - with Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness representing a consolidated artistic peak that few other bands from any era have ever matched and ensuring the Pumpkins became one of the biggest bands on the planet, picking up the fans of both Nirvana and Guns n'Roses who had been forced to direct their devotion elsewhere. Corgan, however, was desperate to stay at the top for as long as possible and an entire voyeuristic media circus has developed watching him being painfully and shamelessly dragged away from the spotlight. The one thing you could say in his favour was that he wanted to be big artistically, not necessarily commercially, (unlike Metallica, for instance) and therefore his fall from grace was due to him trying to cement his band's reputation as a great band, rather than just a very rich one. It is a distinction that is worth highlighting and why the endless meanderings of Adore had enough eventual quality to cause us to forget it was supposed to represent irrefutable proof in support of Corgan's rightly ridiculed proclamation that rock was dead. Corgan was, of course, left looking rather silly when the rock world carried on regardless, and promptly threw down his 'end of the world is nigh' sign to pick up the guitars and RAWK out once again, just like old times. MACHINA turned out to be at best patchy and at worst pretty fucking rubbish and Corgan ended up throwing another hissy fit when Virgin Records kicked up a fuss about a lack of return on the $60 million they had thrown his way in the wake of their phenomenal success in the nineties. Corgan again tried to act the prophet with the release of the internet-only MACHINA II, thereby robbing Virgin of any income, but a general uninterest, combined with its again patchy quality, meant the Pumpkins were forced to bow out in the face of nothing more than smirking indifference and mild derision. Corgan has since tried his hand at being another frontman (with Zwan) and a solo star but with such little success that he has publicly mooted the possibility of reforming the Pumpkins. Fortunately, it looks like James Iha and D'arcy are going to have to fly closer to poverty before they answer his desperate call. If it really is better to burn out than fade away Corgan's main regret must be that that bloody Kurt Cobain beat him to it.

From: Rowan

I came across your site through Adrian Denning's links page and am glad I did - keep up the snarkiness, it makes for interesting reading. I particularly like your call on Billy Corgan (I love his music, but *man* is he a tosser); though I gotta disagree about the Manic's This Is My Truth. It's good! Really!

From: Gareth Holloway

Hi, I just read some of the things you said about Billy Corgan. Just out of curiosity, why do you think he's a "Nasty piece of work?". I admit I have only learned about him through his lyrics and there is nothing to suggest he's bad in any way. Please enlighten me. Beany.

[Obviously I've never met him so I'm not pretending I know for sure but he has a reputation amongst the media and music industry for being a surly and unpleasant character. Regardless of the validity of this hearsay it, of course, has no bearing on the size of the man's talent which, all things considered, is quite considerable - JF]

From: Barrett Barnard

thanks for reviewing those pumpkins records.they're one of the best bands of the past 20 years in the mainstream.i also liked your reviews of guns n roses and the rolling stones.may cock rock live forever.

From: Dillon

As an absolute FANATIC concerning the Smashing Pumpkins I want to say, for shame sir, for shame. From all I have read of interviews and such (a massive amount) I have never seen Billy Corgan to be the nasty creature you describe him as. I agree with your review of them for the most part except I like Adore a good deal and would have given Machina a bit higher marking (though I am biased I admit.) Also if you get the chance check out some of Zwan's non cd material (the disc does them no justice.) Their less availabe material is stunning.

From: Lukas

Hi. I really like your site and pretty much see eye to eye with you on alot of contemporary releases. I would like to thank you for giving teh Smashing Pumpkins their deserved due, but Billy Corgan isn't really all that bad. His new solo record features production chores from bon harris and bjorn thursond and it will probably be a standout release.

From: Jim Ellison

Greetings from America. I read your reviews of the Smashing Pumpkins, Corgan, and their music. I really enjoyed them. You express your thoughts in an intelligent and creative way. I could care less about Corgan, what he's saying in his songs, or whether or not his head is shaved or not; I just love the SOUND of their music. I play drums and I can tell you the Chamberlain was very good. He was trained in the arts of Jazz (as am I). Well, I just wanted to let you know someone out there liked your thoughts on the Pumpkins. How do you like Zwan? I haven't heard anything from them, as I don't watch t.v or listen to the radio. George W. Bush is a fucking idiot.

[The Zwan album is reviewed here - JF]

Like Pearl Jam's Ten it is really rather unfair and inaccurate to categorise the Smashing Pumpkins' debut alongside the grunge scene emerging from Seattle in the early nineties. The Smashing Pumpkins, as with Pearl Jam, were far too much in thrall with and indebted to the unapologetic posturing of classic rock for their respective debuts to match the stripped down rage of the likes of Nirvana, Soundgarden, and friends. There are simply far too many squealing guitar solos and psychedelic excursions for this to hope to exploit the authentic anguish of their Seattle compatroits. Thankfully, unlike Pearl Jam, the band did not seek to try and disguise their fondness for 'happy' rock through intolerably self-obsessed lyrics and preening miserablist vocals; and by reducing the classic rock influences into an endless swamp of maudlin dirges. Given that grunge had yet to really take off in 1991, although reaching the very cusp with Nevermind soon to blow it open, Corgan hadn't yet had the inspiration to rip off Kurt Cobain and instead wrote lyrics falling somewhere between hard rock posing and alternative pseudo-psychedelic ramblings. Equally, although there are moments when the band play with the infamous 'loud-quiet' dynamics, as popularised by the Pixies, so much of this material rests upon sharp riffing and prominent lead guitar (something Cobain was dead against, for instance). For this reason, this album occasionally draws praise from people who came to despise the Pumpkins, given it is so divorced from the rest of their material; and particularly the latter stuff. Certainly, the band are surprisingly tight. Jimmy Chamberlain has always been an excellent drummer (hence Corgan's reluctance to dismiss him during his smack phase and his alacrity in signing him back up) and although the lead guitar does wander away at times ("Siva", "Rhinoceros") it often combines excellently with the rhythm to produce a concentrated wall of riffing (cf. the climax to "Bury Me"). Corgan was not just a classic rock freak, though, and his interest in eighties alternative bands becomes evident during the quieter moments, with the band often (and usually pretty unsuccessfully) looking to swap melody for texture. "Suffer" and "Crush" are predominantly acoustic and simply do not impress as much as the louder material. To that end, "Tristessa" is the most successful rocker on the album, given its tightness and brevity, but "Siva" and "Bury Me" still display Corgan's ability to deliver a sound melody and offer obvious evidence of why this album is so much more successful than Pearl Jam's similarly-influenced effort. The opening "I Am One" is an immediate refutation of any attempts to throw the Pumpkins in with the grunge crowd, as it is a wailing celebration of the very essence of classic rock. Although the band are reassuringly tight for an initial showcase it is also clear in what ways they improved, specifically by fleshing out the arrangements and improving the vocal melodies. Certainly, "Silverfuck" apart, Siamese Dream is more or less a more focused take on much of this original blueprint. In that way, one will struggle to listen to this album now without hindsight showing up the ways in which the band were to improve. It is still a remarkably strong debut, though, and probably the least irritating and unpretentious record the band ever put out.

Perversely, the Smashing Pumpkins took their first and greatest step on the ladder of success as they were under the most strain and closest to breaking up. Guitarist James Iha and bassist D'arcy had been an item at the time the band formed and had just begun a painful and slow breaking up process as Gish had been released. Neither particularly wanted to be in a band with the other and in the end failed to contribute to this album at all. Corgan was not to be held back, though, and ended up recording every guitar and bass part himself, as well as obviously writing the whole thing. It is all the more surprising, then, that it turned out to be a record of immense depth and cohesion. Rather than just record one guitar part per song Corgan went to the perverse extreme and ended up layering almost every track with a veritable orchestra of over-dubbed fuzzed-up grungey guitars; as well as multi-tracking many of his vocals. Although Corgan was always the central songwriter the complete lack of creative input from the rest of the band forced him to work out the arrangements all on his own. Maybe because of this, the songs rarely wander away into instrumental passages like they did on Gish with the majority of the material being far more focused and much leaner beasts. And beasts is what they are, with Corgan's songwriting ability already at its strongest and before his doubts and ego forced him into ever more ridiculous stylistic experiments. It is, of course, the melodies that stand the test of time, more than ten years on, but the overall presentation and production of the material is still immensely impressive. Although grunge was now a global phenomenon Corgan rarely indulges in the loud-quiet dynamics ("Soma" being the most obvious candidate), although he does retain a vague buzz for the guitars. That said, the soft roar of the wall of guitars often calls to mind more the contemporaneous 'shoegazer' scene, pre-empted by My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. In any event, the effect is far less pompous and therefore potentially offensive than Mellon Collie's mix of grandiose and grunge. The classic "Disarm" of course makes use of strings and (naturally) a bell but it is a powerful rather than pretentious performance and immediate evidence of how quickly the Pumpkins (well, Corgan) matured in sound and style from their debut. It was also banned by the BBC because of the line 'cut that little child' and Corgan's loathing of 'dear old auntie' is hilariously documented in his sleeve-notes to Pisces Iscariot. Corgan also struck gold with the much-loved "Mayonaise" which is a wonderfully lilting grunge epic sandwiched by an acoustic intro and outro. Of course, this album was not just an artistic success as singles like the almost naively melodic "Today" and "Cherub Rock" presented melodic rock music in a way that was palatable to both kids and grungers. Corgan was not beyond focusing on the pure rock action, though, and "Geek USA" is the hard rock highlight, with a visceral lead guitar attack and superb extended coda. The only real fault with the album unsurprisingly has Corgan's ego at the root of it with "Silverfuck" being not much more than a pseudo-psychedelic wankfest that rather obscures the image of Corgan as a great writer of melodic rock. The album as a whole tails off slightly at the end with the flimsy and brief acoustic ballads "Sweet Sweet" and "Luna" offering little that is memorable. It does make for a nicely relaxed end to a relentlessly impressive album, though. Even without the help of Romeo and Juliet Corgan was able to build single-handedly one of the most significant rock albums of the decade and, in doing so, prove himself to be one of the most talented artists within mainstream rock. Sadly, his ego was soon to become the fifth member of the group but for one album at least we can enjoy a remarkably unpretentious showcase by a genuine musical heavyweight.

As well as being an exceptionally talented songwriter Billy Corgan was also a very prolific one, thereby quashing the two obvious doubts that this release raises. The first one concerning the fact that the band were able to release an hour-long b-sides collection after only two studio albums and, secondly, that it would be any good. There are a couple of covers but Corgan's endearing solo performance of Stevie Nicks's "Landslide" is the quiet highlight of the set, even if the band's sardonic run-through of the Animals' "A Girl Named Sandoz" is done more for kicks. Regardless of the fact the quality is mostly great anyway, there is an added advantage to a collection covering such a short space of time in that the material sounds deceptively uniform and therefore makes this release seem far more like a third album by the band, rather than a mere compilation. That said, one would suppose this came out in between Gish and Siamese Dream as although most of the material is generally more focused and concise than the songs on the debut it fails to match the lush majesty of Siamese Dream. There are some cracking up-beat rock tracks, the raucous "Frail and Bedazzled" and the grungey pair of "Pissant" and "Hello Kitty Kat" being the pick, but it is still some way from the imperial classics from the previous album. That said, the sleeve-notes reveal most of the tracks to date from the Siamese sessions so the logical conclusion is that the aforementioned album perhaps represents one of the only times Corgan was able to effectively maintain some degree of quality control. Of course, it is little surprise that such a great album should have some pretty nifty b-sides to go with it. Perhaps the only surprise is that the acoustic b-sides to Siamese Dream make a greater case for inclusion with the hushed melodicism of "Soothe", "Whir" and "Obscured" arguably superior to, for instance, "Spaceboy". Gish b-sides are in the minority but it is probably unsurprising that by far the longest track on the compilation belongs to that era. "Starla" is an eleven-minute epic that considerably outstrips the length of its a-side ("I Am One") but, regardless, is a well-structured and gently climatic epic that still stands up favourably when compared to the more rambling material on Gish; even if it relies on a particularly long guitar solo. James Iha even comes out of the shadows to write and sing lead on "Blew Away" but its melody is a little simplistic and the structure so indebted to standard classic rock cliches that it is no wonder that Corgan rarely gave him the chance to express himself again (I think two more Iha compositions appear on the entirety of the rest of the Pumpkins' recorded output). The album also peters out after "Starla" with the final track, "Spaced", in particular being three minutes of essentially nothing much at all. There can be little complaints about the rest of this stuff, though, which displays the Pumpkins for the final time as an unpretentious, fun-loving rock band. There would of course be something seriously wrong if a b-sides compilation was superior to the albums it covers and it is little surprise that the left-overs from Siamese Dream prove to be of a quality most other bands can only envy.

After almost single-handedly writing and recording a veritable contemporary classic of mainstream rock music Billy Corgan's ego went stratospheric. Apparently, a lot of people can write a relatively concise collection of superb melodic rock songs. Not everyone can pen a two-hour double CD album documenting the trials and tribulations of a day in the life in middle America based around the rising and setting of the sun. And NO-ONE would call such an enterprise 'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness'. Of course, actually quite a lot of up-their-own-arse rock stars would attempt precisely such a bloated concept, although I'd wager rather less would be brave (or, more likely, stupid) enough to give it such a ridiculous name. What sets Billy Corgan apart is the fact that - by George - he actually succeeded with it. This album is an absolute montrosity. The only time Corgan stops whining like a teenage boy is when he goes off on a tangent with some startling pretentious musings on God-knows-what. Furthermore, instead of pinning such ramblings to a lush backdrop of orchestral guitars he decides to crank up the distortion and churn out an unmistakably commercialised adaptation of gothic industrial metal and, naturellement, slick grunge dynamics. Given the obvious appeal of most of the big-selling singles from this album it is perhaps not very surprising that the Smashing Pumpkins ascended to their commercial peak with the release of this album and the subsequent world domination tours. What is surprising is that despite the initially repugnant bloated arrogance of the whole thing Corgan managed to write ANOTHER simply superb rock album, again one of the best (if not THE best) of the decade. I (hopefully) have a more discerning ear now than I did when I first encountered this album in the naivity of my mid-teens but, even now, I would be hard pushed to promote other nineties albums higher. OK Computer might have more intelligence, Grace might have more beauty, The Holy Bible might have more bleak resonance but none of them have the better songs. Silly, yes, but the theatrical gothic grind of "Zero" and "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" makes them two of the most quintessential songs of the decade, the ridiculous equal to "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Corgan consciously drags the songs down from Siamese Dream, making them nastier beasts and taking his voice to its angry pig-whining extreme. "Bodies" is a streamlined assault of Corgan's vitriol, "Where Boys Fear to Tread" a rumbling industrial metal epic, and "x.y.u." the extreme of Corgan's nastiness - a doom-mongering riff-laden march of petulance, culminating with the most ridiculous moment on the entire record, Corgan's a capella scream. Only "Tales of Scorched Earth" disappoints, with Corgan's fury vented with too much ugliness. Given that this is a double album, though, Corgan is allowed to lighten things somewhat with moments of beauty. "Tonight, Tonight" is probably his finest four minutes, the quintessential nineties power-ballad, whilst "Galapogos" bathes in its gently lapping tides, until erupting into its powerful climax. "Thirty-three" sees Corgan refine his skill with jangly acoustic guitars, and the second CD ('twilight to starlight' to the first disc's 'dawn to dusk') plays out with, truth be told, a little too many soft acoustic numbers, although the fragile "Stumbleine" is cleansed of Corgan's pomposity and the power-ballad "By Starlight" almost matches the elegance of "Tonight, Tonight". The classic "1979" succeeds in capturing the melodic simplicity of much of Corgan's favoured alternative rock from the eighties (it is sometimes accused of borrowing the intro from Husker Du's "What's Going On") and "Muzzle" is a gloriously unpretentious rocker, with probably the most honest set of lyrics on the album (it memorably opens 'I fear I'm ordinary, just like everyone'). Of course, subtlety and simplicity are breaks in the set, not the overriding theme, and the extra space makes room for two epic centre-pieces (on each CD) "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans" and the stunning "Thru the Eyes of Ruby". In this way, it is erroneous to really associate this much with grunge music. This album is really the rightful successor to the classic grandiose works by messrs Waters, Townsend, and co., rather than Nevermind. If the term 'classic rock' is defined by quality, rather than time, than this is surely one of the best - if preposterous - entries to the genre. A decade on and it already seems to have been elevated beyond the time and place it was originally released into.

It is one of nature's most basic laws that when you're at the top there is but one way to go. One of the most interesting things to observe in musical eras is the way in which the bands at the top go about trying to stay there. Radiohead, for instance, managed to stay there through trying their best to get off. It is little surprise that the Smashing Pumpkins tried so hard to stay on top that they ended up self-destructing, like the waiter who breaks all the plates trying to save one, and only succeeded in accelerating their decline down. Like most greedy artists Mellon Collie was followed by touring to such an extent that it was simply impossible for the band to come through fresh and unscathed. There were literal casualties as a touring keyboardist was found dead, after overdosing during a smack session with Jimmy Chamberlain. The band were understandably shaken and Corgan was forced to dismiss Chamberlain, at least until he had cleaned up. Meanwhile the world waited for Corgan's next move and so were all the more bemused to hear him make that now infamous proclamation that 'rock is dead and you'll be dancing on its grave to our music'. The album that followed contained little angry rock music, thereby alienating the great scores of fans picked up by Mellon Collie's rock anthems, instead concentrating on low-key acoustic numbers and textured, keyboard-based atmospherics. The last single to be plucked from Mellon Collie - "Thirty Three" - turned out to be the prophetic indicator of their new direction, particularly as its video was the first to feature the band as a three-piece. It was unforgivably brash of Corgan to predict the death of rock and one cannot help but feel he only made such a 'quiet' album because he was forced into it by Chamberlain's absence. It is horrifically vain to renounce an entire genre simply because you had to sack your smackhead drummer and Corgan has been paying for such arrogant indiscretion ever since. The album naturally flopped and pretty much signalled the end of the Pumpkins as an artistic (and mostly commercial) force. Typically, Adore has become the album that dedicated fans like to defend as 'not that bad' and, as one, I tend to follow suit. The main problem is that it is just too long. Corgan of course had to fill out every second of space on the CD, a classic sign of success boosting an artist's ego to the detriment of his ability to be self-critical, and about a third of this stuff should have been left for b-sides and the inevitable successor to Pisces Iscariot. Few of the songs are actually bad, "Appels + Oranjes" being the likeliest candidate, but the unchanging mood and slow tempos means it becomes a struggle to listen to all the way through. Furthermore, although Corgan remains a good songwriter he no longer comes across as a great one with few individual classics on here. Lead single "Ava Adore" is the most (perhaps only) rock-based song and the initial highpoint of the album, even if the drum machine is a poor substitute for Chamberlain. The fact that most other songs are sombre acoustic or keyboard based numbers means Chamberlain is not much missed and using a drum machine gives Corgan the perfect chance to pretend he is in his favourite gloomy eighties industrial bands, like the Cure and Depeche Mode. Speaking of the Cure, he for some reason he ends with the album with a 17 second instrumental, surely in homage to them, accompanied by an irritatingly pretentious poem. The album at least begins strongly with, as well as "Ava Adore", the quiet melodicism of "To Sheila" and the industrial pop of "Perfect" which could just about have fitted in on the second disc of Mellon Collie. Furthermore, Corgan has another stab at an epic in the form of the eight minute "For Martha", most of which is an excellent piano ballad but which is needlessly extended for two minutes by a ludicrously pointless coda. He experiments with an eastern-flavoured arrangement on "Tear" and sterile electronics on the tension-building "Pug" to noticeable success but frail songs like "Annie Dog" and "Blank Page" just seem half-finished or, at least, half-baked. Taken individually, each song is a decent enough stab at industrial pop and quiet melodicism and at least a break from the ludicrous pomposity of the last album but it all adds up to an album that drags on for far too long. One suspects the main reason D'arcy got her nipples out in the CD booklet was to provide some much needed distraction from the endless downbeat meandering. Despite flopping commercially it is still a decent enough album and its sporadic merits no doubt make for constant debate between die-hard fans. 'The thing about Adore is...'

From: Thomas Rhydwen

I would be tempted to give Adore a 9, pretentious as it maybe it does make a change especially in the dreary nineties.

When Adore, Corgan's supposed masterpiece to cement his band's global dominance and legendary status, blew up in his face he became pretty rattled. Indeed, it is not too preposterous to suggest he has never fully recovered, with every subsequent release a vain attempt to address exactly where he went wrong in Mellon Collie's aftermath. Corgan's immediate reaction, though, was probably the most damaging. He effectively threw a hissy fit at the indifference to his undisputed work of genre-bending genius and decided if the public didn't worship everything the Pumpkins did then they bloody well wouldn't get anything at all. That'll learn 'em! Although us poor snivelling fans didn't know it at the time Corgan had apparently already decided MACHINA would be the last album by the band. To that end, he decided, given it was the final encore, he'd just give the fans what they want - an album of vintage Pumpkins. To make it as showbiz as possible he reunited the original line-up by bringing Jimmy Chamberlain back into the fold. I am not clear whether Chamberlain was off the brown at the time (or even if he is now) but if not it was clearly a rather amoral backtrack by Corgan. In any event, D'arcy promptly quit after recording the album and Melissa Auf Der Maur filled in on the 'farewell' tours (along with Paz Lenchantin in Zwan fulfilling Corgan's obvious fetish with female bassists). Of course, it is great to have Chamberlain back as he is a fabulous drummer and his wonderful contribution to the ponderous "Glass and the Ghost Children", for instance, is about the only redeeming feature over the entire ten minutes. Indeed, the real problem with Corgan's back-to-the-best approach is that not only is his songwriting ability a shadow of him at his peak but the world had inexorably moved on and this kind of stuff already sounds out of date (with the Strokes and White Stripes just a year away). Corgan may point to Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails still churning out similar material at that time but, personally, I'd like to to rank Corgan a lot higher. The gothic pig-whining efforts, "The Everlasting Gaze" and the truly horrendous "Heavy Metal Machine", literally sound like parodies of, say, "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" and "Zero". They would be unfunny if done by a comedy act but the fact that they have actually come from the pen of the original artist is nothing short of tragic. Corgan's lyrics have always been pretty rancid but this album does at least contain my favourite unintentional classic of his - "I Of the Mourning". As an actual song it is relatively palatable (although the backwards guitar solo stinks of classic rock cliche) but the lyrical concept concerns Corgan's bewildered artistic confusion following Adore's failure, with the classic line 'I read your letters to feel better' and his desperate plea 'what is it you want to change?'. Of course, Corgan has always been a decent songwriter and one gets the feeling if he had just kept things simple this album might have been a lot better. In and amongst the generic dross there are moments when Corgan's melodic sense shines through and he at least managed two successful singles in the form of "Stand Inside Your Love" and "Try, Try, Try" which, whilst wholly unprogressive, offer a brief reminder of him at his melodic best. Even without the patchy songwriting there are two central faults with the album as a whole. Firstly the production is just terrible. In an effort to recreate the symphonic effect of Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie Corgan adds so many layers it ends up only as cacophonic. Songs like "This Time" and "Wound" seem to suggest there is a good song willing to get out but it simply cannot be excavated. Secondly - predictably - the album is far too long, which is horribly compounded by the first mistake. Just because he once managed a two-hour masterpiece doesn't mean he can always do so. Obviously it is dragged out for over 70 minutes and the majority of the songs on the second side are so bereft of hooks or ideas that it ends up forming a never-ending stretch of over-produced mush. Surprisingly, if one can struggle through to the end, past the worthlessly dull "The Crying Tree of Mercury" and "Blue Skies Bring Tears", one will find the album actually ends at its strongest with the impressive "Age of Innocence"; perhaps the only track on the album that actually combines melody with intelligence. The highlights are minimal, though, and much of this album is simply stodgey, mediocre dross. Corgan's inherent sense of melody ensures little of the material is actually unpalatable but any quality still struggles to get through the messy production. Not the official farewell anyone would have wanted but given Corgan's habit of combining the absurd with the sublime probably the one most would have predicted.

From: Simon Brigham

It's GREAT that SOMEBODY shares my feelings on Smashing Pumpkins Machina/Machines of God. Everybody says it's great. But I didn't like it one bit. You can't imagine the smile on my face and joy in my heart when I saw you gave it a 6* rating. But Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness is a wonderful double album. Great stuff. Probably the greatest double album of the 90's.

From: marie

hey jack, i just wanted to email you about your site introduction. very informative, if a bit scathing at parts, and i can't say i completely agree with you on all points, but hey, to each his own. i just wanted to let you know that, to my understanding, "This Time" is meant as a goodbye song to the fans. great site though!

From: Chris Dunn

i was appalled by your review of machina and the machines of god. if you had sat and listened to it all the way threw a couple times. you'd see it was a great album. you have to atempt to embrace it before you jump to conclusions. if you did you'd see it's just as good as mellon collie or siamese dream. i felt the same way till i listened to it threw a couple times. so just listen to it again not looking for things things to critisize or mock but as a normal person just trying to enjoy it. and if you still hate it, its ok, at least you tried. thank you, that is all

[I bought this album the day it came out and since then I've tried as hard as I possibly can, as a Pumpkins fan, to see the merits in it but, at the end of the day, its mediocrity is Corgan's fault, not mine - JF]

But MACHINA was not the end. Although disbanding the group meant Corgan was no longer tied to the exclusive record contract he so greedily signed he decided he wanted to give the fans another final farewell, this time without Virgin seeing a single penny of it. I am not the world's biggest fan of global corporate monsters but I do kinda feel if you sign a contract you should bloody well honour it and although stabbing Virgin in the back does not produce much blood it is still a rather devious and dishonourable act. Not that the fans were exactly jumping up and down when Corgan announced the 'real' final Pumpkins album would be internet-only and free to download. Although he for once was actually quite prophetic in that today a huge chunk of the music industry is download-only his gesture wasn't particularly helpful to many people at the time, like me, with a 28k modem and no CD burning equipment. I suspect a lot more fans would have heard this material if it had been available in the shops. If he was so keen to give the fans cheap music he could have simply waived his cut of the profits but somehow I don't think he was going to be doing that. Even when Pumpkins fans, like me, bullied more technologically-advanced friends into burning them a copy they were still hardly overjoyed with the fact that this 'new' album was actually made up of the leftovers from MACHINA. Given the quality (or lack thereof) of most of the material that made the cut on that release it is unsurprising that MACHINA II has been brushed away as a hapless gesture that we should all forget was ever made. What people tend to ignore, though, is that actually the vast majority of the MACHINA II material, spread over one LP and three EPs, is superior to what originally came out. The production is still shocking but the MACHINA II album is at least a reasonable length and most of the songs on the EPs, reviewed immediately below, are actually pretty fucking good. When one hears the wholesome melodic rock of "Let Me Give the World to You" or the quaint charm of "Innosense" and "Atom Bomb" one can only marvel that Corgan preferred to include the likes of "The Crying Tree of Mercury" and "Raindrops + Sunshine" on the first album. Furthermore, the unabashed rock songs on here are a whole lot less rotten with "Cash Car Star" and "Dross" being unspectacular but nonetheless solid appropriations of the vintage Pumpkins sound (a lot better than "The Everlasting Gaze" and "Heavy Metal Machine" at any rate). Indeed, even the rock version of "Blue Skies Bring Tears" improves the original, if only to being a mediocre song rather than a rubbish one. Given this is an unofficial release James Iha even gets to contribute another softly-sung number with "Go" being pleasant and inoffensive enough. Of course, this album does drag towards the end with the rotten "White Spyder" and the dreary over-long "In My Body", and including an instrumental with a French title ("Le Deux Machina") is straight out of page one of 'How to Put the Stupid into Pretentious', but the concise running time means it is nowhere near as tiresome as the second half of MACHINA I. Some of these songs also make more explicit Corgan's moronic conceptual theme of the MACHINA 'project' with "Glass" in particular forming part of his ridiculous narrative about a rock star who becomes God or something (essentially 'Ziggy Stardust' without a hint of the style, elan, glam bravado, or, indeed, songs). Still, most of this album is actually more worthy of being officially released than 75% of MACHINA I and the reasonable running time suggests Corgan at least got one thing right. It was hardly worth mugging grannies in order to buy the equipment at the time but if you've got the technology now it actually might be worth seeking out.

You would be better off telling me why Corgan split half the MACHINA II material over three EPs as I have no idea but the sensible thing to do would be to burn them off on one CD. And that is precisely what I did. The third EP is of only limited use, as two of the three songs are 'alternate' (ie. pointless) remixes of "Try, Try, Try" and (hurrah!) "Heavy Metal Machine". The alternate version of "If There Is a God" (originally on the previous CD) is vastly superior, though, due only to the fact it is stripped of the horrendous production; thereby promoting the suggestion that all the MACHINA material would have been better in a simpler form. I suspect the reason the eleven songs on this CD were not included on the full length MACHINA II album is because they have different origins and therefore the EPs merely served to collect together the odds and sods. I gather some of these tracks originally appeared as b-sides to the MACHINA singles and others were actually written earlier but only came to be recorded when Corgan was scrambling around for enough material for as many MACHINA albums as possible (reminiscent of Metallica's equally bloated Load in that respect). It would make sense if that was the case anyway, as it would explain why this material is all better than the rest of the MACHINA material. "Slow Dawn" and "Speed Kills [But Beauty Lives Forever]" are two of the best melodic rock songs Corgan has produced since his peak, without any of the over-the-top theatrics he indulged in on his other retrospective material. The production isn't even that bad with the melancholy guitar on "Speed Kills" in particular adding immensely to the overall effect. He also explores again the mystical overtones of Adore with "Vanity" and the excellent climatic "Satur9" resting on distinctly dark arrangements. He EVEN makes a successful joke that isn't unintentionally at his own expense with a wonderfully snarling cover of James Brown's "Soul Power" done with the perfect combination of conviction and irreverance. Of course, it is hard to really classify this as a proper album, given so much of the material is re-used (half of it being alternate versions of original MACHINA 'classics'), but, amazingly, every song on it (bar "Heavy Metal Machine") succeeds in suggesting the Pumpkins were not quite such a shadow of their former selves when they broke up. I have always contended that if you took the best material from the three CDs you would actually end up with a MACHINA album that ain't half bad and, despite containing the fewest tracks, most of the material would actually come from here.

From: Matt

I was just perusing the smashing pumpkins page on your site and was intrigued by your suggestion that a 9-rated album could be derived from a cut-down selection from the Machina I and II albums. I must admit that after Machina, I never bothered to download the second one, as I was rather put off by the first.
Have you ever taken the time to define a track listing for this hypothetical album, perhaps including the Machina EPs material as well? If so, I'd be quite interested to line it up and listen to it...

[Let's say... "Stand Inside Your Love", "Try, Try, Try", "Age of Innocence", "Cash Car Star", "Dross", "Let Me Give the World to You", "Atom Bomb", "Slow Dawn", "Lucky 13", "Satur9", "Speed Kills [But Beauty Lives Forever]" and "If There Is a God" but not necessarily in that order - JF]

Along with Radiohead the Smashing Pumpkins were my favourite band during my teenage years and it was therefore surely some kind of seismic event in my personal evolution when they released a Greatest Hits collection. I was a little disappointed, then, when key events in my life did not flash before my eyes, like Proust's Vinteuil concerto, when I first played this back, bar perhaps vague memories of drinking warm, sugary alcopops in a dingy night club. In any event, the primary reason I bought this was because at the time of release it came accompanied by a bonus CD of b-sides and rarities, in effect a second Pisces Iscariot called Judas O. I gather the second CD is no longer available which kinda renders the bulk of this review useless to people who don't already own it but I shall press on nevertheless. As for the Greatest Hits, it is a reasonably robust effort. "The Everlasting Gaze" is the only definite shouldn't-have-been-included (often a problem with judging more recent material), although the two bonus tracks at the end - "Real Love" and the cleverly named "Untitled" (I am just surprised Corgan didn't opt for "Le Untitled Quatre") - bring little to the party. A couple of non-album contributions to soundtracks are included - the excellent "Drown" from 'Singles' and the rather-too-sterile "Eye" from Lynch's 'Lost Highway'. To that end, it is a shame that Corgan didn't include the post-Mellon Collie "The End Is the Beginning Is the End" from the 'Batman and Robin' soundtrack as it is a cheesey but nonetheless enjoyable cartoon-gothic rocker which is certainly far better than the film would suggest. Overall, the album drastically peaks with the Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie singles but you don't need me to tell you that. As for the second CD, it turns out to be a reassuringly strong compilation, continuing from the period where Pisces Iscariot left off. The Mellon Collie b-sides, particularly the epic "The Aeroplane Flies High" and the snarling "Marquis in Spades", obviously stand out the highest and it was a shame Corgan didn't include more from that era - "Transformer" and "Rotten Apples" are two excellent b-sides that didn't make the cut - but at least all that jazz is available on the Aeroplane Flies High box set. Corgan resurrects some of the MACHINA II material but it is a decent selection, including the pummeling "Lucky 13", "Slow Dawn", and alternate versions of "Here's to the Atom Bomb" (a rock version) and "Saturnine" (an electronic version), both of which are inferior to the original mixes. Given some of this material comes from the Adore sessions there are a fair few soft, low-key efforts, with the likes of "Waiting" and "Blissed and Gone" resting on a crunching automated drum track. The fragile "Sparrow" and the atmospheric piano-based "Soots and Stars" are the highlights but all of this stuff is pretty impressive. The only real stinker is the cover of "Rock On" which, unlike "Soul Power", does not work on any level even if I sadly fail to get as irritated by it as other reviewers. Despite coming from the period when the band were in a steep downward descent, the quality of most of this material suggests that Corgan was always a talented songwriter with, sporadically, some quite clever ideas. The fact that most of these numbers could easily have fitted on the original albums just shows that Corgan was not so much an inconsistent songwriter as an arbitrary decision-maker. Of course, if you have not already got Judas O you're going to struggle to hear it so I'll just say that it is absolutely essential and one of the finest pleasures life has to offer whilst the people who already have it snigger and point at you behind your back.

Released with minimal marketing behind it (perhaps to avoid competing with Billy Corgan's Zwan album) Earphoria is the purely aural equivilent of the DVD Viewphoria - a collection of live tracks with a few unreleased instrumentals thrown in. I couldn't tell you when the DVD was released but this album, although coming out in 2002, concentrates solely on material from Gish and Siamese Dream and therefore joins Pisces Iscariot in filling the chronological gap between the Pumpkins' two nineties masterpieces. Personally I'd quite like to hear a career-encompassing Pumpkins live album but I'm sure Virgin aren't shy of releasing one some stage in the future. That said, there is always a certain charm that comes with listening to live shows by massive bands before they become massive as there always seems to be an energy and zest that gets replaced by professionalism for the benefit of the stadiums. Actually it is a bit of a stretch to say that Gish gets covered by this album as only "I Am One" gets performed, although it is done so admirably, stretching out into a pompous and self-indulgent rock epic (in a good way). I guess, then, this album is perhaps best thought of as a companion piece solely to Siamese Dream. None of the instrumentals are particularly brilliant and only serve as interludes between the live tracks. Thankfully most are below two minutes with one notable exception - the fifteen minute "Why Am I So Tired" that ends the album. As an inclusion on the album it shows incredible ineptitude on behalf of whoever picked the tracklisting (presumably Corgan). Exactly what this album (or any other for the matter) didn't need was a rambling, fifteen minute guitar solo boring the listener and practically begging him/her to prematurely press stop. Like the similarly pointless twenty minute-plus instrumental on the Zero EP it simply highlights Corgan's lack of proper quality control and an odd obsession with pointless jamming that should never be recorded never mind released. Actually, the unreleased track "Pulseezar" isn't an instrumental, but it is clearly too lo-fi for inclusion on a proper album. As for the live aspect of this album, given that is the sole reason for buying it I'm happy to report it is a solid, if unspectacular, success. Like a lot of nineties bands the art of live performance is not as distinct from studio recording as it once was (cf. Cream) but the Pumpkins certainly weren't a bad live band and do pretty much what you'd want and expect them to do. The fast, aggressive songs are played faster and more aggressive and the rock epics are made even more epic, with drawn-out sections in the middle to allow Corgan time to spout gibberish which he must think is really cool and we all think is really silly. Still, it adds to his over-the-top persona and I'm sure it is one he is happy with having. "Quiet", "Today", "Soma" and "Geek USA" are all played relatively straight-forward with "Quiet" being the pick due to the extra aggression of the music and snarl of Corgan's vocals. There is also one unreleased track played live, "Slunk", which is actually pretty good and quite like "Quiet" in that it is fast and aggressive. By far and away the best reappropriation of a song is the performance for "Disarm" from the British TV show The Word. As opposed to the acoustic original it is played electric and is brilliantly tortured and metallic. In a reverse of those dynamics, the song that follows is an acoustic rendition of "Cherub Rock" which is decent enough, although not as good as the original. "Mayonaise" is also predictably played acoustic but the band were obviously so bored with it that the version on here is very informal with Corgan occasionally giggling as he is singing. Also predictably, like "I Am One", "Silverfuck" is stretched out into a ludicrous thirteen minute epic. It is the latest dated performance (1994) and it hence shows signs of increased confidence and ambition. Corgan even sings a cappella the chorus from "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (which is bizarrely listed as a separate track) during his rambling middle-section. As such I imagine this compilation is probably a fairly accurate guide to what seeing the Pumpkins live in the early nineties was like - storming renditions of the metal songs, a couple of acoustic tracks and a few stretched out epics thrown in, with Corgan ridiculously emphasising his larger-than-life stage persona. Worth the price of admission, anyway.

• Return to the main page
• Go to the Zwan page

Email me at: jackfeeny@yahoo.co.uk