Taking up a mini-residency at the Tower Theater that starts Friday night and then goes three days straight Sunday to Tuesday, is Billy Corgan and some other folks known as the Smashing Pumpkins. That's all well and good. I'm more interested in the opening act, Austin instrumental gods Explosions in the Sky. No lyrics, just four guys making music. The songs are so layered and complex, they do not require vocals. This band is making the new "classical" music. Even if you are not a fan of non-vocal music, give these guys a listen, they might just change your mind.
There, I said it. And I'll stick to it for the rest of my life. The Beatles come close, Radiohead comes close, but Corgan and Company take my personal title of favorite band of all time. And as 2007 dawns, I can say that the impending Pumpkins reunion album is what I anticipate the most about this year musically.
This tends to baffle people. Many folks remember the Smashing Pumpkins in one of two ways:
The band fronted by the weird looking bald guy with the nasally voice and huge ego.
The band that came after Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and was the biggest band in the world for a few years before Limp Bizkit came along.
These are both fair assessments - and true, for the most part. Some other statements tend to get thrown around with the Pumpkins - people levy criticisms at Corgan's lyricism (the "rat in a cage" line from "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" tends to draw particular ire), their strange image, and their penchant for the dramatic. So why do I rank the Pumpkins as the best ever? For a few reasons - some very personal, and some with a more musical contention.
I'll begin with the personal. The Pumpkins were the first band that were truly my own. I grew up in a house listening to classic rock and oldies; I was a bit too young and not quite rebellious enough to buy into grunge when it dropped after Nevermind. But by 1995, I was 12 years old and looking for something to call my own during my tumultuous junior high years. And thankfully, I found Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - a musical masterwork. This album changed my life; without it, I would never have become as involved and active in music as I am today.
And the musical contentions - there are quite a few:
The Pumpkins are among the bravest bands I've ever encountered. With each and every album, the Pumpkins strove to break new musical ground, pushing their sound to new areas and levels that they had never explored before. No Smashing Pumpkins album sounds alike. Starting as a psychedelia influenced garage rock band that was emulating Black Sabbath, the Pumpkins became the best stadium band in the world for most of the early to mid 1990s. And then! After releasing the biggest album in the world with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, the Pumpkins put out Adore - which is nothing short of a triumph. Critically lauded but largely overlooked, it was a band reinventing their entire being after kicking Jimmy Chamberlin out of the band - exploring drum machines, acoustics, keyboards and new guitar tones. Upon Chamberlin rejoining the band, the Pumpkins aimed to meld these two worlds - the moody atmospherics of Adore with the anthemic feel of the earlier records. While many contend MACHINA/the Machines of God was an average album, I see it as a band continuing to move forward - taking the lessons they've learned from making previous albums to keep developing new sounds.
The Pumpkins are among the most dynamic bands that I have ever heard. Not only was the foursome capable of devastatingly loud, crushing guitar riffs, but they tempered it with the ability to scale back their sound - creating music that ebbed and flowed, making outstanding use of crescendo and decrescendo, and clean guitar against distorted guitar. They were just as capable of writing a heartbreakingly beautiful ballad as they were at writing the heaviest of rock tunes.
Billy Corgan writes great songs. He is a versatile and exploratory songwriter who isn't afraid to tackle a variety of sounds, genres and emotions. His lyrics are honest without being obvious; introspective without being egocentric.
Billy Corgan is one of the all time best guitar playing frontmen. Seriously - pick another lead guitarist from the modern era, who also sang lead vocals, that can play like Corgan. I have a very hard time thinking of anybody outside of the all time legends. If you don't believe me, go search YouTube for videos of the man playing live. Its just sick.
Jimmy Chamberlin is the best drummer since John Bonham.
I could go on and on about this band, as I'm sure this post represents. I know people are going to disagree with me on perhaps just about everything regarding this post. Hit up the comments - I'd love to debate it with anyone. But for now, I leave you with the music. I've picked songs that aren't singles for the most part - tunes that show a side of the Pumpkins that most folks may have never heard.
It is my sincere hope that they resonate with some of you that never got into this band beyond what you heard on the radio. This band has done more for me than any other - so it is my absolute pleasure to share this with anyone who will listen.
MACHINA II: The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music (2000) ~MACHINA II was released as a series of free downloads by the band. To obtain the full album, you can go here.
Untitled ~the final Smashing Pumpkins single, released the night of their United Center farewell concert to Q101 radio in Chicago, and eventually placed on Rotten Apples, their greatest hits compilation.
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