Moot_Geeza wrote:

Topic suggestions pls

I seem to remember that there were a few before this one, but I don’t recall what they are.

Easy win for this for me:

This, for me. 

I genuinely thought Zwan were better.

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Yossarian wrote:

I sometimes think your ears somehow process music differently to mine.

And how boring would the world be if everyone had the same taste?

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You know I've only just realised that they did a synth album in 2020.  Have it on now and it sounds quite promising!

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For 2 Albums, I thought Smashing Pumpkins were absolute top tier of the grunge era. Maybe not quite Nirvana or Pearl Jam but right under it. Siamise Dreams was a great sludge of an album with multi overlays of distorted guitar tracks. As Yoss said, some of the best stuff was the singles but I'll plump for Mayonnaise - find its a the best example of Corgans virtuoso assembly of dynamics and riffs.

But after that, Mellon Collie and the infinite Sadness is the best double album ever. While it does have its up and downs, no song really fills like filler or b-side material (although the b-side material was excellent as well resulting in the intriguing "Aeroplane flies high" box set) 

From it, there are loads of excellent tracks and its really hard to pick one that sums up the band. I'd probably go for Tonight, Tonight even though it isn't a typical rock track, it features awesome drumming from Chamberlin,  Corgans odd but fitting vocals and also is home to one of the finest music videos ever.)  Also shout outs to through the eyes of ruby and here is no why. 

Oddly though, while I enjoyed both Gish and Adore, I never got into the bands later stuff. It felt like the magic had gone. But for 2 albums, what a high.

Didn't Corgan go full Icke? There's a particular interview I'm trying to remember, but he's been in the silly pond for so long it's hard to pinpoint.

An offensive view IIRC, so nothing as reasonable as lizards coming for him and Howard Stern.

To start with, the majestic Starla from the incredibly underrated Pisces Iscariot. If nothing else, it goes full on wheels-off at 5:30.


After Mellon Collie, there were only fleeting signs of their brilliance. Their 2009 comeback project, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope which was planned to be a 42-song concept album with all songs released as a free download. Like many things Corgan, it went belly-up but it did spawn some great songs, especially A Song For A Son.


I could include many other additions but before I go I’ll leave one more, again, hope becoming a false dawn, but the impressive Quasar from Oceania.

I'm gonna be a bit of a machina fucker here. That's because 2000 I turned 15 and got fully into the band. Some others below, but ranked order here. I should add I'm starting this post as I'm out for a walk so will update until I say I'm done. I've got a lot to add here...

Top for me is Stand Inside Your Love, something sitting in my personal top 5 songs of all time, and a perfect pop paean to a Love.




Behind that is This Time, also off Machina, which I love for being something of a chugging britpop song in all but name.




It's really easy to just name check Siamese Dream, and I'll probably get there, but their "last" song before the Rotten Apples break up, Untitled, also hits like an old Pumpkins song.




I can't get past Tonight Tonight next. It was my gateway drug into the band, and came off the back of Blur's Universal and Manics'A Design, and I just thought every song had a big orchestra on it



Then there's Today, one of the first songs I learned at my guitar lessons and on of my favourite music videos ever. What a riff




Going to go back to Machina again for my last track (for now) to listen to The Sacred and Profane, another end of Britpop/ turn of century jam. Love the chorus on this.

I never got massively into them when I was tardily hoovering up the grunge era in 1999ish (I bought a best of and Mellon Collie iirc), but everything I've clicked on in here so far has been gold.  What a lovely noise they make!

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Doesn't need to be X tracks long.

This feels like the perennial criticism of Corgan post-Siamese Dream.

*runs away*

Yesterday I learned something everyone already knows. Not sure how it escaped my attention all these years but it happens. Corgan was the lead guitarist?? All these years I assumed he was a tortured genius type frontman who kept things steady with a few chords, but apparently he recorded the majority of the instruments on Siamese Dream. Madness. No idea how this passed me by all these years but the mate who was schooling me on the obvious reckons he's up there with the best guitarists.