[den]

I really dislike their electronic stuff. Adore isn't bad as a whole, and actually got me in to them (you'd being in Chicago I would have caught on sooner), but some of the songs I cannot stand. Like Pug or that Eye track of off Lost Highway. Permanently skip those. Zwan was ok, but it just sounded too polished and weak, like trying too hard to do some 70's rock thing. I did end up seeing them live on their only tour, and that was a little better.

I think on both Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie, Butch Vig had a lot of say on the music. It was pretty much Billy and Butch figuring things out.

The songs that I like the best are the B-sides, like Pisces Iscariot and the Mellon Collie singles box. The song 'Set the Ray to Jerry' is just one of those songs that has a certain intagible movie-score stuck-in-a-moment feel. (For some reason I think all of the Killers songs I hear try to go for that same sort of dramatic feeling.)

But anyhoo, for me, most of this comes from recalling being an angsty teenager and listening to angsty teenager music. I tell ya, those were the days...