the Smashing Pumpkins

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by joethelion

I also don't get why people are sooooo obsessed with James and D'Arcy, I mean - wasn't their actual studio input pretty minimal? Or am I just remembering that wrong?

I don't doubt that corgan is the brain child behind the project, but that he was the only one in the studio laying down all the tracks is information coming from corgan himself quoted in the media.

All I can say is that corgan needs to be in a band regardless. He's just that kind of artist. His creativity needs to be tempered by influences around him. As he managed to push everyone away through his dictatorial management of studio time he's managed to make his band more and more irrelevant.

[kid cue]

was Scott being sarcastic about Siamese Dream being a Corgan vehicle? anyway, i love that album.

tbh i think the appeal of James and D'Arcy has more to do with SP's image than anything else.

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by kid cue

tbh i think the appeal of James and D'Arcy has more to do with SP's image than anything else.

yeah I can sympathize with that perspective and would tend to agree. I certainly think the band's image improves with the diversity in talents they lend, however much those talents are utilized.

But this still nags at me: gish, siamese dream, and the b sides pisces iscariot had a lot more "band" sound than the later output, which sounded more and more like the trollings of one person into the worlds of electronic music. I wasn't in the studio, but I do know that a lot of the complaints of the band members including d'arcy's complaints circa Adore was that their presence was obsolete whether they liked it or not. And that trend coincides with the amount to which I've been affected by their music.

[thee carp dreamer]

haven't read the thread, but mellon collie's other parts were aparently all re-recorded by billy anyway....so iha and darcy's collective input into mellon collie (which i'd regard as the definitive sp lp) is nil. allegedly. so if they're missing from the new line-up, i won't be losing sleep.....darcy's a crackhead anyway.

[joethelion]

EX - ACT - LY

I also heard something to that effect on Siamese Dream as well (but not to that extent)

and Darcy was kicked out of the band b/c she basically did nothing but cause a comotion and do crack. I remember watching a promo film for "Adore", and she spent the majority of the time just complaining about crap

As far as James Iha... well - I think he just exhibited the stereotypical 'lead guitarist ego trip' where he thinks he is the real artist of the band, even if he actually didn't put anything down on the album(s) - which is why he left SP

I think Zwan was basically just a way for Billy to "exorcise" all that bleakness and the crap he had to deal with around Machina. And I don't get the feeling that his (proper) solo album was supposed to be much more than him doing some stuff in the studio

Originally Posted by thee carp dreamer

haven't read the thread, but mellon collie's other parts were aparently all re-recorded by billy anyway....so iha and darcy's collective input into mellon collie (which i'd regard as the definitive sp lp) is nil. allegedly. so if they're missing from the new line-up, i won't be losing sleep.....darcy's a crackhead anyway.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

It's easy to point out the bad qualities/habits/characteristics of a person.

Doing so doesn't change that fact that the releases without their presence haven't been as memorable as those when they were part of the group.

[Strangelet]

melon collie = use your illusion 1, 2

[joethelion]

Originally Posted by jOHN rODRIGUEZ

It's easy to point out the bad qualities/habits/characteristics of a person.

Doing so doesn't change that fact that the releases without their presence haven't been as memorable as those when they were part of the group.

well, technically - there's only been one release without D'Arcy; which is "Untitled", the single for their Greatest Hits package. If memory serves me, Darcy didn't leave until after Machina was done (she even toured live for that album, just before it was released)

I think Zwan & Billy's solo album are so different, that you really can't consider them as the same as what was made when Billy was in "SP Mode"

like, I think Billy overtly tried to make soemthing different with Zwan, and the solo album was much more of an 'electronic' album than anything

[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...

[joethelion]

I actually wouldn't consider myself a fan of theirs really until "Adore"

or at least, until that album really sunk in. My sister is four and 1/2 years older than myself, so I got a really healthy dose of "Siamese Dream" [even though everyone else my age at the time was listening to like... "The Spin Doctors" if I have my chronology right], and like umpteen other people in the mid-90's - I really liked "Mellon Collie..." (or at least the singles off of it)

but "Adore" was really the first album of theirs that I got on my own you know what I mean?

oh, and here's a new song (live)