Love them or Hate them? The Smashing Pumpkins
 

There seems to be quite a split opinion on the Pumpkins on these boards... I thought I'd see where the majority lies, out of interest and also because I like making polls. :)

Love them.

Indifferent. Some stuff is good, some stuff is bad.

hate

They are one of those very popular groups that I've just never tried listening to. So who knows.

i don't care about them, i haven't heard their music in about 8 or 9 years, i can only vaguely remember what they were like.

i don't love them or hate them, i like them alright but they are not my favorite band or they have ever been.

annoying, perhaps even laughable. hate? who has the time??

Yeah, we need more options. I don't LOVE them, and I know this because I know people who love them, and I'm not like them. But I don't hate them either. I thought they were good in their heyday, then they went way down hill, then Billy Corgan did even more disappointing stuff with Zwan and eventually far more disappointing stuff on his own, and now they are planning a comeback where I'm sure they will reach a new level of disappointment. But I still like listening to Siamese Dream.

I love them. They are one of the first bands that I listened too. I originally thought that they would be some heavy metal band or something (I guess their name was misleading to a 12 year old). So I wanted to listen to that to get away from the crap that my mom and sister listened to. I really owe them a lot, because if I hadn't originally began listening to them, I might not be here on the Sonic Youth board.

Love them.
I have no love for Melissa Auf Der Maur though.

Reasons:
James was the greatest.
Their heavy tone was great.
They were (in my opinion) one of the last "classic" rock bands, from the golden age of drugs and ego-driven lifestyle.
Billy Corgan is one of my guitar idols.
"Bullet with Butterfly Wings" was one of the first songs I actively debated.

They're my third favorite band.

NEW ALBUM 7-7-07!!

Agreed. I'm going to vote love though, cause I definitely don't hate them.

Don't hate them. In fact, I like a lot of their stuff.

Billy Corgan is a douche bag though, and I'd be willing to bet this new 'reunion' album is gonna suck.

i am not a fan. they did, however, have some super cool threads back in the day.

do you mean stone temple pilots with that douchebag scott weiland or do you mean STP with julie cafritz?

What happened to the Eh? option.

Siamese Dream - Is a quintessential album that if held away from billy's big-bald ego, (his antics now are even worse), is an amazing album with top notch production and is a completely original perfect blend of shoegazey-prog-pop.

Even though I know most people here have heard the pumpkins and the majority of those people have also probably heard alot of album tracks too, just give the pumpkins a chance with the songs "Hummer" + "Rocket", both of them have incredible guitar playing, top notch fuzz, Billy's lyrics at his best (at best being uplifting, we're not talking Idioteque or anything obtuse)

Hummer- this song showcases everything the pumpkins can do in an epic two-parter. The guitar solo (3:09-3:36) is the best guitar solo ever and rolls right off perfectly into the climax of the song. After that the song drifts into an unbelievable quiet-drifty coda with another amazing but subtle guitar solo. (I hold this song up to the same level as Karenology or any other Sonic Epic.)

Rocket- An unbelievable layering of an endless number of perfect guitar leads that all could have been the highlight of the song occurs at (3:22-3:35), on top of that this song is perfect pop and doesn't have any pretentious Billy Corgan crap but instead is as huge as he thinks his music is.

I really would like to hear any objective criticisms of these songs because they're just so fucking good.

I don't have either of them emotions for the Smashing Pumpkins. But I do like them therefore I shall vote 'love'.

I wouldn't call them one of my favorite bands, but 'Rhinoceros' is probably one of my favorite songs.

If you take about half of the songs from each disc of the Mellon Collie album, you get one great full-length album.

I've never really heard any of them but my Dad loves them and has all their stuff, so I guess it's there for me to try out...

Any recommendations?

love 'em, but billy is one super douche.

My vote goes for love em.

I adore them, its the music that changed my life..

I used to love them, I don't love love them as much now but I still think Billy is a brilliant guitar player and songwriter (I really don't give a fuck if he's an asshole or not because that would then be a reason for leaving out lots of great music).

well thats just the thing, it's when some one can infuse asshole and ego into the music that it ruins alot of what he has done

the poll sucks, because life is only in black and white and there is no grey area?

Siamese Dream is a solid record, (regardless of who is playing the instruments)

Mellon Collie is over indulgent and pretentious to a Nth degree, Zero has some the worst lyrics in the history of music (God is empty just like me? I'm in love my sadness?) but still has the best song they ever wrote in 1979

then Billy goes all goth and says, fuck drummers, Adore is the future of music, and kills their career

No opinion, I like to listen to some songs once and a while but most of the songs they made were pretty horrible.

Don't get your hopes up.
It'll be shite.

Corgan's voice is brilliant

No, his lyrics are nice sometimes. His voice is plain awful.

So is Kim Gordon's...

...according to some folks :)

Stumbleline is a very pretty song with nice vocals.

When it comes to the SP I often just ignore the lyrics and enjoy the melodies.

Love / Hate aren't to radical!?!

Exactly my thinking.

Terrible band. I just ignore them.

love them

I love his voice, but then again I tend to be attracted to unusual voices (John Lennon, Ozzy Osbourne, Kim Gordon, Thom Yorke etc)

Plus Corgan had some ingenius lyrics

"Mispent youth faking up a rampage" - Stumbline
"I sensed my loss before I even learned to talk" - To Forgive
"Time is never time at all, you can never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth" - Tonight, Tonight
"Have you ever heard the words im singing in these songs? Its for the girl i've loved all along" - Muzzle
"The Street heats the urgency of now, as you see there's no one around" - 1979
"I know we're just like old friends, we just can't pretend that lovers make amends" - Perfect
"So beats the final coda of a vinyl storm....a dream of soft focus sunsets filters through the din, we are losing contact as she dials it in, as she counted the spiders as they crawled up inside her" - Glass and the Ghost Children

Exactly. I don't really have any standards when it comes to vocals, but if you say Corgan has a terrible voice, so does J Mascis, Kim Gordon, Stephen Malkmus, Wayne Coyne, Satomi Matzuaki (?), Issac Brock, etc...

Some of their songs are good, but Billy is just such a jerk. Ruined the music for me. Voted hate.

I like them. They did influence on me.

you love them

I want an option for "apathetic"