A request, or a challenge, however you want to take it.
 

Get some headphones and listen to the song Plume by Smashing Pumpkins. Listen to the solo, I mean really listen to it. Listen to all the different skronky tonalities and colors, and the bizarre mathy melodies. After you do that, why not listen to the entire album with headphones, paying special attention to the guitar playing.

I know alot of people hate on this band and they have good reason to. Billy Corgan turned into an unoriginal egomaniacal fool after he lost his hair, and the band broke up for good reason. To me Billy is like Tim Burton, he hasn't had an original idea since Siamese Dream but his early work was brilliant. (yes that was a South Park reference) But come on, he and James are phenominal guitarists and you'd have to be crazy to think they haven't made some incredible music

Incredible? Not sure if I'd agree with that, but yeah, they've got a few interesting multi-layered guitar things going on, true (I mean, every song has like 100 guitar tracks, it's definitely a cool sound!), I think everyone can recognize that. But then, CHINESE DEMOCRACY by Guns N Roses has some cool guitar noises/tones/textures, and that record is bullshit.

...But yeah, anyway, a more obvious example is Zero, the solo (and, hell, the main riff). There's some creative pinch harmonics/real harmonics stuff going on. But so what? A few cool guitar noises and tones and solos here and there -- I mean, the dude's written like 1100 songs (LITERALLY), obviously he's going to come up with some interesting stuff every now and then.

Also, I dunno if I'd call James a phenomenal guitarist -- he didn't even play on any of the records did he? I did see a show where he pointed a toy laser gun hooked to his guitar pickups to make laser noises which I thought was cool.

Anyway, I don't think most of their songs or their riffs are that creative or smart, but some of their stuff is at least listenable, and I'll agree that in the 1100 songs Corgan has written, there is an occasional interesting guitar noise or texture. I don't think that's anything groundbreaking, all the songs are just overproduced to the point where they can't breathe. I still think the best thing he ever did is the nanosecond of feedback squeal in Mayonaise.

PS: What's a mathy melody?

You can have a similar epiphany listening to most massively produced records. Avril Lavigne's 'Under my Skin' is astonishing with headphones. And a better record, but that's just my opinion.

I love Siamese Dream. Don't like anything after it or before it but that record is almost perfect to me.

Yes, Zero is a boring and lame song. But yes, I do consider the solo on Plume to be incredible, in fact I consider most of Billy's guitar playing to be incredible because I think he is an incredible guitarist. I think Gish, and especially Siamese Dream and Pisces Iscariot are all incredible. Billy played all of the guitar on the Gish sessions but not Siamese Dream. James is also an excellent player in my opinion. I'm a big fan of his chorus riffs.

I think that with their early material, there is much more than just an occasional interesting noise or texture. I think people criticize them for a number of reasons, one being his voice which is bad I agree, but I think mainly because of Pavement and Sonic Youth's fans tendency to hate on them when most of them probably worshipped them in the 90's. I don't think they were the penultimate 90's band at all, but they did make some groundbreaking, yes groundbreaking music and Corgan is still

OK. What are you on. I want some.

I've yet to see the appeal of any Smashing Pumpkins record, personally. I think SD is an overproduced mess and I've given it several listens and I still don't see where people get this amazing record from out of it.

Then again I absolutely every Corgan with every part of me so I'm pretty biased. But to each their own. I enjoy most Pearl Jam records and most people here have even less nice things to say about them than the Smashing Pumpkins.

~Jeremy~

I love Gish and Siamese Dream. Absolutely love them. They're the kind of albums that make me feel like I could love everybody in the world. But I think the Pumpkins suck after that.

Pearl Jam definitely does suck more than the smashing pumpkins, but that sure isn't a compliment to sp

the closest thing Billy Corgan's done to great was some side stuff under Djali Zwan for the soundtrack to "Spun".... and great it was.

mostly acoustic, under-produced recordings, focus on the songwriting and negative space, etc., etc.....

Not every band can be as good as Tad or the U-Men, I guess, since those bands were *definitely* classic. :rolleyes:

~Jeremy~