When it comes to ranking their greatest tracks, however, it’s impossible not to be immediately drawn to that extended period in the 1990s where they bridged the grunge, goth and industrial rock phenomena (adding countless esoteric flourishes all their own) to an establish a reputation as one of the biggest and best bands on the planet.įrontman Billy Corgan has always been the tormented genius force at the heart of everything, plumbing his past traumas and an outsider mindset to endlessly fascinating effect, but the original axis of bassist D’arcy Wretzky, guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin deserve credit as one of the most iconic alt.rock line-ups of their generation, effortlessly able to channel the often-understated electricity of their music. “If the next record is no better than this record, then we’ve failed,” Corgan told Chicago Tribune writer Greg Kot earlier this year.A flurry of recent activity – most notably 2020’s excellent 11th album Cyr – has confirmed that The Smashing Pumpkins are anything but a spent force, over three decades on from their emergence in the Chicago alt. As of this writing, gish ‘s sales are fast approaching the 100,000 mark.īilly Corgan seems suitably unimpressed with himself, or at least unsure that he can bring to life the full scope of sound in his head. By the time gish was released last June, the Pumpkins’ next-big-thing status was almost a foregone conclusion. By 1988 he’d collected lha, D’Arcy (she usually dispenses with the last name), and Chamberlin.Īfter a couple of compilation-LP appearances and the 1990 Sub Pop single “Tristessa,” Smashing Pumpkins’ reputation was sufficiently sealed. Corgan calls this calculated tension-and-release approach “flow arranging,” and one look at the audience’s surging response in the live segments of a recent MTV profile suggests that he’s gotten it down pat.Īlso Read Smashing Pumpkins Reprising ‘The World Is a Vampire’ Tour This SummerĬorgan, a guitar visionary in the late-’60s tradition, originally set out to make Hindu goth music but gradually worked back to his roots after a grueling nine-month stint in Florida with his first group, the Marked. The entire cycle is repeated once, and the song finishes in a blur of jagged chording. “Siva,” the subject of the first gish video, kicks off with a sinuous, multi-tracked riff, muscles through some reckless soloing, and tumbling stop-start accents, then segues into a whispery-bass-high-hat-peep-guitar figure while singer Corgan caresses the ears with talk of wishes and kisses sprinkled on your head. More often than not, Smashing Pumpkins combine the two approaches in one song. Singer-guitarist-mastermind Billy Corgan, guitarist James lha, bassist D’Arcy Wretzky, and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin thrive on contradictions and surprises.įirst there’s the music, which veers back and forth between huge, steely guitar constructions, not unlike Soundgarden plus Hendrix plus Zep plus Jane’s Addiction, and soft-focus moments not unlike a stoned Saturday afternoon in bed with someone you love, their cat, and some dust motes filtering through the sunbeams. Even though the group disavowed any overt connections to Halloween or related vandalisms, the trick-or-treat dichotomy has proven to be a recurring theme during the Pumpkins’ short but illustrious career. With its simultaneously childlike and ferocious debut album, gish (Caroline Records), the Chicago-based hard-soft psychedelia foursome Smashing Pumpkins exploded onto the 1991 indie-rock landscape with all the messy orange furor of its namesake. In honor of Gish turning 30, we’re republishing this article. Smashing Pumpkins were one of our Artist of the Year runner-ups. This article originally appeared in the December 1991 issue of SPIN.
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