i see
he would say that though wouldn’t he
I legit love the Pumpkins despite often appearing the complete opposite. I have a lot of time for their 90s material and have listened to their 00s and beyond output more than most (becaause I WANT TO LIKE IT!) but William makes it so hard to act like a fan! Which might be why I ride the meme train so often
That being said Machina and Oceiana are totally okay and Zeitgiest would be okay too if they mastered it properly
2 Likes
In addition to what ttf said in response, which I 100% agree with, I want to add one more thing. It’s the whole idea of “derailing” - Neil Young (whom I love) and plenty of other artists get brought up all the time in other threads and discussion follows, but it doesn’t even register to most people as something taking place. Why? Because he / they are on the list of acceptable artists to feel passionately about, so if it registers at all, it registers as discussion as opposed to derailing. The Pumpkins are very much on the not-cool / borderline meme list (same with Mark Kozelek, for instance), so whenever they’re brought up in a thread that isn’t specifically tailor made to discuss them, it’s like their name has been written in blinking, neon, comic sans.
I completely agree with everything else ttf said in response, of course. (FWIW, I also love Radiohead - just not as much as I do the Pumpkins and understand all of ttf’s criticisms of them).
One more quick thing though - we post a lot of links to more obscure Pumpkins stuff because we genuinely love it and want to show people that that whole side of them exists. Neil Young superfans do the same exact thing and no one rolls their eyes at it. Their passion for him and their knowledge and sharing of his more obscure material is appreciated, because he’s on the list of artists acceptable to feel that level of passion for.
I still think you worry too much about ‘credible status’ and ‘popular perception’ and the cannonising of indie rock royalty… I mean who cares? And why? I love Sebadoh but I bet they’re thought of as also-rans (if they’re thought of at all) by most people but… so what???
yeah they did and they are. And (in no small part because of this very fact) they are very often piled onto. People hate Radiohead. Actually, the band that came into the most vitriol in the HGATR thread was Belle and Seb. I like Belle and Seb. Some people hate them. Really hate them. 
No skin off my nose.
The thing I did take issue with (and again, forgive me, I have no idea which ‘T’ this was who said it) was the whole ‘well these other bands need to get more passionate fans then’! Then. Nah mate(s).
There is a reason why Jehovah’s Witnesses are more derided than any other sect of Christianity and it’s not specific to any of their belief. However mad they are (pretty mad imho) they’re no madder than some and a lot less mad than, say, the Plymouth Brethren. The reason why Jehovah’s Witnesses are the butt of many a joke in the UK is because of their earnest desperation to convince/convert unbelievers all the time. I don’t believe that Catholics and methodists are any less fervent in their religious beliefs just because they don’t knock on my door all the time and give me a copy of the Watchtower. They just let me be.
You really need to make it clearer that you’re joking with this (and maybe think about retiring the joke if you are) cos it honestly does sound like you believe there is a conspiracy to deny BC the position as the top of the ‘white men with guitars’ pile that he (and you) so seem to believe he deserves.
They were dismissed then - Ok that sucks. Poor old them. Literally who cares now though? What is the point of always going on about it. Poor old Billy.
They are dismissed now… I thought even you guys had pretty much accepted that their more recent output was varying degrees of toilet? I mean, why shouldn’t they be dismissed when, by all accounts, Shiny and So So Bright or whatever wasn’t any good at all?
I think you mean thinking that they’re ‘overrated’ is an intolerable opinion?
Interesting how you rail against the DiS hivemind as having very set parameters on what is in and what’s out and having only one taste in music and yet you seem to throw around objectivity in musical opinion all the time. It is perfectly tolerable that some people might prefer Dinosaur Jr to Smashing Pumpkins having heard both of them. It’s perfectly tolerable that they might like them the same amount or hate both of them. The idea that you’re going to crusade onwards until everyone on these boards goes “you know what, you were right all along, that alt-take Machina B side you posted a youtube link to has convinced me… SP are great! BC is a genius! I’ve been wrong all these years! I’m so sorry Billy! Thank you, thank you Ts for showing me the light!” It’s never going to happen. The dude has a marmite voice that a lot of people can’t stand and, by most accounts, hasn’t released an album of really good music since before my 15 year old was born.
I think that it’s because it’s not done in a combative way. There’s not a sense with Neil Young that his fans are straining at the leash to convert the unbelievers to NY. Here’s some NY stuff, I like it, maybe you will too. The SP songs, more often than not, come attached to a screed about how unfair it is that SP aren’t given more credit and there’s a conspiracy (jokes! apparently) against Billy and yada yada yada. It’s less to do with NY being ‘credible’ or not (frankly I don’t think he’s the king of credibility myself - more like Dad music if I’m honest), he’s just not promoted in a combative way.
This is honestly the context in which we post the Pumpkins material too, and sometimes with a harmless statement like “they’re so underrated” thrown on. We just love the music. Neil Young also doesn’t have people running in saying he’s shit and trying to convince his lifelong fans that he’s actually shit and they’re wrong whenever they post something, so there’s no need for any sort of defense or “screed.”
2 Likes
Bakesale is a bangin album tbf
3 Likes
Wasn’t the Neil Young love in, in a thread where he was crowned no. 2 on a music board where folk are a bit bored of dissecting Radiohead?
Well perhaps and if that is the case I apologise. I would certainly characterise the sp evangelism as combative and I guess it’s in everyone’s interests to bring things down.
I cannot speak for the entire dis sp-agnostic community but, if I could, I would say to both of you… Enthuse as much as you like about sp (where its not off topic) and if you don’t bring up unfairness, conspiracies and just share the joy of sp I/we would promise not to mock our ridicule you or them.
1 Like
I enjoy the new material to varying degrees, but that’s beside the point. Plenty of other bands release material later in their career that doesn’t measure up to their earlier work, and they don’t get dismissed for it (or that early work if it had been underrated will still get retroactively deemed great). The Soundgarden reunion was underwhelming to say the least, I don’t think anyone would say the Pixies reunion is anything but a major drop off from their peak, most people probably don’t even remember the ATD-I reunion, Weezer has been aggressively shit for almost two decades…but all of those bands are (rightfully) still beloved for their early work.
Using a recent example since it has some parallels to the Pumpkins, the Sleater-Kinney reunion (in my opinion) has been a disaster. They were obviously a very underrated band at the time and The Woods is truly a 10/10 album. They return with an album full of simplistic, on-the-nose lyrics and with production that renders it nearly unlistenable. Then they freeze out a member of the band who was a creative equal and fire her (way, way worse than anything Corgan did in the 90s, or honestly ever, within his band), and release an album with even more on-the-nose lyrics about smart phones. Are people going to still argue passionately that The Woods is an incredible album? Or care that their early run was underrated? Of course! And rightfully so! (FWIW I actually like the smart phones album, despite the lyrics about screens).
Also, for what it’s worth, both ttf and I have been very clear that we understand the Pumpkins aren’t going to be for everyone. We know that lots of people will never be able to get past his voice, or that the music might just not be what certain people are into. That’s totally fine. I think where we get defensive is when people who don’t really even listen to them speak as experts that they’re nothing more than a middling alt-rock singles band that got big for a bit. Or that somehow our being passionate about the band’s music makes us biased - I can’t think of many or any other bands where fans are considered “wrong” and the opinions of casual or non-listeners are viewed as definitive.
Just want to bring this point in, because I think it’s something many people don’t understand. There are LOTS of T’s out there. Among fans of The Smashing Pumpkins, nothing we’ve said over the past few years is controversial or anything that would remotely register as a take. To make a Radiohead comparison, what we say would be just as “out there” as saying In Rainbows is a great album despite not having a song as popular as Creep or that “hey, you might want to check out that acoustic version of Motion Picture Soundtrack with that extra verse, it’s really good.”
So was the Pumpkins talk. Bamnan was listening to Siamese Dream and overall commenting positively on it, and he got chased away for derailing the thread for talking about a specific artist. Then everyone (including myself) did the same thing for Neil Young and everything was totally fine.
It happens in plenty of other threads too. Tangents happen, artists get discussed, but there seems to be a double standard for whether it gets shut down or ignored / encouraged.
I saw 30+ responses this morning and was afraid he had said something horrible.
1 Like
I think if someone had said “I’m going to liveblog my listen to a Neil Young album now” they would also have been asked to do that in a different thread
5 Likes
Come on. He was live blogging listening to an entire record by one artist. Genuinely think if someone had threatened to do that with anyone else (especially an artist with their own dedicated thread) he would have been told to move it there.
1 Like
Snap! 
1 Like
I’m honestly not so sure, but I guess it’s speculation.
You’re kind of exactly making my points for me here. I don’t think that the reason people are down on the Pumpkins are because they think they’re an alt rock singles band from the 90s. The reason they’re down on them is because they don’t like them (especially his voice).
The reason why people engage negatively with you about this isn’t because of some terrible underlying prejudice, it’s because your posts tend to be, like the above, throwing around spurious reasons why people won’t give billy a fair listen and dragging down and bad mouthing other bands to make your points.
especially if there was a Neil Young thread with the title ‘A Thread for posting in every time you listen to Neil Young’
2 Likes
tbf Sleater Kinney got plenty of ill will for both the new album being shit and the departure of Weiss (who wasn’t fired but had her role sidelined and minimised to the point where she quite rightly left). Lots of people in the SK thread were considering selling their tickets for the tour from what I remember
No Cities to Love didn’t get any ill will because it was a pretty solid comeback imo (speaking as someone who hadn’t really listened to much of their old stuff before it came out, and still have only heard a couple of them since)
1 Like