Oh, man, I fell for The Smashing Pumpkins hard when I was 18 or so, at the start of my community college voyage. there was something about Gish, Siamese Dream and…be still my beating heart…the double concept-ish Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness that swept me away. It amplified angst, desire, introspection, truths, dares and situationships that were my youthful preoccupations. I got to be that riotous girl at Lollapalooza 1974 who saw her favorite band and had a sunburnt scalp where my braids were parted to show for it.
The Gen X nostalgia is thick as thieves today. But Smashing Pumpkins still matters to me, even if I suspect Billie Corgan may have hitched a ride a while back on spaceship ego. I get it. I’ve been aboard and the view is spectacular. I’m one of those who like Corgan’s nasal and breathy intonations. It predated the Silversun Pickups by years and years and is used to frame the imagery that always wins me over. They had me at “pink ribbon scars.”
My song of the day is “Drown,” which has one of the most lazily emotive and hypnotically pretty baselines in grunge history. The song goes against The Pixies famous “loud quiet loud” formula. It’s dynamics are more “quiet quiet loud.” The wait makes the build at the end of the song unexpected and epic. Also, dig that ending line, the kind the drives a groove into the mind. “Whas it something someone said?”
–Sarah Torribio
Listen to more songs of the day HERE
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