greatest hits
smashing pumpkins
This double CD rocks. It is rock. It is the culmination of all that is genius. It will massage the pleasure center of anyone who lends ear to it. Now, this may be a somewhat biased point of view coming from someone who owns all the Pumpkins major albums and almost all of their singles including Japanese imports. Coming from someone who used to have a mural that filled up half his room with t-shirts, posters, hats, postcards, and books. But, anyone with an ear for talent and a sense of musical progression will come to realize, just as I have, that this record is all encompassing.
Disc one, titled Rotten Apples, includes the Pumpkins most recognizable hits off their major albums beginning with Gish and ending with Machina/The Machines of God. These titles include (in order) Siva, Rhinocerous, Drown, Cherub Rock, Today, Disarm, Landslide, Bullet with butterfly wings, 1979, Zero, Tonight tonight, Eye, Ava adora, Perfect, The everlasting gaze, Stand inside your love, and two previously unreleased tracks titled Real love, and Untitled. Listening to this record you get a sense of the bands maturity, experimentation, and progression from album to album. It is also clearly evident to hear where the band is as a unit while listening. When the drum machine kicks in for three songs in a row it is obvious what turmoil occurred. Obvious for an avid fan I suppose.
Disc two, titled Judas O, is entirely a collection of B-sides and rarities. It is fun to listen to. You will find yourself following along, track by track, on the back of the CD case, reading the new and interesting song title to which you are listening. The songs on this record are as follows (also in order) Lucky 13, Aeroplane flies high, Because you are, Slow down, Believe, My mistake, Marquis in spades, Here's to the atom bomb, Sparrow, Waiting, Saturnine, Rock on, Set the ray to Jerry, Winterlong, Soot and stars, and Blissed and gone.
The compilation basically pays for itself when you here Billy belt out, "Hey kids rock and roll, ROCK ON!" You can just hear in his voice how much he loves rock and how much he wanted to save it. Maybe that is a little to cynical, but hey, listen for yourself.
The artwork on the album is quite apropos. The picture on the cover is of the four members standing together with a road sign that reads 'END' in the foreground. It is an interesting idea being that the picture was taken in the earlier years of the band when Corgan still had shoulder-length hair and James Iha still looked more like a male than he did female. Probably around the release of Gish or maybe even earlier around their four song LP Lull. The booklet contains twenty pages of pictures tastefully clipped and blended together to create a nostalgic Pumpkin feeling.
Overall it is a great album and I would highly recommend picking up a copy if you are even the slightest Pumpkin fan. It is two hours of kick-ass, melodic, rockin' music that is worth the price of a double album. It is perfect if you want to take a journey through the music of the band. You get a tiny, but the best, taste of every CD they have put out and all the added b-sides, which Pumpkin fans know are some of their best songs.
Official Smashing Pumpkins website.