The Smashing Pumpkins were one of the most iconic and influential bands of the 1990's, with a bit of a different feel than most other bands of the time. They did not exactly fit neatly into the "grunge" scene or label, yet they were not exactly easily defined by other genres, either. There were similarities, but there were certainly differences, as well.
I know a few people who were really into the Pumpkins. One of my closest friends of the nineties was a huge music nut. He prided himself on how many albums he had, and how many concerts he went to. Truth be told, so did I at the time, to a certain degree (not as much as him, though). But while my biggest band of the era was Pearl Jam, because their idealism and activism really spoke to me, this friend felt that same way about the Pumpkins. He collected their rare stuff, and he felt that they had a different sound, pointing to the way that their drummer, Jimmy Chamberlin, hit his drums.
While the Pumpkins were never quite my very favorite band, they were among the bands that I really got into in the nineties. I loved "Siamese Dreams" quite a bit, but it was their double album release of "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" in the mid-nineties that really got my into them. I cannot well remember anymore, but they very well may have been my second or at least third favorite band at the time. That is one hell of an album, and it is good enough that, many years later, I can still enjoy it. The songs have not grown stale, even after many of them were grossly overplayed on the radio back in the nineties. Even better, I can enjoy it now with a son who is also a fan of music like this. It actually helped us bond together, which is something that makes me feel that music can be very special. In fact, I took my son to see the Smashing Pumpkins last year at New Jersey's PNC Bank Arts Center in August.
So, that album, in particular, is meaningful to me. It reminds me of an era, because that was one of the truly great albums of the nineties - and the best part of it is that it is a double album, which means twice the amount of music, like the Beatles White Album. I still remember how some of those songs made me feel at the time. It also takes me back to the first time that I saw the Pumpkins in concert, back in September of 1996 at Madison Square Garden.
The thing about great music is that it can feel and seem very different at different times of your life. It might not sound precisely the same years later, when you find yourself in a different place in life. Back in the nineties, I still had an energetic intensity, and a need for release at times, and the Pumpkins were one of those bands that I turned to for release. But now, as a fully grown man, that music sounds a bit different, and has a bit of a different meaning.
Don't get me wrong: it's not like it is completely different, or anything. It's still the Smashing Pumpkins, and it is not like the songs are entirely different or unfamiliar. Of course not. But it feels different, and I find myself appreciating some different things about it now, much like with other bands and other music. Back then, I could just get into the music, the intensity, and appreciate it for what it was. Now, I find myself interested in how that music, and how certain albums, came about. The back story of some of these iconic albums and/or songs is fascinating to me. Perhaps the fact that now, in this day of the internet, with articles and videos available in ways that they just were not yet available back then, it is easier and incredibly quick to get a decent idea and follow numerous stories of how these things came about.
Well, one of the songs that was transformed a bit, at least in my mind and from my perspective, was "1979." Back in the nineties, I saw it as a cool song, but one of their slower, less intense ones. It was more musical than many of their other harder, more aggressive ones, which I probably preferred at the time.
I stumbled on this video, however, which documents the song, and how it really seems to strike a chord with the idea of nostalgia in general. If you watch the video, you will learn (if you were not already familiar with) some of the backstory of that album, and particularly of this song. I think that I knew that Billy Corgan and the rest of the band - and most of the musicians of that time that I was really into - were getting older, and moving out of their youth. I knew that, yet it was not something that I gave too much thought to. At least, not yet.
Really, it was just not something that I gave much thought to, at least not at the time. But watching this video has had the effect of making me listen to that already familiar song and "experience" it a bit differently than I previously had. Indeed, maybe the song was familiar already in some respect, yet this a different perspective that allowed me to appreciate and "hear" it in an entirely different way.
Suddenly, I cannot help but think about how this band, and in particular, Corgan, was indeed growing older. That their time of the peak of their cultural influence was also beginning to fade. By the late 1990's, it felt like a whole lot of different bands were coming up, and most of them were, let's face it, riding on the backs of the pioneers from earlier in the decade. There were bands who emerged in the first half of the decade who had a huge impact on the popular music scene. That certainly included the Smashing Pumpkins, as well as Nirvana, Pearl Jam (despite Corgan's rather relentless attempts to try and dismiss PJ's contributions and presence), Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Nine Inch Nails, to name just a few. But by the latter half of the decade, a lot of those bands had already either broken up or otherwise ceased to exist, and they were being replaced, at least on the radio and presumably on MTV (I did not have cable back then, so I cannot say with certainty that they were replaced on MTV).
Being a huge fan of that kind of music, and enjoying the creativity that seemed to gush forth from the early nineties to probably the mid-nineties, the rather comparatively stagnant feel of the latter half of that decade was disappointing. Little did I know at the time that the music scene would grow still more stagnant yet, and that the trend would be towards more poppy sounding music - in many respects, a revival of the same kind of poppy, lighthearted music that grunge in general, and Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in particular, managed to replace, to dethrone. I had hoped that this was a long-lasting triumph of more authentic music, of more "real" experience in music, if you will.
Clearly, I was wrong.
Still, good music is good music. And in this case, the Smashing Pumpkins still have music that has withstood the test of time. "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" has aged well, and this video, which got me to view "1979" in an entirely different way, adds an element that allowed me to appreciate it in an entirely different way.
Perhaps it will do the same for you, so I recommend taking a look and giving it a chance. I added the video at the very bottom of this blog entry, underneath some pictures that I took from that Pumpkins concert that my son and I attended last summer.
Enjoy!
The Smashing Pumpkins
My son posing in front of a musical display featuring a makeshift musical stage, with a drum set and a guitar (and the over-sized pick in the background), and showing the performing artist for this evening, The Smashing Pumpkins.
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