I was too young to fully appreciate Gish when it came out...The Pumpkins meant a lot to me during the Siamese Dream/Mellon Collie period... Adore was underrated in my opinion, but not a great album by any length. Machina was pretty bad, truth be told.

Every time I hear (or rather, heard) Zwan, it was a reminder that the Pumpkins were so much better than the crap Billy was doing now. As far as the poll goes, i'm joining the camp that says they were on a downward slope so it was probably best for them to quit. With regards to live shows, I never saw them but wish I had done in the period where 'Soma' was in the set.

James has gone on to better things, though, and I hope he experiences similar success with APC.

I saw the Pumpkins in concert a couple of times too and they were indeed fantastic. They were my favorite band from the 90's and I don't think they were necessarily in a downward spiral. Every band has a slump or two sometimes. I was hoping they would hang in there and work things out.

i've only payed for Mellon-Collie, Zero EP, Adore and Machina albums so far!
i WAS gonna complete the serie with the initial records being amazed with the quite fantastic songs like disarm, myonaise, rhinoceros and today; the bloody break up did occur and zwan let me compleeeeetely down, so i simply started feeling unwilling towards keeping being in the adventure of tSP!!!
opposite to most 'Pumpkin'-s (pl listening to tSP), my favorite one is definetely Adore, it's like REM's Up, needs some effort and open mind to enter in and never coming out, moreover i will assert it's really great indeed, talentful lyrics and black&white tunes. ummm, i can talk about how i feel for each song of Adore til the morning..
Above the albums, the End is the Begining is the End (Batman&Robin soundtrack), Never Let Me Down Again (Depeche Mode cover from for the Masses) and in particularly Eye from the Lost Highway soundtrack are worth appreciating.

I like Smashing Pumpkins. Corgan's voice annoyed me after a while, but I do wish they were still around.

i think adore was a great album, it's probably my second favourite after siamese dream. i don't understand why people call it a bad album--maybe it's just to add weight to the "everything was going downhill anyway" argument.

anyway i don't think you can completely judge a person's entire personality on interviews, probably especially "famous" people. i mean they can put up personality fronts for publicity or just to protect themselves and i don't think it's right to judge them/name call based on a few interviews one has seen and drawn assumptions/conclusions from. that is my self-righteous rant of the day, over and out!

p.s. d'arcy is hawtter than WOW

well, im not basin it on juste a few interviews, rather an entire careers worth, but really if yuve seen one dickheaded interview with billy corgan yuve seen'm all. he rarely had anything interesting to say beyond himself or the band. he admitted to being a dick [or an all-controlling, need to havit my way or im gonna throw a fit, stubborn perfectionist], which isnt always a completely badthing, but he never had the charm or charisma to pull it off- and the whiny voice didnt help. if its juste a front, thats a dickheaded or pussy thing to do too. ihav every right to judge him ina non-consequential way juste the same as anyone shold be able to judge everyone else in sucha fashion.

theres my rant.

I think you can get a general idea about a person by what they say in interviews and by what others who know them personally say about them. If Corgan was putting up a front then I hope he intended to come off as an asshole cause that's pretty much the way it seemed to a lot of people.

i suppose you're right in your own way just how i am in mine. i think. i guess what i was trying to get at was that your opinion of him would hold more weight if you knew him personally, like he was your cousin or a friend or something. i don't mean that in a mean way i just suppose that's the way it is.

anyway. i don't hold it against him that he claims to be an asshole, i think it adds more to the feeling of the band. i will admit to only hearing a couple of interviews but i know the one off of vieuphoria had me in tears. okay well not quite but yeah. he just seems like the typical cynic to me.

p.s. aren't interviews with famous people usually about just them or "the band"? if not then i guess i've been missing out on some good stuff =(

you hav been missing out. look up interviews with guys like Michael Stipe, Morrrissey, Björk, Eddie Vedder, Thom Yorke, even the Gallaghers- there are many others. these guys always hav something more to say than juste insight into their own life and music. its fine if thats all you want to talk about [even if its perhaps less interesting sometimes] but Corgan was always sucha whiner and even when he spoke outside of himself it was juste garden variety crap- nothing close to what he was able to touch on through some of his work. it was always vastly more interesting and enjoyable listening to Smashing Pumpkins than Billy Corgan.

i love the pumpkins, they should have stayed together!