Love them or Hate them? The Smashing Pumpkins
 

There seems to be quite a split opinion on the Pumpkins on these boards... I thought I'd see where the majority lies, out of interest and also because I like making polls. :)

Love them.

Indifferent. Some stuff is good, some stuff is bad.

hate

They are one of those very popular groups that I've just never tried listening to. So who knows.

i don't care about them, i haven't heard their music in about 8 or 9 years, i can only vaguely remember what they were like.

i don't love them or hate them, i like them alright but they are not my favorite band or they have ever been.

annoying, perhaps even laughable. hate? who has the time??

Yeah, we need more options. I don't LOVE them, and I know this because I know people who love them, and I'm not like them. But I don't hate them either. I thought they were good in their heyday, then they went way down hill, then Billy Corgan did even more disappointing stuff with Zwan and eventually far more disappointing stuff on his own, and now they are planning a comeback where I'm sure they will reach a new level of disappointment. But I still like listening to Siamese Dream.

I love them. They are one of the first bands that I listened too. I originally thought that they would be some heavy metal band or something (I guess their name was misleading to a 12 year old). So I wanted to listen to that to get away from the crap that my mom and sister listened to. I really owe them a lot, because if I hadn't originally began listening to them, I might not be here on the Sonic Youth board.

Love them.
I have no love for Melissa Auf Der Maur though.

Reasons:
James was the greatest.
Their heavy tone was great.
They were (in my opinion) one of the last "classic" rock bands, from the golden age of drugs and ego-driven lifestyle.
Billy Corgan is one of my guitar idols.
"Bullet with Butterfly Wings" was one of the first songs I actively debated.

They're my third favorite band.

NEW ALBUM 7-7-07!!

Agreed. I'm going to vote love though, cause I definitely don't hate them.

Don't hate them. In fact, I like a lot of their stuff.

Billy Corgan is a douche bag though, and I'd be willing to bet this new 'reunion' album is gonna suck.

i am not a fan. they did, however, have some super cool threads back in the day.

do you mean stone temple pilots with that douchebag scott weiland or do you mean STP with julie cafritz?

What happened to the Eh? option.

Siamese Dream - Is a quintessential album that if held away from billy's big-bald ego, (his antics now are even worse), is an amazing album with top notch production and is a completely original perfect blend of shoegazey-prog-pop.

Even though I know most people here have heard the pumpkins and the majority of those people have also probably heard alot of album tracks too, just give the pumpkins a chance with the songs "Hummer" + "Rocket", both of them have incredible guitar playing, top notch fuzz, Billy's lyrics at his best (at best being uplifting, we're not talking Idioteque or anything obtuse)

Hummer- this song showcases everything the pumpkins can do in an epic two-parter. The guitar solo (3:09-3:36) is the best guitar solo ever and rolls right off perfectly into the climax of the song. After that the song drifts into an unbelievable quiet-drifty coda with another amazing but subtle guitar solo. (I hold this song up to the same level as Karenology or any other Sonic Epic.)

Rocket- An unbelievable layering of an endless number of perfect guitar leads that all could have been the highlight of the song occurs at (3:22-3:35), on top of that this song is perfect pop and doesn't have any pretentious Billy Corgan crap but instead is as huge as he thinks his music is.

I really would like to hear any objective criticisms of these songs because they're just so fucking good.

I don't have either of them emotions for the Smashing Pumpkins. But I do like them therefore I shall vote 'love'.

I wouldn't call them one of my favorite bands, but 'Rhinoceros' is probably one of my favorite songs.

If you take about half of the songs from each disc of the Mellon Collie album, you get one great full-length album.