And welcome back to 35,000 Watts, the podcast. My name is Michael Millard. I am here with Scott Mobley and Keith Porterfield. We are three ex college radio DJs and executive staffers, and we are doing this podcast so we can talk about college radio stuff, college radio music. And, old college radio albums is kind of the theme of this episode in this kind of series that we started a couple episodes ago with live.
We did a kind of a look back at one of our favorite albums from the early nineties, I guess mid nineties, live throwing copper. And we had a lot of fun going back and revisiting that album and just kind of talking about it now. At the time, we listened to it a lot. It was a big part of our life, and then revisiting it thirty years later was a lot of fun. And we thought, you know, there’s a lot of albums like that that maybe we haven’t listened to for a long time that used to be a really big part of our life and used to probably take up a big chunk of rotation on KTXD.
I know that was true of live, and I know that is true of the album we’re gonna talk about today, which is Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese dream. This one I chose this one from a a list of of different albums you guys sent because it really reminds me of my time at KTXT right at the beginning. So, like, right as I was first doing those those very first DJ shifts, this album came out and Cherub Rock was the first single. It was in heavy rotation as were probably four or five other tracks at least on this album. I remember we initially were playing it on vinyl, and we had this, like, beautiful red marble vinyl copy of of Siamese Dream at KTXD.
I I remember that being just it’s one of those time things where even now when I hear particularly chair rock, it really puts me back in the booth. I can kinda smell it again and just that feeling of being on the air for the first time. So it was really nostalgic for me to choose the album. In my head, I was thinking back going, I really, really, really love this album a lot. I listen to it constantly.
I don’t think I was super familiar with Gish going in, so this was kind of my introduction. Actually, my introduction to Smashy Pumpkins, I take that back, was drown off of the single soundtrack. I think that was the first time I ever heard a a Smashy Pumpkins song, and that’s a good introduction as any to what they were doing at the time. But really it was Siamese Dream that kind of introduced me to the band and very, very distinctive band. They stood out, I think at the time, even then, because they were from Chicago, they didn’t necessarily have that Seattle grunge sound.
It was I don’t know, you know, we’ll talk a little bit kind of about how you would describe their sound, but it had a little bit more of just that kind of wall of sound, guitar sound that you would, I guess, associate with shoegaze, but I don’t think anybody’s really necessarily thought of Smashing Pumpkins as a as a shoegaze band. But, obviously, Billy Corgan has an extremely distinct voice, and that is something you will always associate with Smashing Pumpkins. It really walked that line between really hard, really heavy rock album, but yet super accessible, super melodic, a lot of really catchy songs on it as well. It certainly broke through the mainstream and did really well on college radio. I don’t know.
But, you know, I went back and listened to it yesterday, and I I don’t know that it hit me as hard as it did back then. You know, they’ve put out a lot since then. There’s a lot of history now with the band. I I don’t know that I appreciated it as much this time around. So I’m a little I’m kind of a little torn because I I certainly enjoyed it.
I I really did have those moments of like, yeah, this they were really honest with them when they recorded this, but I have to say on revisit, I didn’t have the same feeling I had, for example, when I listened to Throwing Copper where I’m like, oh my god, yeah, this album was just so amazing. I’m I’m a little more kind of fifty fifty on Siamese Dream now. There’s times when I love it. There’s times when I feel like it’s a little fatiguing because there isn’t a lot of variety that that he would actually, and they would actually have more of on, like, Melancholy and adore, and and in the future, I think they would have a little bit whether you like those albums more or not, I do think you could you definitely can’t argue that I think there’s more variety on those albums than there is on Siamese Dream. So that’s kind of where I stand.
You know, I I don’t have the same kind of strong endorsement for it that I do, like, Throwing Copper, and maybe some other albums we’ll talk about in the future, but I also I mean, it’s it’s still an undeniably great album. It’s, I want I almost said undeniably great debut album, which it’s not, but I feel like it was a great that was their breakthrough album that that put them into the mainstream. And and there’s when you hear it, you definitely can hear why this album broke as big as it did. So I have a lot of thoughts on this band, and I’ll and I’ll eventually, I’ll get to this album. I remember hearing songs from Gish at KTXT when I first got there.
I don’t remember any of them really bullying me over. This is the first time I remember really, like, getting into these guys. But I will say that over the years since then, my my appreciation of them and my my like of them has really, really faded hard almost to the point of dislike. And I was trying to sort of piece together maybe why that is. Part of it is I I have a lot of tolerance in the music world for for lack of a better term, pretentious douchebaggery, which if I love your band, I will tolerate pretentious douchebaggery all day long.
Per Jane’s Addiction is one of my favorite bands, and Perry Farrell is the douchiest douche that ever douched, but I forgive it because I love his band. Right? I do not love the Smashing Pumpkins enough to tolerate Billy Corgan’s douchiness sometimes. That has really rubbed me the wrong way over the years. The biggest I mean, lots of crimes here, but the biggest one, I think, is when he decided to relaunch the Smashing Pumpkins with a new band that happened just happened to feature a bleach blonde short haired girl on bass and an Asian guy on guitar.
And maybe he thought we wouldn’t notice. I don’t know. I it just that just really bugged the crap out of me. And I really jumped off board with these guys at Melancholy and the infinite sadness. That album you know, this is an album that at an hour and five minutes long starts to wear out its welcome, I think, toward the end.
So what did they do? They put out an album twice as long. And also Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness, I mean Robert Smith would look at that and go, guys that’s a little much. Yeah. If we’re gonna call out live for When Dolphyn’s Cry, I guess we really have to call out Billy Billy Corgan for that.
So that’s where I kind of sit with the Smashing Pumpkins now, I guess I should say. So when this album came up to go back and listen to it again, I had to try to kinda put myself in the mindset of where I was when I heard this album back in the day because I remember that I did really like it. Although my my sort of fading of the Smashing Pumpkins over the years has made me not really go back and listen to it much. So I gave it several listens this week and kinda let it get back into me again. And this really is a great album.
I think that these guys, for what it’s worth, tapped into a sound that is very, very unique. There’s not a lot of bands that sound like this. And, yes, it is shoegaze at some level. Maybe it’s the the mainstream version of shoegaze. And the bands that this spawned, bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and the Silver Sun pickups, those bands obviously came directly out of this album.
You listen to, like, some of the really great Silver Sun pickup sounds like Pickle or Swoon, they sound exactly like this album. So this was obviously inspirational to a lot of people. And at at the time, I think it was so unique and so different. You know, even though it sounded like a college rock album, I don’t I can’t think of anyone else that sounded like this, and I think really that was the appeal. One of the Smashing Pumpkins biggest strengths is that they have a sound, and it’s unique to them.
I also think one of the Smashing Pumpkins biggest weaknesses is that they have a sound, and it’s unique to them. And it starts to drone after a while, you know, and maybe smaller doses are the way to go. But I do really love this album. And I have to say, the songs that got played out on it, namely Today and Disarm, I still can’t get back into that much. And I kinda feel bad about that because I love today when it came out.
I I thought that was the greatest thing ever when it when it was a hit. I still hear it now and think it’s a little played out. But the other songs in here, the songs really that weren’t singles, like Quiet, Hummer, Rocket, Soma. You know, these are there’s some great stuff on here. I really like two of the really rocking songs on the second half of the album, Geek USA and Silver Fuck.
Both just great, great rockers that, like I said before, sound like alternative rock music, and yet at the same time, tell me another band that sounds like that. I I I can’t really think of one. I’m sure they were out there. So I give these guys a lot of credit for being very unique, and this album was certainly, the juggernaut that it was because it is pretty solid. There’s some great songwriting here.
There’s some great rockers, some good slow songs. It’s very, very well produced and very unique, and I think it kinda just came out of nowhere and slapped everybody upside the head. Unfortunately for me though, these guys, like, just ran to the cliff and jumped off of it right after this. But but I will give him this one. This is a great album.
Yeah. I actually I still love this album. I listened to it again, as well getting ready for this. You know, when we were doing the Alien Abductions episode a few, weeks ago or months ago now, this was an an album that I considered for a couple of spots. You know, I kinda had set spots on my list and one of those was, you know, big name band from that era.
And I considered this album for that and ended up going Pearl Jam. One of those was album that really takes me back to this era. I considered this and ended up going with live and And I really think I made the right decision on both of those cases. I think this is a so super solid album, really good, but but not at the same level of of either of those. And and I too, I think, even though I really enjoyed it, going back and listening to it again, I think it has fallen a little bit in my estimation.
I do like the fact that you mentioned the sound of it. Both of you did because, you know, it’s got Butch Vig as a producer. And and when you listen to it, the bass takes up a lot of space in the mix on on this album. It’s really thick. And then you’ve got the drums, are also high up in the mix and really clean, but they also don’t overwhelm the rest of the song.
But the signature sound to me is that it’s got a bunch of layered guitar, but unlike most shoegaze, it’s not kind of a wall of sound layer. It’s one guitar line played by, like, you know, a dozen different tracks and, you know, tracked up a dozen different times. So it’s got one lead guitar line that is just super thick and takes up a lot of space. A lot of those songs, have that kind of, you know, that kind of guitar sound to them. And I do think it’s unique to them.
And I think it’s it’s kind of what makes that album sound the way that it does is the layering of guitars, but but not in such a way that you get kind of a big, big sound across the whole speaker range. It’s kind of all focused like a laser into one, like, really solid, thick guitar line that kind of flows through a lot of these songs. And I think that’s kind of what gives it the the unique sound that it has or at least part of what gives it that sound. And you get some songs that don’t necessarily sound like that that do kind of hint at where they’re going later on, you know, Light Disarm, like the last two, Sweet Sweet and Luna. You get an idea that they’ve got some other tricks up their sleeve and and they’re gonna be experimenting a little bit as they go along.
But yeah, I think that that guitar sound really does kind of define, this album. We talked a little bit or Scotty, you talked a little bit about what happened afterwards. You know, I agree that Melancholy was way, way, way too bloated. But it had some great stuff on it. And and I stuck with them after that through Adore and through, Mackinac, The Machines of God before I finally kind of dropped out on them.
And those albums are all good, but I don’t think that they from end to end, I don’t think they stand up to the quality that this album has. I think they’re diminishing returns as you go through with these guys. There’s really, to my mind, only one song on this album that I’m not a fan of, and, of course, it’s one that Scott mentioned that you you really like, and that’s Silver Fuck. To me, this album has one glaring problem and it’s Silver Fuck. It’s a song that doesn’t do anything for me and goes on for almost nine minutes.
And you talk about, you know, after an hour and five minutes of listening to this album, you feel like you’ve been bludgeoned by it. Well, if you drop nine minutes out of it and take it down to a more manageable fifty five minutes, then maybe that doesn’t become a problem for you. Otherwise, though, there’s not a song on this album that I dislike. And for me, kind of the the secret weapon of this album is mayonnaise. Man, I really love that song.
I think we played it at KTXT, but we did not give it, you know, a huge push or anything. But we did have it in rotation. But, you know, you got all the singles, all the great songs on there. But, yeah, for me, I think Mayonnaise might actually be my favorite song on this album. I think that one is one that a lot of fans, like old school fans and and long term fans kind of pull out as, like, their favorite from this album now.
I think it’s it’s grown mayonnaise that is has grown, above the singles in a lot of people’s minds. And, like, for me, I think Soma was always one of my favorites. I you know, Soma starts off and it’s it’s if you don’t know the song, it’s a very, very soft, very gentle song for a good three minutes or at least before that Wall of sound kicks in. So I remember when I heard them live and got to hear that Wall of sound hit you for the first time, and I was like, alright, yeah, this is this is gonna be awesome, and and they are, or were, I mean, it’s kind of a whole different band now. They were a pretty solid band live, if I remember right.
I like parts of Melancholy. I actually really like Adore. Hell, I you know, we talked about this on the on the covers episode. I really like Pisces Iscariot, the the compilation b side from them as I think that’s as good as anything they put out. I might choose several of those above Siamese dream if I had to choose one, but I feel like that’s all retrospective.
Like, that’s hindsight, I think. I remember at the time being incredibly blown away by Siamese Dream, being very taken by what you guys both kind of focused in on, which is how different they sounded from a lot of what was on. Even on college radio where we did have diversity and we weren’t just playing grunge, when you hear, you know, Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Alice and Change and Soundgarden all in a row, and then Smashing Pumpkins, one of those bands sticks out more than the other just in terms of what they’re doing and the tonal variations in in their music, and it was just different. His voice was different. It it just stood out a little bit.
And so, I do wanna kinda give it credit to not get too caught up in what they did later and what I think maybe they do better in the future, but just remembering what a wallop of of an album that was when it came out and how much, you know, people people loved it including including myself because I I played it on air all the time and I played it in my car all the time and I really did dig that album. I I think, you know, that’s kinda where I was trying to get to is that, you know, I know I loved this album when it came out, but, you know, the the time has not been kind to it. And it’s, you know, you Melancholy, I agree with you guys. It has its moments. It’s it’s just it’s too much.
It’s very bloated. It’s way too long, and it’s got a ton of filler on it. I think it’s just You could make a 10 track version of Melancholy. That would be absolutely amazing. Oh, absolutely.
There’s one good album in there, I I think. And I haven’t listened to that album in a long time. I’d have to go back and kinda piece it together. But I I think I remember thinking at the time, there is a there is one hour of this that would be the greatest album, you know, this band’s ever done. Like, really good.
Really, really good. Yeah. Yeah. Talking about Adore again, Scott, you said you hadn’t heard it. I definitely would recommend it.
I think it’s really good too. It just doesn’t doesn’t sound anything aside from his voice, it doesn’t sound anything like anything else that they really have ever done, even after that. And I fell out of them completely after Mackinac, The Machines of God. I haven’t heard anything past that one. That one does get back to more of the guitar sound, you know, that they’re kinda known for earlier.
And I was gonna say, you know, it sounds to me like this album, the has kinda diminished in all of our estimation over the years. But I think we should, you know, really remember just how big it was at KTXT at the time. You know, I came in a little bit after after Michael did, and then it was kind of fading out by the time I got there. It had kinda had its big run. But, you know, I did a a request show for one semester there, and I there was no way that I would get through an entire Power Lunch two hour request show without getting a request for something off of this album.
I mean, this album was really, really big, not just for us, but I mean, everywhere. I mean, you know, it, got reached number 10 on the Billboard two hundred. It sold 6,000,000 copies. I mean, this was a a huge, huge album and and did really good, business for us at KTXT as well. So even if it has, you know, dropped in our estimation a little bit, it’s it’s hard to understate just how big it was at the time, both for us at the radio station and just in general.
Trying to remember that feeling of what it was at the time, because I do remember that it was huge. And I do remember that I liked it, and I, you know, and I was really into it. What I with the memory that came back to me was when it first came out, and we all kind of this was probably before you guys were at KTX team, but I was I was had just started. It was probably my first year. And I remember, like, four or five of us gathering in the music director’s office and him putting it on and hearing Cherub Rock for the first time.
That opening forty five seconds of that song is just unbelievable. And we were all just floored by what we heard, you know, and couldn’t wait to hear the rest of the album and all that stuff. I was trying to sort of take myself back to that because, you know, when when your email popped up and said we’re doing Siamese dream, I kinda went, Siamese dream. But there was a time when I adored this album. And and listening to it again, I I can say I know why.
It’s it really is great. I think my feelings about Billy Corrigan and the Smashing Pumpkins have diluted my appreciation of what is really a very, very good album. To me, it’s fascinating because I was wondering how this would go when we started doing more than more albums because we all three loved the live album Throwing Copper. I know we all played it in rotation. It was very similar to Sammy’s Dream in that it had multiple singles that broke mainstream.
It had probably a full year at least run on KTXT, and we all three loved it. And I was curious if we would always kind of look back and have the same feelings about these albums, or would there be some variety in how we end up retroactively rating these albums? And I think we already now we’re two albums in, and I think we’re already seeing that it’s not always gonna be that we look back and see it the same way. Like, Throwing Copper to me didn’t drop off at all. It may be even better than I remember.
You know what I mean? It was I feel like all three of us were kinda like, yeah, it’s still as good as ever. Siamese dream doesn’t feel that that way, I don’t think, the way this conversation is going. I’m I’m not entirely sure why. To me, probably that I think it fits in a space and time more than live does.
Like live still feels like it could exist in in today’s world in some way. Smashing Pumpkins feels very or somebody’s dream in particular feels very of that time for some reason. And not that it feels dated exactly, but maybe maybe a little bit it does. And yet it was so unique. You know, it’s not like they were following a trend or necessarily, you know, part of like, you know, the way grunge kind of feels played out.
It’s not that, but there’s something about it that that doesn’t grab me the same way. I think maybe what that is and and and at least maybe what it is for me is it it’s it’s Billy Corgan’s voice. When you hear that voice over and over again in all these songs, his voice becomes their sound, and then that sound sort of gets played out. And so when I hear any Smashin’ Pumpkins song, I hear Today and Disarm and these songs that got so played out at that time that I really never wanna hear them again. So now I hear a song, you know, like, some of the songs of this album, like like, Rocket, for example.
I haven’t heard Rocket that many times in my life. But a minute into it, I’m like, well, it’s a Billy Corgan song. You know, his voice just sits in your mind, I think. And and you start to get this this played out version of it, you know, that maybe some even the songs that aren’t played out start to sound played out because they do have this very unique sound. And it’s like I said, that that uniqueness in their sound is both their greatest strength and their biggest weakness, I think.
I think unique vocals can go either way. Like for me, you know, my favorite band is The Cure and that’s got, you know, got Robert Smith singing and he’s definitely got a unique voice and I can listen to him all day. But then there are other bands and what the one that comes quickly to mind for me right now is The Shins. And I’m drawing a blank on the the guy’s name from the same Mercer. Is his name Mercer?
Does that sound right to you? The singer of The Shins? James Mercer. Yeah. James Mercer.
Yeah. Yeah. And he’s got a pretty unique voice of his own. And the thing with him is that his his vocal melodies are always strange to me. He never goes exactly where I want him to.
And so musically, I really like the Shins, but I’m not a big Shins fan because I don’t really like the way James Mercer sings or, you know, his voice. And I think it’s pretty unique to him. So I think really unique vocals can kinda go either way. They can either be endearing or they can be off putting. And Billy Corgan to me kind of, like, rides right on that line.
Like, sometimes it’s fine. Sometimes it’s a little too much. And so, yeah, I I can understand how that might be an an element that might turn you off. But at the same token, I can also understand how there might be somebody out there that’s that’s been listening to this and saying, well, Billy Corgan’s voice is the the main weapon in the in the Smashing Pumpkins. You know?
I think that could go either way. I think he straddles that line, you know, right right on the line. He could go he could drop on either side of it. I think you’re a % right. I think there probably is somebody out there right now that that adores this band and and loves Billy Corgan’s voice.
It’s just probably like, what are these guys talking about? But what you’re describing is exactly what, you know, what I was trying to go is that if if his voice doesn’t do that for you, if it is, you know, one that maybe kinda sticks in your craw a little bit, that’s just gonna get worse and worse as you keep listening to this. You know? And and so I think, you know, in a in a one album shot like this, you know, and this album is right in an hour long, I think it’s the perfect amount of rockers and slow songs and epic songs and shorter songs and his voice writing over all the top of it, and it just kinda works in that little microcosm. But as you keep digging down the Smashing Pumpkins hole, at least for me, it starts to degrade on me a little bit.
It starts to start sounding all the same even though it kinda isn’t. You know? Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness has songs on it like nineteen seventy nine and tonight tonight that are nothing like this album, nothing at all like this album. And yet, when I hear them, I’m hearing that voice, and it takes me back to Smashing Pumpkins. You know?
Even though they’re trying something radically different, it starts to sort of grate on you after a while, it’s it that’s only gonna get worse as you keep going down that rabbit hole. Some of the variety as it as it exists on Siamese Dream, which, I, you know, I I think Siamese Dream may be one of the non diverse albums. Like it to me, it’s all of a piece more so maybe than than any of their other work. But the ones that do have the most diversity or the most variety or are kind of the biggest change up are the ones that got overplayed. So today in disarm in particular.
They do take you out a little bit of of kind of the the fatiguing nature of a lot of the other tracks because the other tracks meld together a little bit more in my opinion. Those stand out as being a little different, but they got played so much that I don’t really wanna hear them either. And so then it kinda, you know, it kind of, like, blows up what would be maybe and maybe was at the time when they were fresh. The the album maybe did feel a little fresher, maybe feel like it had a little bit more variety, but, like, I could go my entire life without hearing today or disarm again. And so then that that really leads to a dilemma when you listen to this album and It is really else kind of It is really interesting that you say that because those two songs, today and disarm, do break this album up.
There you know, there’s rocker rocker then slows on. The rocker rocker slows on. Mhmm. But now if I’m gonna listen to that album, I take those two out, and what you’re left with is nine, ten songs that pretty much all sound alike. They’re very similar.
I mean, they are very similar. Of each other. But maybe so maybe if you’re if you are burned out on Today and Disarm, like, I think most of us probably are, when you listen to this album end to end, leave them in because they they are the, the the gear shift in this album that it it’s gonna start to need after a while if you just listen to the songs that aren’t those two. That’s exactly what I was gonna say. I think they need to be in there.
Otherwise, the album is too too samey, too much the same thing over and over and over again. It’s odd to me, though. I am not anywhere near as burned out on those two songs as you guys are apparently. When I listened through this again, those were still two of my favorite moments on the album, especially today. Today is probably well, I won’t say it’s my favorite.
It’s one of my favorite Smashing Pumpkins songs, because Cherub Rock is probably my all time favorite song, which is also on this album. But man, even as many times as I heard it on the radio, you know, in in my own CD player, just wherever, I can still listen to Today over and over again. I still love that song. It has not, to me, diminished at all. I agree with you.
I think I mean, at the time when this was when all this was going on, Today was far and away my favorite song on this album. And I loved it the second it came out or whatever. I just think, and it’s not even one that I necessarily like, I didn’t skip over it this week when I was listening to the album. It’s just one of those songs that just got so played out that I just kinda needed a break from it. Like, it like, when you hear that little opening riff now, there’s a little small part of my brain that goes, here we go.
You know, it’s it’s this song again. But it’s not that’s not a slight against the song at all. It’s it’s just a slight against the millions of times I heard it over the years, you know, but it it is. Today is as sold or what one of the best smashing bumpkin songs. It’s fantastic.
I kinda wish it’s second guessing an album like Siamese Dream is kinda stupid because like Keith said, it was like a top 10 billboard hit and sold 6,000,000 copies. Like, they obviously didn’t need to change it. But my guess is I think based on the timeline that some of the songs that were recorded or at least written that showed up on Pisces Iscariot because Pisces Iscariot came out I think just a year after Siamese dream. Those songs were floating around somewhere, I think several of them. I think Siamese dream benefits maybe if you switch out one or two of the more samey kind of tracks that that live especially near the end of the album, maybe Silver Fuck or if you aren’t particularly a big fan of that or maybe you could, you know, do without one of one of the other rockers at the end there like rock it.
And I mean, my favorite is Freeland Bedazzled, but that’s also a rocker, so maybe that isn’t as as much of a switch up. I think it sounds a little different from Siamese Dream, but it is kind of of a piece. But there’s, you know, there’s Blue Away, there’s WER, there’s the cover of Landslide, which I think would be an interesting curve ball as well because it’s it still would be that gear shift, like, kinda what you were talking about. I wonder if you could construct a slightly better version of Siamese Dream that has just one or two more gear shifts that didn’t end up being gigantic, you know, billboard hits as well that just that that make the album just a little less fatiguing. Because even and for that matter, even today in Disarmour, they’re not exactly the softest ballads ever recorded.
I mean, they still have quite a bit. Today, Rocks actually is quite loud in in in places, Disarm a little less so. But a song like were or blew away from Pisces Iscariot could have really kind of dropped you down for a few minutes and let you breathe, catch your breath a little bit, and then come back with Geek USA or Mayonnaise or something. You know what I mean? I I think, again, second guessing Siamese dream is a fool’s errand, but today, right now listening to it, that’s kinda what I think I want maybe is just one, maybe even just one other gear shift at the in the second in the back half of the album that just really drops it down.
It had no electric guitars and let you kinda catch your breath. This is an album that does not shift gears very much. And even when it does, like you said, today today is one of the ballads on this album. It’s really not much of a ballad. It’s kinda starts like one.
Disarm, I would say, kinda carries its mellowness through itself, but it still sort of has a in the in that in that orchestra arrangement that’s going on behind it, it sort of has an epic quality to it, but it definitely is one of the slower songs. But, yeah, I think maybe there is another gear shift that needs to happen in the second half of this album that that doesn’t. And maybe that’s why it’s does start to it does start to drone a little bit. But I don’t know. For an album that runs just a just a hair over an hour long, it it and it like I said before, it does start to wear out its welcome a little bit, but not not as bad as it could, I think.
You know? It it could certainly be a whole lot worse, considering the the lack of of diverse tracks on it. It could get it could get drony a whole lot earlier than it does. And Well, it benefits from the songs all being really good. I mean, not exactly the song is bad.
That helps. That’s part of it too. You know? And it’s it’s, it’s one of those things where, you know, like you said, you take an album that sold 6,000,000 copies and made these guys into superstar and go, well, we gotta change that. Probably not.
You know? It it obviously worked, and and people liked it. And I was one of those people. I still am. So, you know, we’re we’re kinda nitpicking here.
But, yeah, I think maybe, you know, some of the maybe one more song there toward the end that was just a little bit mellower might have might have broken it up a hair more, but I’m not I’m not sure I would even wanna make that change, honestly. I kinda like it the way it stands. I will say, I’d mentioned earlier that I I thought Silver Fuck was the one song you could do without on that album. If I was to move that off the album, I wouldn’t replace it. I wouldn’t put anything from Pisces Iscariot or anything else on there.
I would just let that one go and shorten the album a little bit. I think you could achieve the goal of kinda breaking up the sameness a little bit though. If if you take Silver Fuck off there, you’ve got Space Boy, Sweet Sweet, and Luna as the last three songs on the album. Those three are three of the songs that really don’t sound a whole lot like the rest of the album. If instead of backloading those all at the end and kind of sprinkle them through the album track listing a little bit, I don’t think you’d really have to replace anything with another song.
I think you could get the same effect just by kinda reordering the tracks on the album and putting some of those that aren’t quite the bludgeoning guitar tracks, kinda spreading them out a little bit instead of having them clustered up at the end of the album. Maybe this is where this album falls short, quote, unquote, and Throwing Copper doesn’t and and some other albums maybe that we’ll talk about later don’t. Is that it’s that back half that just and I think, you know, when I was younger, I liked that more. I I mellowed out. I don’t necessarily listen to a lot of loud guitar rock anymore, so maybe that’s maybe this is old me talking.
And just, you know, like, I don’t need seven or eight tracks like that kind of just bludgeoning me anymore. Because I don’t I don’t think I had this complaint back in the day. I don’t remember thinking that. Maybe a little bit because I I do think that I probably listened to the first seven or eight tracks more than I did, like, the full album. I think I think sometimes I did drop out of the album when I, you know, had it in my car or whatever.
So maybe I did feel that way. It’s hard to, you know, think back thirty years and think of something that specific. But if I have a complaint, it’s that. It’s it is that. It’s a little fatiguing and and maybe just a little louder now than and maybe that’s the difference between why I loved it then and and just like it now is is I don’t crank my stereo up to nine anymore and give myself hearing loss, but which I used to I I love loud, loud, loud, you know, music, and I just don’t anymore for the most part.
So sometimes I do. Maybe that’s it. And maybe, you know, 20 year old me would not have wanted us to flip those those songs in or out of it. And that said, 20 year old me loves Pisces Iscariot, so maybe I would have. I, you know, I I welcomed that when when that came out.
To me, that was kind of a revelation that after Gish and Siamese Dream that that they had that much kind of variety in them. I, you know, the there’s acoustic numbers in there and and stuff that you don’t really see on the first two albums and so it did kind of make me think, wow, these guys maybe there is a little bit more to them than I thought, you know, at the time. And like I said on the earlier episode, I think Pisces Iscariot is as good as any of their first four or five studio. I think it stands right alongside their studio albums. It doesn’t feel like a an odds and sides kind of thing.
It feels like it should be an actual album because I think and again, Frail and Bedazzled to me is possibly their best song total, you know, of of all. So but, yeah, I I do have to admit I’m getting old. So so I’m gonna I should take that into account a little bit in my critique. I I still like a good, relentless rocker. I just don’t listen to it at the volume I used to.
Right. Right. Exactly. I used to actually I would stop this album after mayonnaise, a lot of the times. I wouldn’t even listen to those last songs.
And so, going back through and listening to especially, like I said, to Space Boy, Sweet Sweet, and Luna, those are all three really good songs. But, yeah, back in the day when I was younger and wanted the bludgeoning rock tracks more than anything else, yeah, I would I would listen to this album straight through, to Mayonnaise and then stop it after that. Now, you know, looking listening to it again and really getting a kind of a a more of an appreciation for those songs, I really enjoyed them. And like I said, I think the album might actually have benefited from kinda changing the order up and sprinkling those through throughout the bludgeoning rock songs a little bit. Right.
Right. I agree with that. I think you could move a couple of those songs up in the album maybe a little bit and kinda break up the, you know, the nod. But I don’t know. I’m not gonna gonna stand on the mountain and and sing the praises of Silver Fuck for too long, but I do like that song.
And I sort of I think it’s impressive that, a song can sort of relentlessly rock for nine minutes. That’s tough to do. And, you know, so that’s, that’s, I think, why I like that song. Although, what you guys are saying about maybe something like that coming off of this album, for one thing, it gets it down to, you know, under an hour and takes out one of the one of the, you know, sort of pounding rockers that this album is chock full of and maybe gets it to feel a little bit more diverse than maybe it does, you know, listening to it as is. But I don’t know.
Not not for me. I’m leaving that song right where it is. But in fact, I don’t I don’t know that there’s one I would take off. I I honestly don’t. I was sitting here.
You guys were talking about taking that song off, and and I thought, well, what song would I take off? And I really don’t have one. I mean, maybe one of the ones at the end, but I I that would just be sort of gun to my head. I I really don’t think there’s anything on this album I would take off, honestly. But I I certainly wouldn’t make it any longer like they did one album later.
But Let’s fill it out to our listeners. How would you fix this absolutely classic album that sold 12,000,000 copies? Because Cause it clearly means we talk about how to fix Sergeant Pepper’s lonely hearts. Yeah, really. So, yeah.
Let us know. Would, would you change Simon’s dream? How do you feel about Simon’s dream thirty some odd years after it’s come out? Do you still have the same relationship with it that you did when you first heard it or has it changed? And then, next week we’ll tackle how to fix melancholy and sadness.
No, we’ll leave that for, I don’t, I don’t know that we’ll visit that album. We’ll see. That one’s easy. Remove half the songs. Yeah.
It’s will we agree on which half? That that’s the question. Probably where we go sideways. Yeah. Possibly on that album, I think there might be more agreement than there would be on other albums.
But but, yeah, let us know. I I’m always curious. The more we do this, the more I’m gonna be kind of interested to see which albums hold up and which ones don’t. You know, and I think we’ll we’ll often have opposite opinions about that, but I’m curious to see if there’s a trend or a difference between, say, Throwing Copper and Smashing Pumpkins and Siamese Dream. Because again, I think Throwing Copper does stand up better now than Siamese Dream in some ways.
Yeah. Let us know in the comments. Let us know what other albums you would like us to revisit. We think this will be kind of an ongoing thing that we do. And, don’t forget about the movie.
There’s 35,000 Watts, Story of College Radio. It’s a documentary about college radio. It is available right now for download at 35000watts.com. And I do believe we will be announcing very soon, possibly not long after this podcast is out. Maybe that just maybe it’ll be available for streaming pretty soon.
I’m just I’m just putting that out there. You might be able to to start start streaming 35000watts on on your favorite streaming platform. We’ll be announcing that soon, hopefully. So so, yeah, if you’re into college radio, check that out. 35000watts.com.
Be sure and come back and listen to us chat about music and let us know what kind of music you want us to chat about on the website, on social media. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks to Keith. Thanks to Scott. We’ll see you next time on 35,000 watts, the podcast.