For all their hype, the Smashing Pumpkins never made one defining album statement, like many of their early alternative peers. Their only shining album moment was Siamese Dream, as Melon Collie was far too long, but even Dream got lost in its multi-tracked haze of guitars and unmemorable songs. Like the Stone Temple Pilots, the Pumpkins now work primarily as a killer singles band, yet in those singles, some of the finest songs of the 1990s are present, songs that carried the alternative moment and broke that genre through to the mainstream even more than Nirvana.
Suffice it to say that Greatest Hits is the only Pumpkins you'll ever need. The single disc version presents a balanced look at the band's career, giving weight to the middle period but touching on both the early singles and the later, more electronic tunes. As a snapshot of a commercial slice of Generation X and a heady stew of rock, slight psychedelia and shoegazing pop, this disc fits the bill perfectly.
You know you love "Bullet With Butterfly Wings," the drumbeat kicking in after Corgan's whiny voice intones "The world is a vampire / Sent to drain / Secret destroyers / Hold you up to the flames" and eventually segues into his signature line "Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage / And I still believe that I cannot be saved." It's a classic, far from the mumbling overproduction that clogged the band's albums and coulda-been singles.
When the band cut the crap and worked, they turned out gems like the beautiful "1979," the emotional cover of "Landslide" (still the best version of that song) and the acid haze of "Cherub Rock." Early singles "Siva" and "Rhinoceros" sound right at home here, and the band's contribution to the Singles soundtrack, "Drown," is here in an edited format. No matter; it's still a great tune, showing Billy Corgan as a better guitarist than time has given him credit for.
Every song here is a highlight, winding from the majetic "Disarm" and epic "Tonight, Tonight" to the sweet "Today" and the hard, skittering "Zero," a forgotten gem from Melon Collie. And while some would say the band lost their luster after that double disc, their embrace of electronica yielded some surprisingly strong results, most notably the forgotten punch of "Adore" and "The Everlasting Gaze," all fuzzed-out guitars and a nearly-punk drum beat behind Corgan's snarly whine in the latter song. And in spite of its overproduction, "Stand Inside Your Love" is quite an effective love tune. Who knew they had it in them?
As a bone, the disc closes with two newer acoustic songs, but only "Untitled" is kind of interesting. Still, it's not enough to derail the 16 classics present here, an impressive showing by a band that had few peers or soundalikes in the alternative movement, at least on the singles, and that deserves to be remembered for these songs in the same breath as Alice In Chains or Soundgarden.
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