Smashing Pumpkins: Greatest Hits

iTunes Review

Smashing Pumpkins emerged in the 1990s as the one alternative band capable of merging punk’s thorny aggression with the orchestral swath of progressive rock, the dark underpinnings of goth, and the grandiose drama of metal, all without losing their own peculiar sound in the mix. Headed by a determined leader in Billy Corgan, the band will surely be remembered for the amazing 2-CD sprawl of 1995’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, but also for their individual tracks as this well-chosen career retrospective makes clear. Their earliest material (“Siva”) displays a band with grand ideas getting comfortable in the recording studio, while “Cherub Rock,” “Today,” and “Disarm” serve up a group hitting its stride. The pop undertones of “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” and the new wave drive of “1979” made for perfect radio programming, but Corgan would hardly be satisfied without also stripping down and expanding the band’s sound as he did on their later, much underrated albums (with the other members being employed in limited capacities), 1998’s Adore and 2000’s Machina / The Machines of God, both of which are fairly represented here along with several non-LP tracks such as “Drown” and “Landslide.” Overall, a substantial, well-balanced overview.