FFWD Weekly - November 29, 2001

· "Had our plan worked, we would have looked like geniuses. It didn’t, so we look like fools."

· Since disbanding the Smashing Pumpkins last year, Billy Corgan has formed Zwan, a new group that includes Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlain, ex-Chavez guitarist Matt Sweeney and David Pajo from Papa M and Slint.

The story of the Smashing Pumpkins is one with an incredible build-up and a disappointing finale – both are documented on two CD releases, Rotten Apples and Judas O, and a DVD collection of the band's videos.

Following Gish, one of the most skilled and uncompromising debut albums released in the ’90s, Billy Corgan and his cohorts embarked on a 10-year rock and roll odyssey – only getting it about half right in the process.

Siamese Dream, the group’s 1993 breakthrough, still stands as one of the decade’s finest records. With Corgan’s peerless bitter pop sense wrapped up in perfect three-minute bursts of My Bloody Valentine-style sonic assault, the Pumpkins floated atop an army of guitars blurred beyond recognition.

Following Siamese Dream, the threads of the plot started to loosen. The behemoth Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness hid a worthy – and occasionally brilliant – album in a bloated mass of too much debris, too little starshine. Posturing in a Zero shirt, shaving his head and singing through his nose rather than his mouth, Corgan steadily transformed himself into a caricature. The subsequent inner turmoil, stadium tours, and well-publicized drug problems following Mellon Collie’s release turned The Smashing Pumpkins into precisely what they rebelled against in the first place – just another rock and roll cliché.

Adore, the band’s prettiest work and also its most neglected, was marred by a marshmallow-soft goth image that detracted from some of Corgan’s best songwriting. Retreating back to his guitar and re-enlisting the services of disgraced drummer Jimmy Chamberlain, Corgan laid the band to rest with the largely unimpressive Machina/The Machines of God and its Internet-only sequel Machina II/The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music. Hiding behind a Ziggy Stardust-style persona, Corgan’s ability to relate to an audience dried up. A rock-loving kid in a paisley shirt is far easier to relate to than a screaming invention in a silver dress and army boots – not to mention that the former had far better material to work with than the latter.

The new Pumpkins best-of, Rotten Apples, sums up the band’s singles in chronological order, and when compared to what’s currently at the top of the modern rock charts, the Pumpkins still manage to shine more brightly. Of the two new tracks, "Untitled" re-captures the energy, overwhelming sound and spirit of the band’s best work. The bulk of Judas O, a limited-edition sequel to 1994’s rarities and B-sides compilation, Pisces Iscariot, is largely extraneous noise. Only the elegiac "Slow Dawn," the pleasantly blithe "Set The Ray To Jerry" and ghost-like Adore cast-off, "Waiting," are worth the price of admission.

Compiled on the corresponding DVD – complete with additional documentaries, out-takes and extensive commentaries – the band’s videos display a group of musicians consistently unsure of their image and intent. The wide-eyed starchildren of "Rocket" and "Today" (perhaps the definitive video in all of grunge rock, as well as its best) are a long way from the Roman orgy-goers of "Zero" or "Stand Inside Your Love."

Throughout the 1990s, The Smashing Pumpkins were an undeniable force, responsible for some of the decade’s finest musical moments – and even a couple of its worst. Rotten Apples proves once and for all that, while Corgan may have occasionally tripped on his laces, his musical vision is one to be reckoned with.

ROTTEN APPLES 4/5

JUDAS O 2/5

GREATEST HITS DVD 3/5

MARK HAMILTON