AA Giveaways | AlternativeAddiction.com

AA Giveaways

Grand Prize
(3 Winners)
Deluxe Physical Album of Pisces Iscariot--which comes with a live DVD and the first-ever Pumpkins demo reproduced on cassette. The bonus content and special features were curated from the band s archives by Billy Corgan, and have been painstakingly remastered for the first time from the original master tapes by Bob Ludwig.

Reviewing Two Decades: The Pumpkins in Retrospect

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Be sure to pick up the Pisces Iscariot reissue- available from Amazon.com and digitally at Amazon MP3 and iTunes

Gish (1991)
Definitely feels like a bands first record. It’s great for a debut full-length album but it’s not this big and brilliant debut album like lots of bands have. Mostly, it shows a tremendous amount of potential. Oddly enough, it plays like an album released in 2010, not 1991. All of the really good tracks are loaded at the front, all of the energetic tracks are there too, and the middle and the end of the album is material that’s more of the brooding/Pumpkins nature.

Siamese Dream (1993)
This is a monster album. The pressure that Billy put on himself while writing and recording this album really comes out. Siamese Dream is this bright and vibrant record but it’s played and sung with such passionate desperation that it’s hard not to get involved in. Tremendous album and a stepping stone for things to come. “Today” remains a fan favorite and the video for the song- Billy driving around in an ice cream truck in a rural area while other people make out- is perhaps the Pumpkins’ most memorable video.
Pisces Iscariot (1994)
A lot like Siamese Dream because this album consists of mostly B-sides from the recording of that album. There's are also some B-sides from Gish and most notably the Pumpkins'' cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide. For a B-sides record, it's incredibly impressive and a wonderful listen.

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995)
If Siamese Dream put the band into superstar status, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness put them on an entirely different level. Billy’s ambitious double-disc album molds together a huge collection of genres and styles remains one of the biggest album achievements of the 90’s. The albums singles- “Zero”, “1979” “Tonight, Tonight” and “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”- tell a ton about the album- there’s dramatic songs that are beautiful with great opera-like sounds and then there’s full-on hard/edgy/raging tracks like “Zero.” This album solidified the bands status with Pearl Jam and Nirvana as one of the most influential bands of the era.

Adore (1998)
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was the band’s peak album of the 90’s, that doesn’t mean that Adore wasn’t as good… but it’s basically impossible to follow up a two disc album that goes double (quadruple really) platinum and is basically a career definer, especially when replacing your drummer- Jimmy Chamberlain. Adore is what you think it would be- softer and broodier. It plays more like a pop album than previous Pumpkins efforts and to an extent- it was the beginning of the end of phase 1 in the band’s career.

Machina: The Machines of God (2000)
Ambitious is what comes to mind with Machina. A band that’s been around for a decade and produced several hits had come to a fork in the road. Machina sounds like an album title that Limp Bizkit would use, but the music itself- is harder, edgier, and darker than Adore. If you put Adore and Machina together they might compare well with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, which is actually a solid compliment on how they contrast yet play consecutively. That said, this album stands alone just fine. Not the Pumpkins’ best work but enduring nonetheless.

Zeitgeist (2007)
An underrated album, The Smashing Pumpkins first record after their reunion, (Billy and Jimmy were the only holdovers), was greeted with spews of hatred by critics. The album is nothing like the bands previous work with very loud guitars that are layered and edgy driving the sound of the music- something that was never the case with Corgan’s early work. The album’s best tracks “Tarantula” and “That’s the Way (My Love Is)” are both impressive Pumpkins songs but the album isn’t viewed well in comparison to the other Pumpkins’ records.

Teargarden by Kaleidyscope (2010)
Beauty in sound. This music is nothing like Zeitgeist and compares more to the band’s earlier singles. The songs have been made for free download and with great success. After every four songs are made available through the band’s website, they release an EP/box of the songs with some tremendous artwork and a bonus song. Vol. I Songs for a Sailor came out in May and Vol. II The Solstice Bare came out in November. The one thing that stands out with the project is the freedom of it. Early Pumpkins work is great because you can hear the desperation, this project is great because you can feel the artistic spirit involved in it.
Oceania (2012)
Part of the Teargarden project, Oceania is by far the band's best music in that project and their best work since Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Proclaimed to be a crucial album by Billy Corgan in a number of ways, the group delivered with some amazing songs and some notably plush production. There's been several questions surrounding the band's future after the promotion of this album, but if this is the end of the Pumpkins they went out in style.