Saturday, November 24, 2007

"Smashing" Pumpkins, Brit-pop?

Are the Smashing Pumpkins honorary brit-pop artists? Though distinctly heavy metal sellout-rock in the 21st century, in the 90's they were as shoe-gazey as blur, as epicly immature as Oasis, and as Techno pop / lite-goth as Pulp. But thats not all, look at their name. They're not the Pumpkin Smashers, or Smashers of Pumpkins, they are Pumpkins which are Smashing. As in, 'look at my "smashing" new pull over blazer! Isn't it wicked? let's go down to the caf' and get a cuppa tea!' The pumpkins do the smashing here, which translates to the pumpkins that kick ass. They are not the pumpkins whose asses are kicked, they are the pumpkins who do the kicking, though the title brings both possibilities to mind. This duality is very appropriate; when you first hear the name you think may be they were inspired by 8-year old pranksters of holloweens past, but then you hear they're lyrics and discover they have very high opinions of themselves vs. the rest of adult society, hence how "smashing" they must think they be. Due to this egotistical approach to self description, combined with their very distinctly unamerican 90's era sound, I'd like to nominate them as honorary brit-pop artists. But this nomination is only relevant to material published before 1999, and does not apply to ZWAN, and obviously nothing which excludes the input of James Iha.

P.S. BECOME A PATHETIC CLICHE, or Realize you're one.

It's whats happened to me.

Embrace this man. http://www.spin.com/features/magazine/columns/chuck_klosterman/2005/06/06202005_chuck_july_column/

Embrace this band.



Smoke pot. Forget who you are. Talk shit about everyone. Try to try to try to try.

1 comment:

Zuccaru said...

So, you are doing quite a bit of self -deprecating talk on your myspace (a-la your title). And what is the deal with this Smashing Pumpkins article? I think the band name is essentially the concept of "smashing pumpkins" that only occurs during Halloween. You were smoking too much pot when you wrote these. But, I enjoy them, obviously. Love it buddy. I love you!