Top 40 at 40 # 38

# 38 Smashing Pumpkins Cherub Rock 1993

So many Smashing Pumpkins songs, so little time for explanation. The year was 1993 and Cherub Rock just blasted its way out of the starting gate..otherwise known as the Siamese Dream album, track #1. In a grunge flavored era, the Pumpkins were different..Hipsters unite, come alive for the big fight! Just rock solid WALLS of guitars, a spaceboy on the vocals named Billy Corgan at the helm. And those drums...clanging and banging like cell doors closing in on sonically depraved prisoners...thank You Mr. Jimmy Chamberlin for that. And who could forget the GUITAR SOLOS. Corgan was by far the best guitarist of that era
I had never heard anything like the pumpkins, so pretty...so fucking loud...so alienated...so layered. I was living in Atlanta, GA. at the time, ensconced in the first wave of the glory of grunge, when I took the first plunge into pumpkindom. It felt good. What a fantastic album....Geek USA, SOMA, Today, Mayonaise, Spaceboy, Silverfuck. So many instances where a softer side of emotional turmoil floats on a layer of fuzz and feedback.Cuddle then stab...repeat. The combination was perfect for me. It was perfect for all of the shit I went through in Atlanta...... I guess I picked Cherub Rock because it was the first bullet that hit me. It slapped me upright out of the bad posture of the early 90s. Little did I know it was recorded with Butch Vig IN Atlanta that same year.

I got to see the Pumpkins live fairly early in Rochester NY of all places. I was familiar with Gish, their first full length album. which they toured behind in 1991, opening for The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam at the Auditorium Theatre on 10/27/91. What a show. Pearl Jam weren't even advertised. Nobody knew who they were.I cannot remember who I went with...maybe Mr. Savarese and Mr. Warner. I also saw them in Atlanta at a small club called the Point in late Nov 1992, and on their exclusive-only in 2 cities residence tour 2007 in San Fran at the Fillmore.2x.

Smashing Pumpkins Top 5 1) Cherub Rock 2) Obscured 3) Silverfuck 4) X.Y.U. 5)SOMA