well about the whole thinking of a band as a whole. I do that, but Billy is the so called "frontman." Yes the members each added there own little ideas and quirks, its just that billy since he's the singer connects with the audience vastly more than the others. They each serve a purpose but some pruposes are easily replaced.

HOWEVER I do think Jimmy is an excellent drummer and cannot be replaced, I think hes one of the most under rated or at least not as well known good drummers. Same goes for Iha and guitar i know he wrote some of Soma and other songs. D'arcy on the otherhand seemed....idk distant. Like she was just there to play bass and add the vocal harmonies (which actually made some songs sound way better.). Although she seemed like a cool person...idk.

I do understand how some can feel connected to a band as a whole but when I learned that Corgan composed a good amount of the music, I kind of lost interest in the other members.


And believe, this is Thepumpkins.net and Billy Corgan is in the smashing pumpkins.... whats your case? This site has ZWAN stuff on it, should we take it off? Its rather insulting to not consider us real fans. We might've come off wrong, but you're acting like we think the band members don't matter to us. I think its really a matter of how easy it is to let go of things. I don't get attached to things too easily, but we're all different, there's no need to insult.

Believe link=topic=1268.msg19210#msg19210 date=1176469577]
OK - Thank you all for ending this conversation. It's cool that you are excited about the new Billy Corgan album. I think we all like to hear new Billy Corgan Music or a any new music from any members of the band. (I really liked the Jimmy Chamberlain Complex.) I understand where you all stand now. Just try and understand that when you say Smashing Pumpkins - you are not saying Billy Corgan. People who were fans of the band at the beginning saw 4 musicians blossom under that name. When I think Nirvana or Guns N Roses I dont just think of the lead singer. There is a reason why Ringo and Paul just don't get together with two other guys and call themselves The Beatles. They realize that with 2 other people it would not be The Beatles. The Smashing Pumpkins were that good at one time - even better than the beatles in my eyes) and some die hard SMASHING PUMPKINS fans just are not willing to except a substitute - at one time neither was Billy (as you can see in my quote at the bottom.)

Bottom Line: I did not come along in the period when Billy was a solo artist.

I became familiar with Billy AFTER hearing the Pumpkins so the Pumpkins will never mean Billy Corgan to me.

Everyone here claims to know so much about how the songs were made and u all want to assume nobody played a role but Billy Billy's own words say different and none of you were there so i'll take his word for it and for your reading I will post this quote again:

"There's a lot of chemistry in the band that the outside world could never witness. (He's telling you you dont know anything about the band or the way the music gets made) In our band, D'arcy is the moral conscience -- it's really hard to do something if D'arcy thinks its fucked." (I would call that influence.)

I will remind you that you have never heard a Smashing Pumpkins without James and Darcy.

P.S. - This is THEPUMPKINS.NET not THECORGAN.NET

I rest my case



I liked this post, and had thought about using the Beatles analogy myself earlier

What if we used a Pink Floyd analogy? Was it still Pink Floyd without Syd Barrett?

No one mentioned Izzy Stradlin's departure from Gn'R so I guess it's no big deal when Original members get replaced...

One thing about the beatles analogy is that members in the beatles each wrote the songs (idk know about ringo but john, paul and george did). Billy is the main song writer. I don't really think its it an easy comparison between the beatles and Smashing Pumpkins as far as Band members go, but you have a point, Believe.

Another random thought: Billy probably chose to call it the smashing pumpkins not based on the band members but on the style of music he wanted to create, i mean if he called it something else people would say "this is just like the pumpkins sound." If it was soemthing different sounding he had in his mind I'm sure he'd call it something different. Thats my guess to why he kept the name.

im looking forward to the new billy corgan cd then hopefully it wont sound like the last two, lol

PumpkinPieces link=topic=1268.msg19229#msg19229 date=1176507577]
Another random thought: Billy probably chose to call it the smashing pumpkins not based on the band members but on the style of music he wanted to create, i mean if he called it something else people would say "this is just like the pumpkins sound." If it was soemthing different sounding he had in his mind I'm sure he'd call it something different. Thats my guess to why he kept the name.

Exactly its all about mindset: it's not Zwan, it's not Billy Corgan solo.

I would like nothing better for the original 4 members to be in the band. There are some people on other message boards that try to justify the absence of James and D'arcy by discounting them entirely saying 'the suck' and 'the did nothing'. I will grant that they had probably a smaller impact than Billy did (for example on Ruby, Billy recorded something like 38 guitar parts, while James probably did one or two).

That being said, I am willing to let them go if the music is good. Adore was a beautiful album, and it lacked Jimmy. While Machina still had D'arcy on it (except for Age of Innocence, which was written and recorded after she left in October 1999), D'arcy was of course absent for all of the Machina tour. I accepted Melissa as an 'honorary pumpkin as Billy called it.

This is in contrast to someone on myspace who ran a D'arcy myspace appreciation group or page, where they constantly slammed Melissa, saying anyone who accepted Melissa was not a true SP fan. I guess I can sympathize with them, as the only thing people usually do when talking about D'arcy is constantly calling her a 'crack whore'. But it still doesn't excuse that sort of attitude. It's fine if they prefer D'arcy over Melissa or prefer the direction of the band before D'arcy left, but there is no need for slander of the other person.

I am not obsessed with Corgan, and I thought each band member contributed something to the band, but that doesn't mean it's not the Pumpkins when they are absent if the spirit of the band in general is there. I considered myself a pretty big Pumpkins fan (I think those that know me can vouch for that), and I did accept bands members absences. Only time will tell if the spirit of the band is in fact there, by hearing the live shows and the album.

thepumpkins.net smashing pumpkins billy corgan community i don't see a james iha or a darcy in that title.

except for the fact that james and darcy were a part of the smashing pumpkins.

corganvision link=topic=1268.msg19239#msg19239 date=1176524756]
thepumpkins.net smashing pumpkins billy corgan community i don't see a james iha or a darcy in that title.

Yeah, really, what's up with that? There's a James Iha fanbase, and it's not like he doesn't have his own career. I'll buy his new solo album.

theres a james iha board along with the blamo forums.

Before anything, stumbleine, your avatar would've caused histarical laughter if it wasn't for people still sleeping around my house.

Anywho, yeah d'arcy and iha are in the smashing pumpkins, therefore I'd include them within what the fan base is a fan of. And about the Billy quotes in a few people's signatures about the band members leaving and not carrying on..... what about adore and machina, and even machina 2.... I mean those seemed like legitiment pumpkins albums to me...even though adore was my least favorite. But they were both good albums with or without Jimmy for adore and d'arcy for machina.

Just curious how you feel about those albums since you have that quote in your sigs.

PumpkinPieces link=topic=1268.msg19266#msg19266 date=1176562277]
Before anything, stumbleine, your avatar would've caused histarical laughter if it wasn't for people still sleeping around my house.

Anywho, yeah d'arcy and iha are in the smashing pumpkins, therefore I'd include them within what the fan base is a fan of. And about the Billy quotes in a few people's signatures about the band members leaving and not carrying on..... what about adore and machina, and even machina 2.... I mean those seemed like legitiment pumpkins albums to me...even though adore was my least favorite. But they were both good albums with or without Jimmy for adore and d'arcy for machina.

Just curious how you feel about those albums since you have that quote in your sigs.


haha thankyou, i think its pretty cute. james is too.

to answer your question, i love adore, i think its beautiful. machina... im not too keen of machina. the only songs that i actually like is age of innocence (such a great song!) and stand inside your love.
i put that quote in my signature to show that im not all that happy about billy going on with the pumpkins with only himself and jimmy. (darcy unknown, i know.. but its extremely unlikely)
im not implying that i only like the albums that include all four members.

plus, darcy was only absent for age of innocence.

I'm still bamboozled as to why you have that quote...what's your point? To prove Billy says and does a lot of contradictory stuff? We all know this already...

I dont know about everyone else, but i plan to let the music/album speak for itself, and in that respect, i wont judge the direct or label it as Zwan 2 etc until i hear it, i have said this all along, if billy called it the smashing pumpkins then it must be true to the original intentions of the pumpkins as an entity, otherwise he would have called zwan 1 the smashing pumpkins, if you think that all he is doing by calling SP 2 the smashing pumpkins to raise more hype then why didnt he do it with the original zwan? that would have raised more hype no?

Having said that i cant say im not terribly disapointed to hear that james is out, it is a blow, but to be honest i think we all thought that already. James contributed ALOT to the original pumpkins sound, the harmoic contributions both on the albums and on stage helped created the "classic pumpkin sound", which will be hard to do without, but i do think billy is fully capable of creating something wonderfull without it. I dont think billy is god, but he certainly is a fantastic musician and songwriter.

I will be open minded and loyal to the end.

i'll be forever loyal to billy and jimmy even if fred durst is in the group, and yes the music will do the talking.

marydoesnotforget link=topic=1268.msg19280#msg19280 date=1176592981]
I'm still bamboozled as to why you have that quote...what's your point? To prove Billy says and does a lot of contradictory stuff? We all know this already...

im just reinforcing it, mary.