Author Topic: Billy Corgan: Biggest creep in music?  (Read 12240 times)

Shaggy 2 Grote

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Re: Billy Corgan: Biggest creep in music?
« Reply #45 on: September 19, 2011, 10:47:54 PM »
Wow, that Yellow Beret song. The pre-Silver Bullet Band comp I found on some disreputable blog is all hippie-psych stuff -- "2+2=?," the big single from it (I think) is pretty representative of the time, with vaguely anti-authoritarian lyrics. Evidently, Seger didn't have much in the way of artistic or moral principles. Maybe he's like that patriotic Wurster character who agrees to write a song for Saddam.

That said, even "fake" psych rock can sound pretty good (see: Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, every single song on every single one of those millions of psych comps), and I was surprised how listenable that comp was.

Smashing Pumpkins = OK. I remembered a couple of the songs from Gish and Siamese Dream that I liked a lot in the 90s and then forgot about. I'm not sure every single song holds up, but I thoroughly enjoyed much of it.

(Edited to fix the name of "2+2=?," which I had misidentified as "2+2=5," which is a Radiohead song)
Oh, good heavens. I didn’t realize. I send my condolences out to the rest of the O’Connor family.

masterofsparks

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Re: Billy Corgan: Biggest creep in music?
« Reply #46 on: September 20, 2011, 03:36:11 AM »
Yeah, Seger's Ballad of the Yellow Beret is pretty disgusting, but played alongside 2+2=? it becomes more mystifying than anything. A tour through through his early (pre-Silver Bullet Band) stuff finds a guy clearly searching hard for a musical identity, so I have no problem forgiving a misstep like Yellow Beret. It's clearly an anomaly in his catalog, so I'll put it down to a youthful ignorance. We've all said something dumb in our youth, his just happens to have been set to music and pressed to vinyl.

If you haven't heard it, 2+2=? is one of the most powerful anti-war songs of its era.
I'll probably go into the wee hours.