Meanwhile, over at the Blacklist,
it's a bad day for knighted thespians, veteran heavy metal frontmen and - thank
you, baby Jesus! - U2 alike as another 20 names are added to the Roll Of Shame.
Tremble, puny mortals!
The latest ad campaign for my
old nemesis the National
Lottery features Graham Norton (who has long since moved from being the nation's
token Gay Guy That Your Mum Likes to being a near-constant running sore) as the
voice of a unicorn, and a bint playing "Lady Luck" who accosts people
in the streets and informs them that "your chances of winning [a big Lottery
jackpot] significantly increase if you actually play!"
Well, so far as I can tell, your chances of winning the Lottery actually go up by
one in
fourteen million if you actually play. Hmmm. Does that really seem to be a significant
increase to you?
Don't you think that if someone was selling some widget on the basis that it "significantly
increased your chances of surviving a car accident", and it was then discovered
that it actually only made you more likely to survive by one in fourteen million,
that the Advertising Standards people might get involved?
A few months ago, wandering the byways of the SuperInfoWebNet, I happened upon an
article by the ever-entertaining Bill
Simmons. During the course of the piece, he wondered in passing whether, had
it been Billy Corgan's crazy junkie wife who'd blown his head off ten years ago,
we'd now be seeing Smashing Pumpkins t-shirts on every fourteen-year-old who applies
their eyeshadow with a toilet brush. Probably not, he decided, even though in his
opinion the Pumpkins' five best songs are superior to their opposite numbers in
Nirvana's oeuvre.
"Are they?" I wondered. "Are they really?"
I believe you know me well enough, gentle reader, not to think that I'd let a casual
comment made back in August on a website that I can't even link to any more pass
without further analysis. Dear me no. Given my more-than-passing affection for both
bands and that I am of an age that allowed me to appreciate both in their pomp (ie,
I'm much too old to still be credibly listening to them now), can you think of anyone
better to settle this issue once and for all? Or, indeed, who would want
to settle this issue once and for all?
I thought not. Righty, then. For the sake of argument, each band's "five best"
songs translates as "my five favourite album tracks" - I realise that
you could make a case for different selections, but please bear in mind that you'd
be wrong. The songs have been paired in rough order of merit, and by approximate
similarity of theme/tone/whatever.
All clear? Right. And so, with an absolute minimum of further ado:
Arguably the defining moment for each band to kick off, then. Bullet Etc. Etc. is
pretty much the whole Melon Collie And The Infinite Sadness double-album
in microcosm - it's overwrought, po-faced, muddily-produced, it outstays its welcome
a bit and is saddled with a really, really stupid moniker. Oh, and it's utterly
brilliant. From the loopy opening with Billy Corgan's nasal intonation of "The
world is a vampire..." through to the cataclysm at the end, this is goth-pomp
at its most earnest and adorable.
But let's be honest, here - it's no Smells Like Teen Spirit.
Compare Corgan's sixth-form angst ("And what do I get / For my pain? / Betrayed
desires / And a piece of the game...") to Cobain's narcotic poetry, Bullet's
gawky power with Teen Spirit's mad-dog growl.
You can't. That's the point. I don't care how cool it might be these days to belittle
Nirvana, how much we're obliged to sneer at their contribution to rock history,
how much the circumstances surrounding KC's drastic cure for sinus congestion overshadows
their actual music - Smells Like Teen Spirit is as fresh and vital and powerful
today as it was when I was sixteen. If you don't agree, you're a joyless zombie.
Or possibly not enough of a joyless zombie. End of discussion.
Pumpkins 0 - 1 Nirvana
-
Round 2 - BATTLE OF THE AS-RADIO-FRIENDLY-AS-IT'S-GOING-TO-GET POWER-BALLADS Disarm
vs. Come
As You Are
Yeek. Much tougher call. See, Come As You Are is just immaculately put-together
and has that killer bassline going for it. Mrs. Blue insists that Kurt is debunking
the idea of his suicide three years ahead of time, too - "And I swear that
I don't have a gun..." But there's Disarm, though, and here the overwrought
thing really works. And at the end of the day, all things being equal a song with
a cello in it is always better than one without.
Pumpkins 1 - 1 Nirvana
-
Round 3 - BATTLE OF THE ODES TO GIRLS WHO'RE UNLIKELY TO FEEL FLATTERED AS A
RESULT Ava
Adore vs. About
A Girl
Yes, I'm the one who liked the Adore album.Yes, I thought the drum machine was great.
No, I didn't think like it sounded like sub-Nine Inch Nails angst-by-numbers. And
I thought Corgan looked great as a Nosferatu. Just piss off and leave me alone in
my little gothic hovel, alright?
It's up against an underrated little gem, though, a old-fashioned pop confection
whose jangly guitars and understated harmonies hint that Kurt had a few Kinks 7-inches
tucked in amoung those Pixies albums. Kicking.
"Is it any wonder I can't sleep? / All I have is all you give to me" breathes
Billy to the (now slightly freaked-out) object of his obsession.
"I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn back..." Kurt moans to a
better half who as a result, has probably skipped freaked-out altogether and just
gone straight into therapy.
Two great, nasty, claustrophobic songs. Love those insectoid, Eno-esque keyboards
on Eye, though, and that's enough to bring the Pumpkins level as we head into the
final straight.
Pumpkins 2 - 2 Nirvana
-
Round 5 - BATTLE OF THE LEFTOVER SONGS THAT HAVE BASICALLY NOTHING IN COMMON Cherub
Rock vs. Dumb
And so it all comes down to this. Cobain's Richard Thompson-like ability to turn
an innocent line like "I think I'm just happy" into a knife that twists
in your gut, against the soaring sweep of Cherub Rock's guitars. Do I mean Cherub
Rock? Or do I mean Siva? Or Today? Perhaps I'm getting old, but most of the Pumpkins'
first two albums sound exactly the bloody same to these ears. Give me simplicity,
give me subtlety and, most importantly of all - give me cellos.
Pumpkins 2 - 3 Nirvana
-
So that's that sorted, then. A brave effort from the whiny slaphead and his crew,
but if you live by the string-section then by golly, you die by the string-section
and so the nod has to go to the dead fellah, him out of that Tenacious D video and
the other one.
Join us at the same time next week, when we'll be asking: which band that were damned
good at the start of the eighties but have now hung around for roughly a decade
too long sucks least - U2, or The Cure?
