Words of Suffering

There is perhaps an art to delivering lyrics that can convey such misery, suffering and pain to the masses that only a few singer/songwriters have.  Billy Crogan might fit that bill.  He was influenced by the Cure which if you know them ironically needed a cure for their own misery as well!  Maybe it is the completely bald head that drove Corgan to write such "gothic or dark" lyrics.  But it works well if you bought a "ZERO" t-shirt in the 90's.

The Smashing Pumpkins were a great band!  After they broke out with "Today" from their album Siamese Dream they released a double album, Mellon Collie and the Infinate Sadness, which won the hearts of some critics and called it groundbreaking.  It does have a wide variety of style to the songs on there.  Billy Crogan in an interview said he hated the album and thought it was their worst one.  Perhaps more of his skillful gothic lyrics I guess.  It sold over 18 million copies in the U.S. alone and I feel is my personal favorite of theirs.

After tons of drug use, internal fights, excessive touring, overdoses and a death the band broke up.  They did reunite and worked a lot with Marilyn Manson.  If you combine that with the ideas of James Iha (fellow Pumpkins band member) that rock was going more electronic you get the song "Eye" on the Lost Highway Soundtrack, "Perfect" and "Ava Adore" from the Adore album and this treasure song which I believe is their only grammy win.  It combines their electronic styling with their rock format like "Bullet with Butterfly Wings". From the Batman & Robin Soundtrack:

Smashing Pumpkins - The End is the Beginning is the End