This week’s edition of “album reissues that make you feel old” features the Smashing Pumpkins. The iconic ’90s rock band (and somewhat confused new millennium band) is giving the deluxe treatment to their 1991 debut “Gish” and 1993’s breakthrough follow-up “Siamese Dream.”
Two-disc versions of each album will be made available, due Nov. 29. The bonus material includes John Peel session, demos, alternative takes, single versions, 2011 remixes and more.
Both “Gish” and “Siamese Dream” were originally recorded by Butch Vig — who has been in headlines lately because of his contributions to Nirvana’s “Nevermind” and its 20th annivesary. And although both albums credit D’Arcy Wretzky as bassist, frontman Billy Corgan confirmed later that he played bass and guitar on almost all the tracks. The latter album, helped propel the band to fame with tracks like “Cherub Rock,” but its recording was especially marred by infighting with the label, going over budget and by drummer Jimmy Chamberlin’s out-of-control drug addiction.
Of Gish, Corgan says in a statement on the Pumpkins’ website: “Recorded in 1990 and 1991, ‘Gish’ represents our first foray into the deep waters of rock and roll. In the music within, I still hear our naivete and fresh spirits asking to be heard, and I miss the times that helped make this music so earnest.”
Of “Siamese Dream”: “In 1992, with the weight of a perceived world on our shoulders, we disappeared into a parking garage to write the songs that would change the course of our lives forever. ‘Siamese Dream’ represents all of our dreams coming true, while the dreams of a happy band fell apart.”
Complete tracklists are below.
If the Pumpkins nostalgia hasn’t gripped you enough, just wait for EMI’s reissues of 1995’s double-album “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,” 1996 boxed set “The Aeroplane Flies High” and 1998’s “Adore” when they drop next year. “Machina/the Machines of God” and” Machina II: the Friends & Enemies of Modern Music” from 2000 will come out in 2013.
Here is the Gish tracklist:
Disc One
I Am One
Siva
Rhinoceros
Bury Me
Crush
Suffer
Snail
Tristessa
Window Paine
Daydream
Disc Two (Deluxe Edition Only)
Starla (2011 mix)
Siva (Peel session) *
Honeyspider (Reel Time demos / 2011 mix)
Hippy Trippy (Crush Music Box demo)
Snail (live radio performance)
Plume (2011 mix)
Bury Me (Reel Time demos / 2011 mix)
Daydream (Old House demo)
Tristessa (Sub Pop single / 2011 mix)
Girl Named Sandoz (Peel session) *
Jesus Is The Sun (Apartment demo)
Blue (Gish sessions demo)
Smiley (Gish sessions demo)
I Am One (Reel Time demos / 2011 mix)
Seam (Suffer / Apartment demo)
La Dolly Vita (2011 mix)
Pulseczar (Gish sessions demo) *
Drown (alternate guitar solo)
Here is the Siamese Dream tracklist:
Disc One
Cherub Rock
Quiet
Today
Hummer
Rocket
Disarm
Soma
Geek U.S.A.
Mayonaise
Spaceboy
Silverfuck
Sweet Sweet
Luna
Disc Two (Deluxe Edition Only)
Pissant (siamese sessions rough mix)
Siamese Dream (broadway rehearsal demo)
STP (rehearsal demo)
Frail and Bedazzled (soundworks demo)
Luna (apartment demo)
Quiet (bbc session/bc mix)
Moleasskiss (soundworks demo)
Hello Kitty Kat (soundworks demo)
Today (broadway rehearsal demo)
Never Let Me Down Again (bbc session) *
Apathy’s Last Kiss (siamese sessions rough mix)
Ache (silverfuck rehearsal demo)
U.S.A. (soundworks demo)
U.S.S.R (soundworks demo)
Spaceboy (acoustic mix)
Rocket (rehearsal demo)
Disarm (acoustic mix)
Soma (instrumental mix)
(All songs previously unreleased except where indicated *)