At one point in time, you could have described the Smashing Pumpkins as leaders of alternative rock. Nirvana and Seattle grunge rock may have pioneered it, but the Pumpkins' double-album Melon Collie & the Infinite Sadness was close to the pinnacle of the alternative movement. Then things went a little downhill: many of the fans turned against the band when Adore went in an electronic direction. By the time the Pumpkins got back to their roots with Machina, the alternative movement was dying, and the band broke up. So when you look at the group's new DVD, The Smashing Pumpkins: Greatest Hits Video Collection, you're watching more than the escalation and leveling-off of a great career; you're seeing a mirror to alternative rock itself.
Teeny-bopping MTV junkies might sniff at these videos as clich?©. They don't realize how many of these videos were ripped off to create modern video clich?©s. You may love or hate the Pumpkins (and there are many in both camps), but you have to respect the effort put into their videos. The band always knew that videos serve mostly to sell records (and frontman Billy Corgan often notes this in the included commentary), but it at least tried to make the videos interesting, if nothing else. From "Today," with Corgan's ice-cream-truck ride, to the now legendary "Tonight, Tonight," to the band's last heartbreaking video/short film, "Try Try Try," the Pumpkins constantly went for something new and different. That's a nobler trend than the majority of today's videos, which increasingly resort to looking cool and acting out band gags (e.g., every *NSYNC video ever).
Anyway. Onto the videos themselves, grouped and rated by album:
Gish (2/5 stars)
The most undistinguished of the video series, the Gish videos are made up of "Siva" and "Rhinoceros." "Siva" is a weird, low-budget, performance-oriented video - in other words, your typical indie first effort. It's not a bad one, showing the talent yet to blossom, but it's best viewed once and then moving on. "Rhinoceros" is more memorable - there is an actual story to follow and a grander vision. However, it's hampered by a low budget. Both videos are merely curios, left behind to inspect but not to view repeatedly.
Siamese Dream (3.5/5 stars)
Here things start to get interesting: the Pumpkins begin to define themselves visually and artistically. While the video for "Cherub Rock" is mostly un-watchable (it's nothing but the band playing in the woods, made to look as artsy and grungy as possible), it's a lot of fun listening to the commentary. The majority of the band admits that the video is god-awful and that making it felt like a horror story.
"Today" is of a different breed. While the band admits it's not sure why it turned out the way it did (James Iha immediately says, "Why I'm wearing a dress, I couldn't tell ya."), the video is strangely brilliant. Corgan drives an ice cream truck out into a California wasteland, and the other band members paint his truck while lots of random couples make out in the grass. They don't know what it means, you won't know what it means, but it simply rocks.
The video for "Disarm" is both beautiful and sad to watch. The band floats over a huge house in black and white and an old man walks towards the end of his life, inter-cut with 8mm footage of a boy running around the same house in color. The commentary is revealing, as the director discusses how the video originally had more of a story but Corgan specifically wanted to make it less of a narrative and more surreal. You can tell the director still has some issues with that creative decision, but regardless, the video remains a haunting masterpiece.
"Rocket" has a fun concept and a great ending, but it doesn't linger in the memory too long. Some kids see a transmission of the band rocking out on a different planet, get in their rocket ship and fly there. What can you say about a video when the best thing about it is the surreal design of the suburban houses in the background?
Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness (5/5 stars)
Mellon Collie is the holy grail of Pumpkins videos, with every one an original and outstanding example of what can be done with a music video. Things get kicked off on a grand note with the "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" video: the band performs while mine workers try to destroy each other and a young boy protects a butterfly. The director comments, "It was track one off of a big album, a big statement. We wanted the video to match that statement." He succeeded with flying colors: the video rocks.
As does "1979," if in more of a low key way. Corgan comments, "I wanted to video to show the idealized growing up, the kind we see in the movies all the time... and, of course, the adolescence I never had." The vision is dead-on. We see the kids drive around in a perfectly vintage car, despising the town that protects them from the real world. They mess around at a convenience store, at a house party, and with each other. Corgan himself rides along in the car, watching the kids play out that childhood he never had with a small smile.
"Zero" could be called the true beginning of the Pumpkins' post-modern (a.k.a "weird for the sake of weird") period: the band members went gothic, and the video has a lot of twisted stuff in it. Despite all the weirdness, however, the most original aspect of the video is the way band members are portrayed. The camera is always a little off-center, capturing only part of Corgan's face and forcing you to move your eye to a certain part of the screen. The effect is subtle, but it means you have to chase the band members around the screen and pay attention. This is another video in which it's not quite clear what they are trying to say, but you can't stop watching it.
"Tonight, Tonight," perhaps the group's most famous video, is based off of the first fantasy film ever made, A Trip the Moon. Although taken directly from that 1918 film, the visualization is pure imagination, and the song matches up with the images perfectly. In this digital age of special effects, older techniques have now acquired a new level of realism: a model or a painted set feels a little more real than a computer-generated-image. "Tonight Tonight" embodies this notion - the effects we see are clearly fake and yet are more interesting.
Finally, there is "33," which is another video where a single, subtle visual effect creates an entirely different look. Corgan says: "This is the first video where we had images corresponding directly to what the song said, the idea being: what if we could film the capturing of a moment in time?" So they use sort of a real-life stop motion technique, taking many frames out of many seconds. The events are creaky and the fake-looking people are all in the middle of posing for a picture. The result is profoundly distracting and disturbing. While you can't pretend that the video (or the song, for that matter) is all that much fun, it is certainly unforgettable.
Adore (4/5 stars)
My only complaint for the videos for Adore is that there aren't enough of them. While it's not my favorite album, these videos are superb.
"Ava Adore" could be the pinnacle of the self-obsessed Goth-ness of the Pumpkins. Everyone in it wears weird costumes and dark make-up, which would detract if the video weren't so damn mesmerizing. A one-take video, it features Corgan, D'arcy and Iha (drummer Jimmy Chamberlain had been ousted by this point) walking through several sets representing what Corgan calls the "Bacchanalian Insanity" that he was trying to achieve. The video uses a speed-up/slow down technique that makes Corgan look graceful one moment and jerky and awkward the next, a camera trick that took 11 hours of shooting to achieve. It was probably worth it: "Ava Adore" burns an image in your head that simply won't go away.
Say what you might about the song "Perfect," but the video has a Magnolia-ish feel that works well. Corgan describes the video as a sequel to "1979," although it might not be immediately evident that it features the same kids (and that they are playing the same roles.) In terms of showing all the little coincidences that link people, the video succeeds (and throws in a few really neat shots along the way). The band admits in the commentary that the video format usually isn't long enough to tell a complete story, and that this video doesn't fully complete its story, either.
Machina: Machines of God (3.5/5 stars)
"The Everlasting Gaze" feels like the director has ADD - as if he spliced together the worst parts of Armageddon and forgot to put in a story or a point. It features the band rocking out in an apartment building, and the camera cuts away emphatically. "You/ know /I'm /not /dead!" Corgan screams, and with every beat there's a new shot. The commentary helps out a bit, as the Pumpkins explain that they hadn't done a performance video in years, and they wanted this one to be as in your face as possible. Perhaps they succeeded, but in doing so, they nearly sink to the level of the bands that ripped them off, trying a little bit too hard to be edgy.
"Stand Inside Your Love," while perhaps the strangest Pumpkins video of all, works better on its own terms. Other bands try to have weird imagery and surreal sequences, but you don't know weird until you've seen the inside of Corgan's head. The video is in stark black and white, telling the story of a King's courtesan and the musician who loves her from afar. At least that what it seems like - it's a little hard to tell, since half the time you can't even tell what you're looking at. While it's difficult to figure out, it's equally difficult to forget.
"Try, Try Try" is a perfect capstone to the Pumpkins' career. The video has more of a story than any of the previous ones, and yet it holds true to Corgan's ideals of surrealism and tragedy. A young, drugged-out couple in London tries to survive from hit to hit, even though the woman is pregnant. It's heartbreaking and visually interesting at the same time, with a real human story.
Extras and Live Videos (3.5/5 stars)
The extras include a filming of a recording session, two live concerts and a longer version of "Try Try Try" called "Try." While "Try" is more of a short film than a video, it works well (although the video is arguably shorter and sweeter). The live concert and studio recording are a little distracting to watch. The camera crews hard to make it look visually cool and so, of course, it ends up being distracting with all the slow motion and moving of the camera. "Geek USA" is a notable exception, as the band has a bunch of drunken clowns come out with them and rock out. There are few things funnier in life than a bunch of drunken clowns, especially when they're rocking out to The Smashing Pumpkins.
Overall, this package is made for the fans and they will appreciate it the most. Still, if you are interested in what makes a good music video, this DVD is a must. Not only can you study how they made each one, you can hear the directors and the band talk about how they did it. Perhaps the most surprising thing to learn is that the artists were often making the whole thing up as they went along, just hanging out on the set and trying things. That's both reassuring and scary at the same time.
