I was precisely a decade too young to have appreciated their reign in the '90s as it was happening, but The Smashing Pumpkins are definitely the most important band of my life so far.
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is probably my favorite album of all time, but
Gish,
Siamese Dream, and
Adore are all great. Even
Machina has six songs that I like, three of which I love. I've never listened to any of their stuff post-2000, but that stuff is, like, barely canon anyways. Just Billy recycling the name.
I have actually compared my love of The Smashing Pumpkins with my love of
Buffy before. I kind of like them both for some of the same reasons. The way that
Buffy is such a casual blend of genres and styles, The Smashing Pumpkins are with their music. There is no single "kind" of song that comes to mind when thinking about their music, just like how there is no single "kind" of episode that comes to mind when thinking about
Buffy.
🙂 And I was also a decade too young to have appreciated
Buffy while it was on the air. They're kinda the same in a way.
Some of my other favorite music in high school was...
Defiance, Ohio ~
Share What Ya Got,
The Great Depression,
The Fear, The Fear, The Fear, and
Midwestern Minutes
Mischief Brew ~
Smash the Windows &
Songs From Under the Sink. (RIP, Erik Petersen)
The Killers ~
Hot Fuss, Sam's Town, and
Day &
Age
The All-American Rejects ~ Their self-titled debut, but especially their follow-up,
Move Along. That song "It Ends Tonight" was suuuper important to me in high school.
Spring Awakening: Original Broadway Cast Recording
I also love(d) The Cure a lot, but the only album of theirs that I owned in high school was their Greatest Hits album, which only like half counts. I did love it, though.