Both Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins excel in certain areas and lack in others. Nirvana, I think, is vocally stronger than the Smashing Pumpkins. But, the Smashing Pumpkins is instrumentally stronger than Nirvana. From what I've seen so far, the lyrics from both bands are so-so. I think the songs made by the Smashing Pumpkins have a little more of a variety, sound wise, but that isn't a huge factor that separates the two bands because some people like one sound and only one sound. When listening to Nirvana's "Nevermind," I feel like it's one of those albums where you have to be in a happy and energetic mood to enjoy it. Otherwise, it could seem rather loud and annoying. I think it's a fantastic album that is strong, entertaining and aggressive, which is something that the 80's definitely lacked. But at the same time, a lot of their songs are the same. Same, loud sound. And that can get annoying. Now for the Smashing Pumpkins. They ARE much more diverse with their songs, but are they as entertaining to me? I don't really know. Nirvana's loud music can definitely hold my attention, but sometimes quieter songs lose me - it just depends. The Smashing Pumpkin's songs are much quieter, not just their sound, but the over all volume of the album. Regardless of what volume Nirvana's "Nevermind" is played at, it will always seem super loud. But the Smashing Pumpkins have some killer instrumentalists. Everything is so coordinated, especially the drumming, it is so clear and clean cut, you can easily pick out the guitar or drums - it isn't just mush. Like "Nevermind's" hidden track. That was AWFUL. I feel like they just took the outtakes from every song and threw them together and that's what they got. I hope they don't do that in any of their other albums.
One thing I found really interesting was one of the genres allmusic.com classified the Smashing Pumpkins into. It is a genre called Noise Pop. And their definition of it was the funniest thing.
Noise Pop: pop music wrapped in barbed-wire kisses of feedback, dissonance, and abrasion. I think Nirvana would be considered more Noise Pop-y than the Smashing Pumpkins, but they weren't.
Probably my favorite Smashing Pumpkins song off their album "Gish" would definitely be "Daydream."
It is really soft, yet has this underlying power that comes through with the instruments and the voice of the singer. The singer kind of sounds like the lead singer in The Silversun Pickups, which isn't my favorite band, but I don't mind it in this song.
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