Try to forget youโve ever heard them before, and then get super-obsessed with these albums in this order: Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street
โGish,โ the 1991 debut, remains an underrated psychedelic classic.
Billy Corgan was less Darth Vader here (these days he wears a cape onstage and is giving serious Empire vibes) and more pretentious, insecure suburban Chicago asshole who could nevertheless play the holy Jesus out of his Strat. ๐ธ (There's a great video on the YouTubes about a three decade quest Billy undertook to get this yellow "Gish guitar" back after it was stolen from him backstage at a gig in Detroit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyjBDmEcKAE). There's not a bad song on this album and the original quartet were an absolutely ๐ฅ live band. I remembering seeing them play at a 1000 person club in this era and they totally slayed.
The man responsible for dozens of Teenage Symphonies to God
"Sad songs about happy things" (the first time, as a kid, I can recall the sweet/sour combo of melodies that could make you cry attached to songs about endless, bottomless love)
I've long since lost track of how many weddings and funerals I've attended that have featured this song; suffice it to say, "a lot."
God only knows what we'd been without him ๐๐ป
Hey tyler hopefully this doesnโt violate some PI.FYI golden rule
But after nearly two years of writing, editing and arguing, my book about the EP is coming out in May and can be preordered here: https://hozacrecords.com/product/aifl/ The book is about the origins, history and cultural impact of the EP since these little objects first started coming out in the 50s.
Over 50 of my music biz friends then helped me shape the list and review the top 200 ever released, according to us (ha).
For those of you who are into this kind of geekery/snobbery, I canโt wait to hear what you think. A labor of love, as all books are! โค๏ธ
