Composer Reacts to The Smashing Pumpkins - Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans (REACTION & ANALYSIS)
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
- Bryan reacts to and talks about his thoughts on Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans (Remastered 2012)
ORIGINAL VIDEO // • Porcelina Of The Vast ...
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Smashing Pumpkins made me a real music fan back in the 90's. Love this album and the legendary Siamese Dream, made me feel emotions I wasn't expecting from music. Love the channel and the picks, keep up the good work!
Top 3 double album ever
Somebody should react to the whole album Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness. It's a MASTERPIECE
my favorite album
Someone did! czcams.com/video/bkg7zOYbJAU/video.html
Man, I was so happy to see this video. Porcelina is a tragically underrated song, being overshadowed by the many other radio hits from this double album. I love the soaring sounds punctuated by the unexpected timing change before the chorus. This song demands you to listen to the narrative and picture the story unfolding before your mindscape. If you want a similarly great song, you should react to their song Pinwheels off one of their more recent albums Oceania. ~X8
Billy composed mostly everything the band produced and is regarded as the force behind it all. going as far as to record or re-record entire instruments beside drums for previous albums himself due to the lack of time budget in studio and his bandmates not "delivering" his vision accurately.
Although these lead to tensions within the band who disbanded and then reunited twice over the coming years.
It is certainly a great composer, an ambitious one indeed. This double CD is regarded as a masterpiece and one of the grand releases of early nineties as far as I'm concerned.
This along with Thru the Eyes of Ruby are my favorites on MCIS. Both are amazing live. 🤘🏽🎃
yes! both are such beautiful songs!
Yes!
Yeah I saw them in Los Angeles and Porcelina was probably the best one with a longer more rocked out version
I'll never forget walking across town to see my gf when I was 18 in 1996 with my sony discman. This one got me thru some blocks! Smashing Pumpkins are one band you wanna experience listening to with headphones. Try Piscus Iscariot album.
Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness is such a phenomenal album and it has vast variety of different kind of songs that reflect what The Smashing Pumpkins had already done on Siamese Dream but also some hints of sounds of future. This is so highly produced and composed record, for example Thru the Eyes of Ruby has (according to legends) +70 different guitar tracks layered. And rumors say that Billy Corgan recorded almost every instrument by himself eventhough all band members are listed on the record.
'Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans' is one of the Smashing Pumpkins best tracks I love..
2:35 like you mentioned, that there is a little bit of darkness underneath..
Billy Corgen is singing about a dark spirit that lives in the oceans.. It's a commun multicultural demon type entity.
Smashing Pumpkins are in my opinion the most unique and talented of the biggest 90s alt-rock bands (they are not grunge stahp saying that) and to this day their first three albums don't sound like a relic of that era as a large percentage of the bands from that period do. Personally and from a purely compositional perspective I believe Corgan was the best songwriter of that period and Jerry Cantrell is imo second. I love Nirvana and Kurt but he doesn't hold a candle to Corgan's ability to write the structure of a song.
Their 1st 4 albums that came out in that time period 91'-95' were the greatest part of my life. My 1st experience of hearing the SM sound was off the Singles soundtrack, Drown when I fell in love with that music while stationed at Ft Benning Ga May 92'-May 93'. Rock On.
DROWN and Glynis. SP got me through my teen years. They were the first band I truly fell in love with.
SP are my favorite band for thirty years now. I put them above all the grunge bands too but I do love those bands. Especially Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and though they aren't considered grunge Stone Temple Pilots. I think Nirvana and Pearl Jam are great too and have tons of songs I like, but not like those three. Billy talks about how the pumpkins are often overlooked or passed by, and he's right. Rolling Stone magazine did a top 250 guitarists list the other day and Billy wasn't on it. Guitarists from almost every single grunge and alt rock band were on the list, including Kurt Cobain who I love but is NOT a better guitar player than Billy or the other guys from those bands. Anyone that plays guitar knows how good Billy is.
Didn't realize STP wasn't considered grunge. I have always considered them to be. LOL
Nirvana is definitely the greatest band of the 90's but the Pumpkins are the best band of the 90's
Mellon Collie is a masterpiece on so many levels
This is literally in my top 2 songs ever! Thanks for giving it a listen
I feel like the soundscape is less space/water and more dreams
The remaster changed the feel of the verses quite a bit, everything was more on top of everything else and I prefer it honestly. It has this amazing "hazy" feeling that contrasts to the punch of the chorus.
This whole album has an amazing sense of space, By Starlight is another one that has textures like Porcelina
Edit: so a thought on themes and the album. The album is 2 discs and is structured so that disc 1 is Daytime and disc 2 is the Night disc. Porcelina comes second to last one the Day disc and is the climax, the day is over and the sun is set. The final song is a soft lullaby that has pretty much already transitioned to the mode of the Night disc
The second disc has a similar ending now that I think about it, By Starlight is the penultimate track and has a slow build with contrasting verses and choruses ending with a similar outro, though with a lower total energy level than Porcelina. The final track is again a sort of lullaby. Never made that connection till now
I have also been comparing the original to the remaster and I can't stop noticing things you point out in the remaster that don't jump out in the original recording the same way
It's interesting that the remaster would change so much about the original verse. In my experience, remasters tend to add clarity to a song that was missing in the original recording; for the band to create the sound they original wanted to but lacked the experience or technology to do so. But to completely overhaul the soundscape of a section sound bonkers and it makes me wonder what drove that change. Was this honestly their original vision and they simply couldn't execute on it for some reason?
I can totally see the dream element too. For me, spacey-ness and dream-ness (getting real technical here 😀) share similar feelings in music and I tend to find them interchangeable outside of stereotypical synth based "space" sounds.
Thank you so much for doing this, it was needed! You should do soma next!!!
You got seasick lol. SP mission accomplished!😅
I have always pictured a mermaid swimming deep in the ocean and then suddenly bursting above the surface into the sunlight.
Ultimately it's another rock song about drugs (your uppers and your downers) but something I love about SP is that they use unique metaphors and tell stories with strong visuals and phrase painting.
Billy famously does almost everything himself.
Billy Corgan also had a band called Zwan, with Paz Lenchantin and more.
Zwan - Yeah
The Zwan album is underrated
So yeah, this one takes me back. Taking in both sides of the album for the first time in one sitting would be a lot for most, but if one had the time to isolate, find some good headphones and take in one side of the album at the time…. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
I was an early teen when this came out and I occasionally would listen to By Starlight, Porcelina, Take Me Down, and Farewell & Goodnight in that order before bed to send me off to sleep. I didn’t know anything about music production or anything else at the time, but I loved the whimsical, dreamy, watery, spacey feel of those tracks. I haven’t really heard anything else like it since
It's so crazy that I don't have any Smashing Pumpkins in my digital playlist. I used to have a few CDs in the 90s, but not this one. They have some hidden gems. Headphones do make a huge difference. I've only listened to them in my car. Going to do some digging and put some songs in my playlist now.
I massively recommend "Soma" ! remember that amazing song? And "Doomsday Clock" is an absolutely killer song too! I love all their albums
Dig your articulation on multiple sections of a listening / engineering perspective. Auditory painting. Great description. As a musician, and one with some synethsesia, I often picture songs in colors and shapes and movements, but sort of within the essence of the auditory painting. Cool concept. And Billy is very heavy in his own sound engineering, coming up with new tones to match his storytelling ideas. Enjoy your vids!
Haven’t really listened to smashing pumpkins- except their hits. I missed that era.
But as for this song, Nice intro. Loved the building as it progressed into a rich atmosphere…into that phat tone…back into the ethereal section. Pretty cool shifts.
Also been enjoying my new headset- the left and right stereo is much better. Really enjoyed hearing completely different music in each ear. And then it came together when the energy came back. Idk anything about the album but wonder if it has to do with the theme of the song??
You can try other psichedelic Pumpkins songs like Rhinoceros, Soma, Starla, Drown, Silverfuck, Thru the eyes of Ruby, For Martha, Glass and the ghost children
This one is a real gem!
I was twelve years old when I was handed the cassette tape of the Siamese Dream album back in late 94'. Been a fan for about thirty years now. Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness are both incredible albums. I think almost every single song Billy Corgan wrote between the Gish album(SP's debut) and his next band Zwan are great. He has created many masterpieces. It has to be hard to try and come up with anything close to the fantastic stuff he wrote in the 90's. I like a lot of his solo stuff and a ton of SP stuff he's done in the last twenty years, but it's hard to put that stuff up against his 90's works. I suggest anyone that hasn't heard Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie to go listen to them right now. The other albums Gish, Adore, Machina 1 and 2, and the two b side collections Pisces Iscariot(Siamese Dream b sides) and The Aeroplane Flies High(MCIS b sides) as well as Zwan are all great too. Zeitgeist, Oceania, etc. have some really great songs as well.
SP is the best major band of the 90's. None of the other bands have the range that they do. Corgan is the best songwriter in that decade too
It's fucking genius.
Soma is the one you were looking for Bryan. Their best song.
Pause… You have the same expectations for Porcelina of the vast ocean as with bullet with butterfly wings? OK I can’t wait to see how this goes LMAO MCIS Is one of the most diverse albums ever made. Suspend all your expectations or any preconceptions you have going into every single track.
There was a faint distorted drum machine sounding track on the right as well, very sorta sub-mixed, much like a lot of what you can peel back and find on the song. I basically took the audio routing software that I have (VoiceMeeter) and mono summed the individual channels so I can more clearly hear what is going on in each one during the "Porcelina" verses. The basically, bass and drums are in the left, along with a squished yet more full frequency vocal part, and an arpeggiated overdriven guitar part. In the right, however we have what is either a more subdued drum performance with brushes or a drum machine, distorted and squished and very lo-fi, with a synth pad and what might be a synth lead along with perhaps a single guitar that is very thin, and his vocal over there is also super thin. There is certainly some E-Bow floating around in the right on verse 2, I should know, I'm very acquainted with how they sound haha. And damn, that flange/phase that comes in on the last big wall of sound part! The outro has some interesting guitars in the left, and there is a synth with tremolo that you mention that comes in on the left that was not there the entire rest of the song, there are guitars feeding back all over the place, the usual Smashing Pumpkins wall of guitars approach. Needless to say, until I hit this review, I had never listened to this song on headphones, or at least not that critically, and I also had never explored this piece of audio routing software that closely, either. A great excuse to do both, excellent breakdown! The only unfortunate thing is the audio fatigue from the re-mastering that puts peaks at +0.7 db? WTAF! Step it back, people.
This is my favourite song. Of all time.
The mix is oceanic with the alternating dips of the volume. Clever.
My fav pumkins song by far
You should listen to the live acoustic version of this they did with John Popper on harmonica, it's superb.
I go all the way back to grade school with The Smashing Pumpkins. I remember when 1979 and Tonight, Tonight (the songs) came out and they were everywhere when I was ~11. Their Mellon Collie wasn't the first album I ever bought, but it was definitely one of the first. Back then this was completely different to any other music I'd ever heard, and the album was so varied with so many different moods and styles that every track was like a new little adventure. Though I don't think the album is perfect (it's a 2-hour long double-album!) it's a deep, fascinating, rich, and complex one. This particular track is by far the longest one on the album, and I think it helps to encapsulate the album's strengths and flaws: it's overlong and wavers between moments of real inspiration and meandering dullness. In general I think TSP were one of those bands whose technical/songwriting talents never quite caught up with their conceptual ambitions, but it's always interesting to hear bands shoot for the moon when they don't have the skill of, errr, "rocket scientists," to actually get there.
I love that idea as well, artists who fall short of their lofty goals. I will always enjoy hearing what someone creates despite their own limitations.
@@CriticalReactions I often say that "interesting failures" are often much better than "uninteresting successes," and I think ambition is often what makes the difference.
Physically nauseous?? Not exactly a glowing recommendation ..Pumpkins rule all bands ever imo!
I'd say that any strong physical reaction to music is a glowing recommendation of it as a work of art. Most of my favorite films, paintings, and music have given me visceral reactions to them.
You can feel nausea, or the feeling of moving places
Great track
Only been listening to that album since it came out and never noticed the panning mambo jumbo…
Do this guy even know the name of the album, in which it has A & B sides?
I don't
It would be utterly redundant to make a comment of any kind... ✍️Gish 🙄
The ocean is disorienting.
This piece of music takes me places far away.
Clearly ripped off Neil Young, but if there was amazing prog rock in 1996, Billy and Flood were recording it. Amazing, and I truly enjoyed your reaction. Rawk on, my friend.
Care to offer how or what tune of Neil’s that this song clearly ripped off?
Ha!
There isn’t a song in Young’s catalog, out in any band he was in or led that sounds remotely like this.
The closest is maybe something like Cortez the killer in the middle section, MAYBE, and that’s just guitar tone. and hey news flash, Neil Young ripped that off from multiple sources as well.
Some people like music but they have cheap or poor taste. Like someone who likes clothes but with poor taste for knowing what looks good.
Naw, all music is art. There isn't any 'good' or 'bad' music to have good or bad tastes in music. We can quantify music and attribute a scoring system based on depth or complexity or whatever but it's not going to say anything important about the music in isolation. Music that you might discard as "poor" or "cheap" could mean the world to someone else, could remind them of lost family member, could have saved them from doing something drastic. Art is personal. It's not a commodity and can't be given a rating that means anything expanded outside one's own perspective.
Melon Collie is one of the worst mixing jobs in music history IMO, it completely ruins the album for me which is tragic , some of the best songs ever written. I can only tolerate live versions. The engineering is so atrocious it’s completely unbelievable and no one else seems to hear it but me. Half the album sounds like it’s playing from a second hand recording in mono or something, icky
That's so weird. It had to have been intentional but it's also a strange choice to make for a band that I associate with mainstream radio music (though they really only had 2 hits on the radio).
@@CriticalReactions I think it worked for the orchestral material but the rock songs sound so compressed and placed in the middle - zero and jellybelly in particular , I think maybe the production just wasn’t as dynamic as the songwriting. Play one of those mentioned back to back with a heavy song from Gish or Siamese dream and you’ll see what I mean, loses a lot of impact with the heavily compressed mid heavy mix of Mellon Collie
@@CC-oi9mc Yes! Ive found another person who agrees with me lol. Some of the best music ever, and it’s recorded like absolute garbage. I find the remaster to be a little better, but still its my least listened to Pumpkins album.
@@CriticalReactions Many people dont know or remember, but at one point SP was one of the biggest bands in the world, no hyperbole. They had at least 7 big radio hits, won a grammy, and had the sixth best selling double album of all time (this album).
This is their biggest album, and i agree it was such a weird choice to produce and mix it the way they did. Apparently they were going for a more “live” sound. Which i think is fine for indie and punk music, but for such a huge, ambitious album, the mix just doenst do it justice.
@@TheAlibabatree I suspect that around that time a lot of albums were ruined because they were mixed with cassette playability in mind - the great annihilator sounds really terrible in the same sort of way, flat compressed and mid heavy
The Smashing Pumpkins are one of the few bands I cannot stand. I hate the guitar tone and I hate the singer's nasaly voice. I turn off the radio if they come on.
That's perfectly fine. At least you gave them a try and determined they weren't for you. I'll agree that the vocals are an acquired taste. Personally I don't hate them but they're not my favorite either.
Yet I appreciate your commentary so much that I still watched the video :) Keep it up man, love this channel! I'd love to hear your thoughts on some of the new Vildhjarta album sometime if you like!