Billy Corgan is a music genius and Smashing Pumpkins was one of the most significant rock groups of the 90's. Many people think that Pumpkin's music is too "noisy" (guitars, distortions, etc.), but even in their most "noisy" songs, lies behind a wonderful melody - and that's their genius, in my opinion. I don't know if it was the drugs that destroyed this great group. Maybe it was drugs that made them a great group in the first place - I really don't know, and the least thing I want to fall into is the trap of passing moral judgments on the issue of drugs. Anyway, Smashing Pumpkins circle of life has been terminated, yet they left some really great albums to all listeners. I think that my favorite - as a whole - is "Ava Adore" but I can't leave aside the masterpieces of "Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness".

It's obvious that Corgan is a great fan of UK's 80's dark wave music scene (especially "Ava Adore" sounds in some specific points, like Joy Division resurrected). Maybe that's why now he plays the guitar in New Order's new album.
I've heard that he recently formed a new group called Swan, but I still haven't heard something from them.

Smashing Pumpkins have always used exquisote graphic art works in their CD's, videos and of course their website. Few months ago and after the group was split, their official web site was renovated. You can also download 9 be-sides songs of the group in a separate pop-up window. This site was always high quality web art and still is. You definitely have to pay a visit to it. The group is tremendously popular on the Net, but from the thousands of relative sites, I would recommend "Siva: The Smashing Pumpkins Web Site" (Jesus Christ!! This site is like a CNN devoted to Smashing Pumpkins), "Listessa" (the Smashing Pumpkins Discussion List) and "Smashing Pumpkins: The Best Band in The World" (quite good site but not updated).

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