Gish

I have been looking for this album for several months now and it has been way too expensive from other sources for me to justify purchasing a copy. The seller said it was a first release , but it was the remastered reissue on 180 gram vinyl and that was the copy that I wanted to purchase anyway. So I actually got the copy I wanted that is three times the price on other websites that specialize in vinyl pressing. This is a still sealed copy as well and other copies I’ve considered have been used copies. The vinyl market has exploded and I’m still waiting for it to drop like a rock. I have some albums that I have seen for sale on various sites for astronomical prices, but the economy can’t sustain these prices for long if the whole market crashes. I buy vinyl records for the same reason I bought them in the 80’s. It’s just a great format and I don’t think the Millennials and Gen Z are going to continue to buy vinyl records as much as they have been. First they need constant care, storage space is another issue, and then your stylus needs replacing more often than most of these newcomers realize. I have Tidal and access to just about anything I want to listen to, but I also like having a good copy of some stuff that is not available easily on vinyl. Now I’m starting to see cassettes in my local record store and I’m not going down that road again. They stretch out for one and it affects the sound quality. If they had steel tape that was basically like digital audio and High Resolution, I might consider the cassette tape as an option, but I was hoping that MQA would take off and I think Covid killed any chance of that happening. Yes it requires a decoder, but it sounds incredible compared to a compressed CD.

This review is in regards to the vinyl. Obviously, Smashing Pumpkins - Gish is an amazing album and you're not here to read reviews from an album that came out in 1991. The vinyl is also great. My only complaint is the picture that Amazon has of the album is for the 1991 pressing, but what they sell is the 2011 remaster. I bought this with the full realization that I would most likely get the 2011 remaster (with a silver-purple reflective album cover), so I wasn't entirely disappointed. I was hoping for the original, mostly because I wanted the album to have the original cover, for nostalgia. This was actually one of the very first tapes I ever purchased, in 1993 I saved my allowance and went to the local tape store to buy a Smashing Pumpkins tape. I listened to it until the tape stopped working, and I flipped through tape cover/book hundreds of times while listening to it (what else is an elementary school-aged boy going to do all day but obsess over music?). So, I was hoping for the original cover... the one with the red pearls around the outside, the colorized black and white photograph, and the textured blackish purple background... just to bring me back to my childhood for a moment. The music still manages to bring me back there though. The irony of buying a vinyl in 2014 because I listened to tapes in 1993 is not lost on me, but what can I say... that naive little boy grew up into an urban dude.

Smashing Pumpkins is great. This album is a delight! Delivery was great and packaging was in great shape.

As is often the case with bands, Gish was their first and their best. Prior to the first release a band might actually have many songs already written and they may have been written many years prior to the first release. What is likely to happen is these songs have a chance to "marinate" and gradual improvements are made over time. When it is time to record the first release a band might actually have several disks worth of material so the "greatest hits" make the cut on the first disk. Subsequent releases use the material that may not have been as good and the other new songs have not had the chance to "marinate". Gish is simply amazing and I am not surprised that it was never equaled. The Pumpkins probably would have had to wait about 5 years until the next release before they had the material to equal Gish and a record company is not going to let that happen. Ground breaking when it came out and a sound that has been copied by many bands. Incredible depth and complexity. My recommendation to those new to the Pumpkins is buy Gish and the greatest hits even though some Gish songs are on the greatest hits. The fact is Gish should not be broken up but needs to be listened to in its entirety. Mesmerizing!

A must have for any fam! Also came with downloadable files! I didn’t have to wait to enjoy my most loved cd!!

SMASHING PUMPKINS – GISH. In my experience this is the only album that fills up an entire side of a 90-minute cassette tape. There was maybe about 3 seconds left after the final song and then the tape stopped. Towards the end I remember feeling anxious and then it made it by a hair. The intensity heightened because of the way the second to the last song is, which is the outstanding song Window Paine. That I’ll get to momentarily. Anyway, I remember that was sometime around in the middle of July ‘93, which was when I first heard the album. My introduction to Smashing Pumpkins were before that when I heard the songs Siva and Rhinoceros, which was pretty much around at the same time. Despite other’s perspectives, they were never a grunge band, ever. I heard those songs from a local college radio station before seeing the videos. At the time, their sound was very unique to me. It wasn’t like anything I have heard before. There was almost a psychedelic sound to them, sort of. They kind of seemed British to me although I couldn’t tell, and I think it had to do with their first videos were filmed over in England. They formed in Chicago, Illinois. Siva is pretty much a hard rock song featuring a couple of breaks, which to me, was almost unheard of. I hadn’t heard music quite that way before. Although the song had a catching groove to it, the vocals were unlike anyone I’ve heard either. The vocals sounded almost whiny, yet somewhat effeminate. It surprised me later on to know that this song is only 4 minutes and 19 seconds, for it seemed a little longer. It isn’t run-of-the-mill sounding. It’s the way the song is constructed, which makes it seem slightly longer than it actually is. Rhinoceros is different sounding. There is a mellow groove throughout the song, however the first three minutes or so are rather serene, until it builds up to a crescendo of roaring guitars. It is beautiful to listen to. At the very end of the song; like the last forty seconds or so, there is a warping sound of guitars going round and round swirling from speaker to speaker until it gets so deep and low that it abruptly stops. Then the song Bury Me starts right after. It truly is one of the highlights on the album. It is a definitive rocking song all the way but rather imaginative, especially after it passes the three-minute mark. This is one of the songs on Gish that I often think about. It is amazing how much I feel moved about it; so emotionally stimulating. Although the sound is wonderfully constructed, it is a little short for me. The song should’ve been perhaps about forty-five seconds longer. The only other song on here that moves me the same way is Window Paine. It is lovely the way it starts and as the song goes on, it builds to a loudening ending, but it is an experience to behold. I don’t even think I can explain it properly. It is fitting that it’s towards the end of the album. I, too, think that the buildup should’ve been longer; about maybe thirty seconds. It brings to mind my main gripe with the album and that is the instrumentation in several of the songs do not really go on for as long as they should (additional songs such as Crush, Suffer, and Snail; all brilliant songs by the way). It is as though I’ll get really lost in the music and then all of a sudden there will be one more verse or the song will come to a close. I don’t see how there could’ve been too much of a time constraint considering there are only ten songs on the album, which clocks in at a little over forty-six minutes. I wouldn’t consider this an excellent album, although it comes very, very close and it is one of the best albums of 1991. I even considered this to be their best work until the 1998 release of Adore. Throughout the nineties I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with this band. I basically been with them since the beginning so I suppose that makes it easier to have more of an objective. This album could have really been better than what it is, had they made a few tweaks with it. To start, I have always felt the album started off disappointingly with such a standard rocker called I Am One. I mean, the beauty of hearing Siva and Rhinoceros before listening to the entire album is not knowing what to expect as the play button gets pressed to start the album. I really don’t think they should have had I Am One to sound almost exactly like Siva, especially those being the first two songs on the album. To me, that just isn’t a very creative way to make an introduction with. I always felt that I Am One should have been a slow and low song, but honestly I don’t know how they would have pulled that off with the way the lyrics are, because the lyrics are mostly in a whiny, screaming tone. I don’t think they should have started the album off with such a generic rock song. To me, the best part is at one point when the song stops and all is heard is that remarkable bass line. Another standard song is Tristessa. With such a beautiful name, I was expecting the song to be as beautiful as well. And that is one of my problems with Smashing Pumpkins is with tracks like I Am One and Tristessa – it’s as though they were really tailoring to a mainstream audience with those. To me, I recognize them far beyond that. It seems as though they were being seen as a rock band, while I saw them as mostly for their artistry. Their artsy songs will always outshine their commercial efforts. One last note: I always thought the song Drown should have been on this album, being the last song. That would have been an excellent finish for the record. If it were up to me, it would possibly have been a double record, but seeing is that they were starting out and this is their first album, I doubt they would have been able to get away with that. That was something Chicago have done when they released Chicago Transit Authority back in 1969.

Love the item. Quick shipping and great price. Would use this seller again

Aside from sounding great on vinyl, this is probably my favorite Pumpkins album. For me, Pumpkins had 3 great albums: Gish, Pisces Iscariot, and Siamese Dream. After that it's a pretty stiff nose dive. While all three of those albums are neck and neck to me, this one really has that 100% Pumpkins sound that I have in my head when I think of who the band once was. "Snail", "She Knows", "Siva" and "I am one" are songs that I listen to at least once a week. If you are one of the many who loved Siamese and not much after that you should definitely pick this up if you haven't already.

Toll

Delivery was spot on but was a little disappointed it wasn't bubble wrapped as I got a cracked cover upon opening package, thank goodness the CD is unaffected.

Trabajo de una calidad musical espectacular. Viene en jewel case, lo cual se agradece. El debut brillante e impecable de The Smashing Pumpkins; disco espectacular por su mezcla de rock psicodélico, grunge y metal progresivo. Un álbum completo, potente y con el sonido perfecto de las guitarras distorsionadas del grupo.

It sounded amazing when it first came out, the production value was through the roof for an "indie" album at a time when lo-fi grunge was the direction the world was heading. Now remastered, it just pounds even more. I do find however that some subtle nuances get lost or buried with remastered releases. Hard to put a finger on it, maybe it's just my old self now vs. the memory of listening to it back in the 90s. Of course there's also the element of different stereo systems now vs. then, everything is digital now. No one has the thundering 1000 watt stereo with 5 foot speakers and 20 band equalizers in their living rooms any more, lol. I digress. This album is and always will be a classic. It is so raw, yet so polished. You can really tell that Billy hadn't found his true songwriting footing yet, but the groundwork is there. The next two albums (3 if you include Pisces) would define the 90s sound and reach Mount Olympus imo. Music this daring and far reaching hasn't come close since. I get Melancholy thinking about it, pun intended.

オルタナティブの名盤です。 私はニルバーナの次に好きなバンドです。