The Smashing Pumpkins

[allegro]

Dear Billy,

It's not 1996. Dial-up Internet, the walkman, video stores, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Friends, Seinfeld, Slobodan Milosevic, Benie Babbies, Tamagotchi, Circuit City, The Clinton Administration and The Smashing Pumpkins playing a packed arena tour are all things from that year that aren't coming back.

As a response to your Sinatra comment earlier in the thread: I love Frank, but he really should have retired WAY before he did; he got really sloppy, it was awful. Ugh.

Billy is just trying to reclaim his youth.

Ain't happening.

[GulDukat]

As a response to your Sinatra comment earlier in the thread: I love Frank, but he really should have retired WAY before he did; he got really sloppy, it was awful. My Mom was a lifelong Sinatra fan (she just turned 80) and she saw him in Vegas in his late years and she really wished she HADN'T, it took her a long time to erase that from her memory.

Yeah, I know someone who saw him in 1990 and said he forgot some of the words. I have some shows from the late 80's and he still sounds pretty great. He was probably more hit-or-miss in his last few years of touring. I did rather enjoy his Duets albums from the early/mid 90's.

[allegro]

Yeah, I know someone who saw him in 1990 and said he forgot some of the words. I have some shows from the late 80's and he still sounds pretty great. He was probably more hit-or-miss in his last few years of touring. I did rather enjoy his Duets albums from the early/mid 90's.

Even THAT was pretty heavily-processed, ham-fisted Phil Ramone production, and he was never in the room with the other people doing the duets.

I'm just saying that holding out Sinatra as an example of creativity in a Billy Corgan thread isn't really all that genuine; Sinatra contributed his own sense of timing and phrasing, but he never wrote a song, never wrote lyrics, and he was always very careful to credit all of people who did, including the arrangers and conductors and orchestras and all of those who made him look good.

Sinatra was more of an actor, taking a play and a script and giving it his own performance.

But he wasn't writing the plays. And he was careful to point that out, always.

[GulDukat]

Even THAT was pretty heavily-processed, ham-fisted Phil Ramone production, and he was never in the room with the other people doing the duets.

I'm just saying that holding out Sinatra as an example of creativity in a Billy Corgan thread isn't really all that genuine; Sinatra contributed his own sense of timing and phrasing, but he never wrote a song, never wrote lyrics, and he was always very careful to credit all of people who did, including the arrangers and conductors and orchestras and all of those who made him look good.

Sinatra was more of an actor, taking a play and a script and giving it his own performance.

But he wasn't writing the plays. And he was careful to point that out, always.

A poster said something about artists losing something in their 30's and I pointed out that Sinatra peaked, creativity, later on, in his 40's. And of course other people assisted Frank with his music, but he was still the chairman and he was an artist. As far as Duets goes, other people have made the same criticisms and those are fair points, but I still enjoyed them.

[allegro]

A poster said something about artists losing something in their 30's and I pointed out that Sinatra peaked, creativity, later on, in his 40's.

That's the argument we are making, right there. The word "creativity." He wasn't doing anything creative. Other people were doing the creative part. Frank showed up and sang.


Rachmaninov wrote Prelude in G Minor and .

That doesn't make Evgeny Kissin "creative" in any sense of the word. It certainly makes him talented, but not creative.

We must not confuse "technique" for "creativity."

[GulDukat]

That's the argument we are making, right there. The word "creativity." He wasn't doing anything creative. Other people were doing the creative part. Frank showed up and sang.

I couldn't disagree more. It's like saying someone provided Leanardo da Vinci with a canvas and paint and told him to paint a broad with an awkward smile, and all he did was make the brush strokes. But maybe we should take this to the Sinatra thread.

[allegro]

I couldn't disagree more. It's like saying someone provided Leanardo da Vinci with a canvas and paint and told him to paint a broad with an awkward smile, and all he did was make the brush strokes. But maybe we should take this to the Sinatra thread.

da Vinci was an actual artist who had to study fine art and who actually CREATED that art; it wasn’t paint-by-numbers and he filled in the colors.

Corgan writes the lyrics and the music, so he’s creating the music, not merely interpreting it.