Smashing Gish

A few years ago I really found an appreciation for The Smashing Pumpkins. I'd been tentatively checking them out around that time, but once I started talking to my friend Sarah about the band, her excitement for them had me tear down any preconceived opinions I had. Going in with an open mind, I was surprised with how much I really enjoyed Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness... but I got so caught up on that one record, and was hesitant to branch out any further. It's like the record was too perfect for me and I feared that listening to any other Smashing Pumpkins album was going to leave me disappointed.

Last year I finally took the leap and bought a copy of Siamese Dream because the vinyl looked so nice. Admittedly, it took me some time to really appreciate that album, but once it clicked, I came to really love it as well.

That left Gish as the only other early Smashing Pumpkins album that I wasn't familiar with. I've heard some people claim that this is their favorite Pumpkins record... and seeing that it was released in 1991, when I'd first checked it in recent years, I'd hoped it had some of that early 90's magic that would immediately draw me in... but it never really held my interest. When I saw that there was a new colored vinyl reissue happening for Gish this year, it brough back memories of my experience with Siamese Dream, and it made me excited to give it another try. I was planning on stopping by the record store last week, so prior to that I started to listen to Gish regularly to see if I really wanted to buy a copy... and very quickly I found that I really enjoyed it.

So when I stopped by Bull Moose to pick up the colored vinyl for Gish, I was surprised that I had another option as well. The metallic foil cover from the 2021 reissue was also in the rack and it looked so good, I suddenly didn't know which one I should buy. I did a quick search and found a few comments that the colored vinyl sound quality wasn't that great, but the foil cover edition seemed to generally get praise for how it sounded... so the metallic foil edition won out.