Review: Smashing Pumpkins' 'Gish' -35th Anniversary Edition

Smashing Pumpkins debuted in the year of grunge, and though they fit in pretty nicely with that scene's predilection for grimy guitars and self-pity, there was something else going on. The scene lauded punk-level skills, but Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin were virtuosos, the latter seeming pretty well versed in jazz technique. Along with the noise typical of grunge, there were dreamy waves of psychedelia and goth. Plus Corgan had an innate sense of melody largely absent from grunge, with the exceptions of Kurt Cobain and Mark Lanegan. The Pumpkins were also capable of debuting with a remarkably consistent album that even Nirvana couldn't match with their own first effort. Though it doesn't swell with alterna-hits the way Smashing Pumpkins' next two albums would, Gish may still be their strongest album. At least it's my personal favorite.

Unlike a lot of other key nineties albums, Gish has remained pretty consistently in print since the vinyl revival got in gear some fifteen or so years ago. The available edition, mastered by Stan Getz, was well received for its dynamics, clarity, and punch, so I was a bit skeptical of the necessity of a new pressing for the album's thirty-fifth anniversary. Playing the old and new editions side-by-side through headphones, I was initially unconvinced that they even differed aside from packaging. 

Playing them through speakers revealed some pretty striking differences. I was one of the people who was always very impressed with Getz's pressing. Hearing it against the new one, it now sounds too mid-rangy and a touch muddy to my ears. The thirty-fifth anniversary remaster pops with clearer highs and more powerful lows. The bass can be a bit loud, but it never distorts. The depth of the soundstage is unmissable every time Chamberlin whacks a drum skin. There's a moment in "Suffer" in which the drums sound so present I felt like I could stand between them and Corgan's amp. The same passage is barely noticeable on the Getz pressing.

The new edition of Gish also differs from the one originally released in 2011 and repressed in 2021 because it uses the 1991 artwork, whereas the Getz one presented the cover in tones of purple on a foil-tip gatefold. The purple one was pretty cool, but the original cover appeals more to the purist in me, making this the ideal reissue of possibly the best debut LP of the grunge era.