Artist
The Smashing Pumpkins
Song
Ugly (2 mins 53 sec)
Album
The Aeroplane Flies High compilation album (November 26, 1996)
Tempo
97 BPM
key
B Flat
Genre
Grunge/Alt-Rock
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/36447649″>The Smashing Pumpkins – Ugly</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user5915010″>Qgle</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
Overview
The Smashing pumpkins are an American Alt-Rock band from Chicago, IL the band formed in 1988 and risen to fame during the early 90s due to the hype of grunge taking over the mainstream media. The Smashing pumpkins gained slight critical acclaim from their first album release “Gish” which came out in May 1991. The album was a different sound to other up and coming bands that started to emerge from Seattle. The Smashing Pumpkins were more psychedelic and mixed a hand fall of genres such as metal, funk, folk and rock. While others bands started to slowly develop grunge by adding metal and punk, which saw The Smashing Pumpkins get overshadowed by bands like Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Nirvana. It wasn’t until the release of ‘Siamese Dream’ released in 1993 which was the year grunge became a household term around the world and skyrocket The Smashing pumpkins. ‘Siamese Dream’ was a slightly modified version of The Smashing Pumpkins sound, they still kept elements of psychedelic but evolved to the times during the 90s by adding a lot more angst to their sound by using overly heavy fuzzed out guitars and began to become more melancholy lyrically. The song that saw The Smashing Pumpkins gain critical success was the release of their first single “Today” which helped the band become a worldwide success.
In 1995 The Smashing Pumpkins release an album which saw them leave the realm of grunge and skyrocket to Alt-Rock stardom, this was the highly critically acclaimed double album “Mellon collie and the Infinite Sadness”. This was a much more grown up version of The Smashing Pumpkins, It’s an album that is full of human emotions with sounds to suit. The album goes from heavier songs like “Bullet with butterfly wings” and “X.Y.U”which are just a full on assault of distortion and angst to softer and more experimental songs like “Tonight, Tonight” and “1979” which feature a lot of acoustic elements such as guitar,bass, brushed drums, piano, and orchestral elements. The album raised in the charts and because of the death of Kurt Cobain the grunge movement slowly died out which helped The Smashing Pumpkins become a household name. The Smashing Pumpkins had few more successful albums after the release of “Mellon collie and the Infinite Sadness” but disbanded in 2000. After 7 years the bands did reform and are still active to this day but have had a lot of member changes over time, the only remaining member left is the sole founder Billy Corgan which sure the band removing ‘The’ from their name, to show a new age of The Smashing pumpkins.
Ugly
With the release of “Mellon collie and the Infinite Sadness” came a series of E.P’s which featured demos and B-sides tracks that didn’t make it to the double album. The E.Ps were released in a 6 CD box set called ‘The Aeroplane Flies High’. Ugly comes from the ‘1979’ E.P which features the same of the same name. They are many different Demo and B-side version online of Ugly the one I have chosen was the final released version that made it to the box set.
Below are a few different versions
Musical Influences
The Smashing pumpkins influenced by many different genres of music and it shows. They take musical elements from Metal, Rock, Folk, Shoegaze, Prog, and even Electronica. Some of the bands that the list as their influences is Rush, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne, Pantera, Queen, and Soundgarden.
Music Theory
For this track, The Smashing Pumpkins are playing in the Key of B Flat minor and tuned to E Flat which gives the song that overall angst and dark feeling. I found out the key of this song by playing around with tuning my guitar down to E flat and played with minor chords to find the right pitch. Then I got my metronome out to find the Tempo of this track. which I worked out to be quite a low tempo. The tracks tempo is 97 BPM in a 4X4 beat. To make sure that I’m on the right path with key’s and tempos, I always check other youtube videos and use https://www.audiokeychain.com/ which allows you upload the song of your choice and it will break down the Key and BPM as well.
I have also laid out the songs structure using Variation timeline which is a free program. It helps you really work out the songs patterns and structure.
file:///Users/lloydedgar/Desktop/Ugly/Ugly%20-%20The%20Smashing%20Pumpkins.html
http://variations.indiana.edu/use/index.html
The Sound Stage
The sound stage is quite big for such a simple track, The guitar is panned to a wide stereo effect, it takes over the whole track and really drives the song. The vocal sits directly in the center along with the Bass and kick drum. When the second guitar plays it’s also centered but push back within the mix which gives the song have a depth.
Instrumentation
In this section, I will be talking about Timbre and the frequency of each Instrument, which will help you understand what I’m explaining. Please just follow this easy to understand spectral chart.
please go and check out my other post regarding this and other topics covered in this section.
Framework to help Critical listening
Vocal
I feel the vocals has a lot of presence and bite to it this is the way Corgan sings in his signature whiny vocal style. From listening to other takes by The Smashing Pumpkins I feel Billy likes his vocal to be quite bright and bitey. I feel they would have boosted the 5 kHz range giving it that presence and bite. You can also hear that Billy has a slight vocal sibilance in some of his vocal. I feel they would have brought down the High frequency by 10k to stop any hiss or sibilance. Overall it’s a smooth vocal take, it has a slight reverb tail which nd quite abruptly after each note.
Bass
The bass in this track is very deep and sits at the 60 to 80 Hz range giving it that bottom end that hits you in the chest, it’s almost sub like I feel like they would have cut all the highs out by using a low pass filter in an extreme setting only allowing the 100 Hz range to come through. Even know the Bass sits in the center of the track it’s been pushed back to sit behind the vocal and guitar. Is could have been done using a volume trim tool or a separate parrell aux with a large reverb to help give it depth.
Guitar
The guitars are what you expect from a band like The Smashing Pumpkins shape, dirty, high and sitting at the 2.5kHz range. I like the way the guitar also has no Reverb which gives it that menacing feeling within a mix full of depth. Because of how wide the guitar is in the stereo field I feel they would have used the 20/40 delay panning technique. It also sounds like it been cut off on the highs to stop it from being so bitey. They also might have placed a low pass filter to cut anything around the 1oohz mark.
Kick
Even know the kick only plays during the chorus it has a lot of depth and helps give the bass the extra push and boom, I think this is the way the bass sounds sub like. I feel they would have boosted the 60 to 80 Hz to give it bottom end and used a high pass.
Snare/clicks
During the track, there is a constant snare pop that has a high snap it almost sounds like a finger click. It’s a nice effect and works well with the simplicity of the track. You can here the stick bounce on the metal which is really nice to the ear. I feel to give the snare pop that stick/finger click effect they have boosted 4 kHz to get that sizzle.
Refrences
Alex Marvik. (2012, December 8).[HQ] The Smashing Pumpkins – Ugly (Sadlands Demo) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyVlZG4NpI4
fry133. (2013, July 29).[HQ] Smashing Pumpkins – Ugly (Gravity Demo) (2013) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_0UkAwiEdo
SmashingPumpkinsVEVO. (2011, August 2).The Smashing Pumpkins – Bullet with Butterfly Wings [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-r-V0uK4u0
SmashingPumpkinsVEVO. (2011, August 2). The Smashing Pumpkins – Today [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmUZ6nCFNoU&list=PL23RUtoUrDh83PBQ7igKJDRrkfqkHcw0j&index=8
SmashingPumpkinsVEVO. (2011, August 2).The Smashing Pumpkins – Tonight, Tonight [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOG3eus4ZSo
Qgle. (n.d.).The Smashing Pumpkins – Ugly [Video file]. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/36447649
Lloyds World of Audio 