Sending Hearts To All My Dearies - A Tribute To The Smashing Pumpkins
One of the most instantly recognisable yet sonically varied artists of the past three decades, The Smashing Pumpkins (and their figurehead, Billy Corgan) became the voice for a generation of misfits and outcasts with their distinctive blend of shoegaze, grunge and metal. Anyone who had ears in the ‘90s was at least tangentially aware of the Pumpkins, with their landmark 1995 double album Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness spawning five massive singles, almost all of which are covered on Sending Hearts To All My Dearies(notably absent is ‘Zero’, which is my personal favourite of the singles from that album; though we do get a version of ‘Jellybelly’ so I’m happy either way).
Tame Impala kicks things off with a version of ‘Hummer’, an album cut from 1993’s Siamese Dream. It’s a relatively straightforward cover, but it captures the essence of the original and is simultaneously unmistakably the work of Kevin Parker, whose voice lends itself well to covering Corgan. The cover sounds like something that the Pumpkins might have made if the indie pop movement of the 2010s had happened a couple decades earlier.
Next, Yonaka add an extra dash of theatrics and gothiness to the classic ‘Today’ (which is saying something, considering the signature sound of The Smashing Pumpkins), while synthwave giants The Midnight and Carpenter Brut offer up electronic versions of ‘Tonight, Tonight’ and ‘Cherub Rock’ respectively. While the former represents the more blissed-out and vibe-focused side of the genre, the latter embodies the edgier and more aggressive side to achieve the heaviness of the original.
Barns Courtney (who is not Courtney Barnett) delivers a stripped-back dark folk version of ‘1979’, which is a suitable take on one of SP’s most famous and most mellow songs. Meg Myers’ cover of theLost Highwaysoundtrack standout ‘Eye’ is mostly faithful to the original, but adds some extra distortion and crunch in the electronics that injects a fresh sense of uneasiness to the song. Palaye Royale (whose debut album was produced by longtime SP guitarist James Iha) manage to make ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’ even heavier than the original by utilising vocal effects and harmonies that snarl and growl arguably better than Corgan.
Prog metal outfit Between The Buried And Me (who previously covered the Siamese Dream cut ‘Geek USA’ on their covers album The Anatomy Of) are back again with an appropriately heavy yet beautiful version of one of SP’s most aggressive songs, ‘Jellybelly’, and they do a masterful job of it. Alice Glass (ex-Crystal Castles) puts her signature witch-house spin on another soundtrack cut, ‘Drown’, which appeared in Cameron Crowe’s Singles.
Although The Smashing Pumpkins’ debut came out in 1991 and the height of their popularity came in the mid-to-late-’90s, many of the covers present here adopt a distinctly ‘80s approach to the songs, as is the case with Starbenders’ new-wave-laden version of ‘Tonight, Tonight’, which is decidedly more in-your-face than the prior version on this compilation. And as some of the songs start to repeat, we get a Nita Strauss version of ‘1979’, which is an instrumental that makes excellent use of Strauss’ virtuosic guitar skills.
UK duo Bones UK contradict the earlier Carpenter Brut cover of ‘Cherub Rock’ with a mostly acoustic version that almost recalls the wispy air of singer-songwriters like Elliott Smith and Alex G. Country-tinged jam band circuit darlings Moon Taxi give us a banjo-infused alt-country take on ‘Thirty-Three’ that would feel right at home in a trailer for a coming-of-age film set in the depths of Appalachia.
Closing out the compilation are Des Rocs with an orchestral version of ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’ and Urban Heat with their grimy industrial, yet dance-y, cover of one of my favorite Pumpkins songs, ‘Ava Adore’ (which I also plan to cover at some point).
I certainly would have expanded the song selection a bit were it up to me, but the covers on Sending Hearts To All My Dearies truly show the diversity of influence that The Smashing Pumpkins have had on artists of all genres and backgrounds, as well as the universal nature of Billy Corgan’s songwriting ability. This collection is sure to find a home with SP fans and the fans of each featured artist alike.
The album arrives digitally on 14 August, with a deluxe 2xLP vinyl release featuring multiple exclusive multi-color variants set for 16 October.