The Smashing Pumpkins, over their turbulent years, have made numerous awesome songs.
Gish
- "I Am One."
Jimmy Chamberlin establishes his now-legendary drumming blitzkrieg and the guitars rage forward with huge riffs and multiple great solos. - "Rhinoceros." Grunge loved the quiet / loud formula, and the Pumpkins were no different, hypnotizing you with an exceptionally pretty ballad for a couple of minutes before the volume suddenly goes way up out of nowhere. A minor masterpiece in its own right and a hint toward even prettier stuff on the next album.
Siamese Dream
- "Cherub Rock": Loud, fuzzy, and riff-heavy alt-rock / shoegaze. Considered to be the definitive sound of the Pumpkins at the time. It's also a GREAT Take That! towards all the close-minded Indie sorts who accuse them of selling out and wrote them off.
- "Mayonaise": A readers poll in Rolling Stone stated this was the band's best song. Keep in mind, the poll was taken in 2012. Even some people who hate the band admit to liking this song in particular.
- "Today": One of the released singles as well as one of the band's greatest hits.
- "Disarm": Also a single as well as another of the band's more popular songs.
- "Soma": A borderline epic song that seamlessly switches from quiet introspection to downcast heaviness while remaining oddly beautiful and uplifting yet melancholy at the same time.
- "Hummer": Easily the most acclaimed song on the album that no one's heard about. In its 7 minute runtime, it provides a seamless musical experience that could give many Progressive Rock albums a run for their money, culminating in what could be the most beautiful 2 minutes of music ever recorded.
- "Rocket": One of the more commercially recognized tracks on this album, and rightfully so; it's full of Epic Riffs that melt into one another seamlessly, tied together with uplifting lyrics about living a life that you cut out for yourself.
- "Silverfuck": A nearly 9 minute metal jam which shows just how heavy the group could get. Live versions were known to stretch out for 40+ minutes
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
- "Tonight, Tonight": Another uplifting yet melancholy tune, with soaring strings to boot; it manages to go from brooding, low-key verses to a truly epic, yearning chorus without actually getting much louder. It's also got an epic music video as a nice bonus, starring real-life husband and wife Tom Kenny and Jill Talley (both of whom would go on to work on Spongebob Squarepants) as a couple who go on an adventure which pays homage to Georges Méliès films in generalnote and A Trip to the Moon in particular.
- "Jellybelly" and "Zero": Twin heavy rockers that are placed consecutively on the album and both have truly great, heavy riffs.
- "Bullet with Butterfly Wings": One of their biggest songs. It boasts another Epic Riff, and a ridiculously memorable chorus. Sing along now:Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage...
- "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans": Epic Rocking at its finest. This one's got everything from heavy riff action to ethereal mellowness and some weird processed sounds to top it off.
- "1979": Arguably the band's best-known tune, and proof that they can make very effective music with the distortion turned down. It's also oddly danceable, despite its overall bittersweet feel.
- The band's stabs at dream pop and synth-pop include the ethereal "Cupid de Locke" and the delicate love song "Beautiful". Both highly overlooked, deep cuts on their respective discs.
- James Iha's contributions to the band are often unfairly overlooked, but Mellon Collie holds two of his best tracks, the haunting but dream-like ballad "Take Me Down" and "Farewell and Goodnight", a tender lullaby which features all four members (including the only recorded vocal of drummer Jimmy Chamberlin) on lead vocals.
- The goofy, but irresistibly catchy music hall ditty "Lily (My One and Only)" shows that even amongst the doom and gloom of their music, The Pumpkins could still have a laugh.
Adore
- "Ava Adore." One of the band's catchiest, most twisted grooves and one of the precious few songs that makes "you'll always be my whore" sound like classic romance.
- "For Martha," about the death of Corgan's mother. A slow-burn of Epic Rocking that begins as first-rate piano balladry before finally exploding into a release of guitars. Likely one of the most powerful songs Corgan ever wrote.
- On the surface, "Once Upon a Time" is just a catchy folk pop song, but looking deeper shows it's an emotional and heart-wrenching pine to Billy’s mother.
- "Tear" was originally written for Lost Highway, but director David Lynch rejected it in favor of "Eye". You can still hear that grandiose soundtrack feeling Billy was going for.
Machina: The Machines of God
- "The Everlasting Gaze" returned to the heavy rock after the mellower Adore, with fuzzy guitars, a shoegaze-y chorus, along with Jimmy Chamberlin's return to the kit being felt with his dominating drumming. It was the perfect album opener and lead-off single, showing that they still could rock out after the lighter previous album.
- "Stand Inside Your Love" is a hypnotic love song, done in the classic Pumpkins' style and showing Corgan's songwriting ability at its most potent.
Other
- "Eye", the song that was accepted instead of "Tear", gives us an early taste of what their next sound would be.
