The Beatles are the most influential rock band of the 20th Century.

I had once perceived this assertion as difficult to argue against, and while I am not necessarily arguing against it, I will offer an alternative view that The Smashing Pumpkins are the most influential rock band of the 20th Century.

The Smashing Pumpkins, then, are the most influential rock band of the 20th Century; and perhaps I should end it here, since influential is a semantic can of worms waiting to get kicked around until it spills a counterproductive mess of tangential pontification that reels on infinitely; but I will continue nonetheless, and I will even reduce the risk of any off-putting dogmatism that one might perceive as inherent in such a seemingly absolutist statement by instead postulating that the Pumpkins will, in retrospect, be considered the most influential rock band of the 20th Century.

Still, for many this will be unacceptable, since music often engenders—even in the otherwise indifferent and/or reticent—some very passionate views that one would normally associate with the heated ideologies that roil in a potentially combustible fashion beneath the sensitive surfaces of theology and politics.

Naturally there is a large contingent of Beatles champions who perceive their beloved band as untouchable, immune to criticism, and perhaps even brothers in arms with God in the exosphere of omnipotence; and of course one cannot discount the fervor of the Zeppelin and Floyd camps, who will back their bands with waving lighters and acid tracers that are sure to illuminate but ultimately burn to the ground any abstract lyrical poetry the Dylan devotees clutch onto until even beyond the reduction to ashes. And while these aforementioned artists comprise a collective brilliance that forms a sonic landscape as thrilling and inspiring as it is confounding and challenging—all of which are indeed attributes, if not requisite components, of what defines great art—these artists are not as relevant (or at least do not render the same impactful gravity) as The Smashing Pumpkins are today, their 20th Century birth a celebrated rearview occasion as their dynamic momentum carries them high above the well-cultivated sonic baseline whose fundamental elements date back to the rock roots of the 1940s.

While they are by no means an exclusive entity that has quietly served themselves up substantial helpings of the significant sonic elements comprising rock’s baseline, the Pumpkins fly high above the line by savvy virtue of some selectively filtered ones—bombastic arena rock (think of Geddy Lee & Co. rather than showers of Kiss fireworks), swirling 1960s psychedelia, and the accessibility of tastily-hooked pop—and one can begin to see why Billy Corgan is a master of the grand rock paradox:  utilizing the derivation of rock’s well worn past while successfully crafting a sound that is utterly unique and safely inimitable as its very own.

Nirvana is often cited as the band that—practically overnight—burned away the vacuous cloud of Aquanet under which Sunset Demi-Gods had long basked in their own day-glow glam of garish self-indulgence.  For “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was suddenly in perpetual rotation the world over, and not even an army of cock-rockers could stand up against Nirvana’s media-crowned grunge (and soon enough the larger umbrella of alt-rock) ring leader—this waifish, almost meek looking, young man named Kurt, awkwardly hunched over the mic and mumbling through a dirty blonde mop before erupting into an angsty wail that would confine cock-rockers to state fairgrounds until further notice.  Well, at least until they would at last be rescued by the nostalgic predilections of plastic-packing Gen-Xers who had begun to drop absurd amounts of green for original He-Man action figures on Ebay, and who ultimately made it possible for the massive hair metal reunion of Rocklahoma, a budding megaconcert tradition whose 2009 line-up boasts, among other illustrious performers of the day, Warrant and Night Ranger (to whose “Sister Christian” I can no longer listen without envisioning a scene-stealing Alfred Molina in Boogie Nights, as he plays air guitar to the song while high on crack, a young half-dressed Asian boy pacing nervously and letting off a string of firecrackers in the background) and the once long-forgotten Great White.  (Alas, no Winger and front man Kip, who is classically trained in ballet and well versed in the knockout combination of spandex and exposed chest hair.)

But for as much as Nirvana had contributed and will no doubt continue to contribute to our sonic landscape, their sound, much like that of Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, is comparatively static to what the Pumpkins generate with seeming effortlessness, and the bands didn’t much evolve into the dynamic promise that at one point felt imminent but instead remained forever on the verge.

The Pumpkins, whose driving forces are Billy Corgan, an accused Svengali (if only because he is competently versatile enough to be a one-man band), and the powerhouse drumming of Jimmy Chamberlin, his raw talent drawing frequent comparisons to both John Bonham and Keith Moon, have consistently displayed a compelling virtuosity capable of subverting genre pigeonholes and instead rendering a transcendent influence that finds itself entrenched as a substantial force in the musical landscape of both today—and presumably tomorrow—while also permeating our societal structure to the extent of functional transformation.

This transformative nature was evident primarily in the latter part of the 20th Century, as the psychedelic zeitgeist of the 1960s was revived with the invariable accompaniment of large-scale LSD availability, whose blotter has unfolded into the 21st Century, though not nearly to the extent of its mid 1990s peak, a time when its MDMA and psilocybin sisters were being given a similar amount of attention both in and out of the rave microcosm.

Just as the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane (and comparatively esoteric acts such as Country Joe and the Fish) made dropping acid a prerequisite to venue door entrance, the Pumpkins shows required hallucinogenic supplements as essential components to the listening experience, their absence akin to watching a 3-D movie without the appropriate viewing glasses.  And while most large alt-rock shows—particularly the long hauls of Lollapalooza style festivals—were fairly acid soaked, the Pumpkins shows rendered a more distinct psychedelic atmosphere that attracted a much greater collective of trippers who were, in addition to band devotees, an influential throng of Johnny Appleseeds helping to further define the Coupland-coined Gen-Xers who were beginning to live the Dr. Leary mantra of “Turn on, tune in, and drop out,” although the Xers were considered slackers rather than hippies, their existence based more on cynicism and instant gratification than disenchantment and activism, however false or empty some of that activism may have been at the time.

What astounds the most as The Smashing Pumpkins legacy transpires into the present day, are the numerous young rockers who cite the band as a primary influence on their work; and this, too, is manifest in the tribute bands—in the tribute albums—a phenomenon that strikes one as strangely premature, for the Pumpkins are still too contemporary for the reflective zeal out of which tribute albums typically materialize.  Premature and quite ghastly to boot, especially the Emo tribute for which Myspace Records is responsible (example:  The Bravery’s rendition of “Rocket”).  Or try if you dare “The Killer in You,” another tribute album in which one is treated to “Soma” by Poison of the Well, and “Today” by Armor for Sleep…  These questionable tributes and proud acknowledgment of influence is disconcerting on several levels, the most obvious of which is a seeming lack of respect, or else downright obliviousness, to musical forefathers.  Miles Davis, The Animals, Pink Floyd, even Captain Beefheart—where are they now?

But of course these are facts that make evident the power of influence beheld by the Smashing Pumpkins, an influence that should rather inspire young musicians to trace roots, to return to the beginning of that which makes their passion a reality today.  This trend, however, is ever present in all media, like the world of literature, where many young new writers (albeit the less successful ones) will cite Chuck Palahniuk and Bret Easton Ellis as their major literary influences (James Joyce?  James who?), and while I do believe that both authors, especially Ellis (still the perennial whipping boy for literary critics), will later be toasted as two of the more, if not necessarily most, influential authors of the 20th Century, the trend is no less disturbing.

So while I do indeed believe that The Smashing Pumpkins are—or at least will be considered—the most influential rock band of the 20th Century (due also, it should be noted, in no small part to Corgan’s business savvy that has made The Smashing Pumpkins a brand name that nevertheless manages to present itself as predominantly on the art side of the precarious fine line that at once separates and adjoins art and commerce), such an ostensibly high honor is potentially fraught with dubious explanations, and while society at large and fellow artists alike are influenced to the extent that well enough justifies the status, the concept of influential is nonetheless not synonymous with achieving greatness, or profound importance, for that matter; but more significant still, descriptions such as influential—and great and important—are all somewhat arbitrary and certainly subjective enough so that in the end, whichever artist is positioned atop the list of many, the perceived relevance that is capable of translation into the concept of influence should foremost be personal in nature and inspirational—as admittedly The Smashing Pumpkins are to yours truly—to one’s own mission in life, regardless of the pervasive critical seduction that reduces the artist to mere categorization material.

Nevertheless, the Smashing Pumpkins are the most influential rock band of the 20th Century; or at least they will, in retrospect, be considered so—and this is my humble opinion today; and while many will disagree, consequently moving the debate ever onward, their own views on the matter need not change; and if their views do in fact change, or even manage to sway, or if they continually vacillate from one artist to another, then so much the better—so much the better for us: the listeners, the opinion-makers, the consumers; and so much the better for them:  the musicians, the bands, the creators of what we love and on which we rather subjectively expound.