In praise of being ordinary

Rock groups often try too hard to be different. Music from the alternative rock group ‘The smashing pumpkins’ never really captured my interest musically, but their videos are wonderfully pythonesque. Their existing  web site  appears to have been marinating in some strange chemicals, suffering from trying too hard to be different.

Their lyrics however are as creative and imaginative as any anthology of poetry . In the album Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness, they start their song Muzzle with an observative line “I fear that I am ordinary, just like everyone”. Why should that be a problem? Perhaps they were trying to be ironic. After that admission to ordinariness they promised that album would be their last ‘conventional’ music. Their music seemed to go into decline from there, and they became very mundane- in the sense of being less than ordinary.