Is it a “reunion” if you don’t reunite and never use the word?
October 20th, 2008 by jjbtags: wikipedia, revival, billy corgan, interview
Talking to Press Association Ltd. at the Spike awards, Billy Corgan reflected on a time when all went wrong:
It was interesting in a sense that we got a lot of things put on us that we didn’t ask for.
Like we never said reunion, we just said we’re gonna put the band back together and see who wants to do it.
Then it became ‘oh, these aren’t the original members’. Well, we never said it was going to be the original members.
Despite my efforts to avoid the word reunion, it has cropped up on HU from time to time. I think it is an inappropriate term not only because Corgan never used the word but primarily because no one reunited…Corgan and Chamberlin were never apart. Obviously, though, the press has used the word liberally — and even the band’s Wikipedia entry claims that “In April 2006, the band officially announced that it was reuniting”, the seeming inaccuracy of that statement and an effort to correct it not withstanding the one-man wikiocracy of user WesleyDodds:
Yes, it’s still a reunion, even if Corgan didn’t use the word
October 20th, 2008 at 11:52 am
LOL. *throws down the gauntlet* WesleyDodds, speak now or forever hold on to your authoritarian wikirule.
I think using “reunion” (though guilty of it myself) is just a lazy way of saying the band reformed. It slips off your tongue much more easily, like your high school reunion. Or your family reunion. But the Man Himself pretty much says WesleyDodds is Wrong with a capital W.
Does he run a super-secret fanblog that we haven’t discovered yet?
Oh, reCAPTCHA, why doth thou tease me so: “music robbed”
October 20th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Reunion is defined as:
1. a. The act of reuniting.
b. The state of being reunited.
2. A gathering of the members of a group who have been separated
Aside from the sloppiness of defining a word using a form of the word that you are defining, what in that definition is an inaccurate portrayal of what the Pumpkins did?
To use the excuse that Billy and Jimmy never separated is silly. Maybe those two didn’t separate (though they each did their own solo projects, so I guess you have to determine how you want to define “separate”), but the fact remains that the Pumpkins as a band ended. The people responsible for making that music went on to other things and then returned to it. There are many ways to describe that, and I would say “reunited” is just as good as “reformed” (if not more so; look up the definition).
October 20th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
I don’t see a problem with using “reunited” instead of “reformed” UNLESS one is using “reunited” only to turn around and accuse Billy of not really doing what he said he was going to do with the Pumpkins.
If that makes any sense.
October 20th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
While they never said it would be all the original members, they also didn’t expressly say it would not be (i.e., James & D’arcy were invited to participate). If they had joined, would it have been inaccurate to say the band had reformed? Or would it then only be considered a reunion, even if the rest of the events since the band began performing had been identical?
It’s a fine line. Everything Billy says in that clip is correct, but technically I think the word “reunion” applies based on definition.
However, “reunion” in the world of music is used in a different context that often implies a nostalgia, backward looking approach (i.e., original members, playing the “hits”).
As usual, what the Pumpkins are doesn’t really fit a normal pattern.
October 20th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
melabonbon: I don’t see a problem with using “reunited” instead of “reformed” UNLESS one is using “reunited” only to turn around and accuse Billy of not really doing what he said he was going to do with the Pumpkins.
If that makes any sense.
Not only does it make perfect sense, but it gets right to the heart of why this matters. Usually the critics don’t spell it out though, i.e., no one says “Corgan specifically said ‘reunion’ but it’s not one!” Instead they skip the research and use insinuation, such as here, by Ben Sellers of the Fredericksburg (Va.) Free Lance-Star:
Note how the word reunion is emphasized with the quotation marks, implying that someone somewhere said it was a “reunion”. Whether that was the band, the band’s press agents, or errant members of the Fourth Estate is left unclear — but the context is one in which the band is being criticized, so what conclusion is the reader supposed to draw?
October 20th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
pins: Everything Billy says in that clip is correct, but technically I think the word “reunion” applies based on definition.
I sort of think it’s the other way around - technically I think the word “reunion” does NOT apply, but it’s understandable to use it casually so long as you’re not attributing its use to someone. But when the use of the word is called into question, you have passed from the realm of casual usage and are now actively considering whether it’s appropriate - and thus I don’t understand the insistence that the word is more accurate in the Pumpkins’ case than are words such as “reform” or “revive” or “renew” (the last two being words that Billy used).
The thing that muddies the waters, as always, is the use of the Smashing Pumpkins name. Does using the name in and of itself automatically make this a “reunion” and does that in itself imply a promise that there would be all the original members? (I’m asking.)
rC: “102 souvenir”
October 20th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
On a far more important note: Kevin Smith is sooooo fat that he broke his friend’s porcelain toilet and the contents of that toilet spilled out everywhere. He is now going on a serious and”fierce” weightloss program.
Now that’s news you can use.
October 20th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
jjb said:
The thing that muddies the waters, as always, is the use of the Smashing Pumpkins name. Does using the name in and of itself automatically make this a “reunion” and does that in itself imply a promise that there would be all the original members? (I’m asking.)
Is it possible for an entity (in this case, the Smashing Pumpkins) to reunite, but not all the people that comprised that entity to reunite? I guess that depends if you think my high school class reunion was really a reformation since I didn’t attend.
So to answer your question, I think the use of the name equals a reunion, but it should not imply all original members. But that’s purely my opinion. (Side note, would anyone call it a reunion if it was Auf Der Maur on bass? Where does the line get drawn?)
Also, with regard to the Free-Lance Star quote, I read the usage of “reunion” in that instance, not as an attributable quote, but as the fact it’s not a true reunion. The quotes being used to impart a quasi nature to the word. Though I understand the implication you’re making, and have certainly seen it used in the manner you describe elsewhere too.
October 20th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
pins: Also, with regard to the Free-Lance Star quote, I read the usage of “reunion” in that instance, not as an attributable quote, but as the fact it’s not a true reunion. The quotes being used to impart a quasi nature to the word. Though I understand the implication you’re making, and have certainly seen it used in the manner you describe elsewhere too.
This is why air quotes should never appear in written form. :) Sure, but I will say that if he intended your meaning, he could have written not-quite reunion or something similar instead of using quotation marks. To put it the way he did invites rather than discourages the reader from asking: “So who was it that was putting on this bullshit about it being a reunion?”
October 20th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
pins: Is it possible for an entity (in this case, the Smashing Pumpkins) to reunite, but not all the people that comprised that entity to reunite? I guess that depends if you think my high school class reunion was really a reformation since I didn’t attend.
Haha. But would it be a reunion if only the planners showed up?
In the Pumpkins case, it seems disrespectful to James and D’arcy for it to be termed a reunion, which is both why I’m glad the band did not call it that and — as the band specifically took care not to call it a reunion presumably for that same reason — why I think the Wikipedia entry should not say that “the band officially announced that it was reuniting”.
Not that what I think the Wikipedia entry should say has made any difference at all.
rC: “Spirited my”
October 20th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Maybe this will prompt an appropriate edit.
rC: “167th wide-brimmed”. Awesome.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Billy looks jaundiced.
October 20th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
i like to call it a “reimagining”, myself.
October 20th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Reimagining. Lol. Classic. They should have gotten Tim Burton in for that one. I for one would like to see Tim Burton’s The Smashing Pumpkins with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter taking James and D’Arcy’s spots.
Seriously though. If anything the media have been the ones who’ve drummed the word reunion into our heads.
October 20th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
then dont call it a 20th anniversary tour! they haven’t been together for 20 years even if they got all the original members together!
November 12th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
[…] guess WesleyDodds was right…either that, or whoever typed up the back cover verbiage didn’t get the memo on use of the […]