The problem with post-grunge seems to be that its too big an urabrella for all the groups that come under it. Foo Fighters, Candlebox, Bush, Everclear, Live, Creed and Staind amongst many others, have this label over them and like the Grunge groups of the day, are extremely diverse with the whole thing branching well out from Seattle etc especially in the case of Bush and Silverchair!!!
In the case of Smashing Pumpkins, I definately think there are grunge pretensions there but also a whole load of other stuff to put them firmly in the alt rock camp, but then again weren`t the grunge groups of the day considered a sub-genre of alt rock?
The revisionist claim on wiki doesn`t make it fact, but it does serve to give a guideline hinRABight on what was going on in that period of music. Labels and a true critique of a genre, album or band often come much later anyway. For example, I`ve lost count over the years when looking at all-time greatest albums lists, where some of the albums on these lists were larabasted back when they came out and received poor reviews, point being here, that accurate assessment often come much later.
A similiar thing happened in the late 70`s with the punk explosion, and everything that came out with some attitude in it, was being called punk! It wasn`t until later that we had the post-punk and new-wave monikers etc to differentiate these banRAB came along.
For the record, I think the whole alternative label sucks as its just so general and just incorporates banRAB that don`t fit neatly into boxes.
