25 years ago: The Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

25 years ago today, on October 23, 1995, the Smashing Pumpkins released their double album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

This was only their first studio album after their breakthrough album, Siamese Dream (1993), and the scope was daunting. 2 discs. 28 songs. Over 2 hours. 

People always say a double album should've been cut down to a single album. But there's almost nothing on Mellon Collie that I would've like to see cut. It isn't perfect — maybe they could've replaced the weakest song on each disc with a couple outstanding B-sides. The Smashing Pumpkins have never been perfect. But this album achieved something nothing else in the '90s did. It feels like both an exciting culmination of the alternative rock explosion of the early to mid-'90s, and a poignant goodbye before rock would take a mostly unfortunate turn in the second half of the '90s.

Mellon Collie had several hits, but what makes this album so amazing is that even if you took off all the hits, you'd still be left with more than a whole album's worth of great material.

First, some of the hits:

"Tonight Tonight":

"Bullet with Butterfly Wings":

"1979" (the band's biggest hit and a new direction for them at the time):

Now here are some of the other songs. It's unfathomable to me that these could be seen as "album tracks" or "deep cuts," instead of highlights from the album and band.

"Galapogos":

 

"Thru the Eyes of Ruby":

 

"Porcelina of the Vast Oceans":

 

"Muzzle":

"And I knew the silence of the world…"

The 100 Best Songs of the 2010s (81-90)

Continuing with my list of the best songs of the 2010s…

(Click here for the whole list so far, with a Spotify playlist.)


90. Rihanna (feat. Calvin Harris) — "We Found Love"

This is really a study in minimalism, seizing on one emotionally resonant line and repeating it over and over as the foundation of the song:

We found love in a hopeless place

(Piano-based cover.)




89. Phoebe Bridgers — "Motion Sickness"

She sings the first two lines with such pure directness:

I hate you for what you did

But I miss you like a little kid

(Live.)




88. Young the Giant — "Superposition"

(A more stripped-down version.)




87. Temples — "Hot Motion"




86. Dirty Projectors — "About to Die"

A band that seems constantly comical, yet serious.




85. Rose Windows — "Wartime Lovers"




84. Metallica — "Halo on Fire"

(Mini-documentary on the making of this song.)




83. Arcade Fire — "The Suburbs"




82. The Smashing Pumpkins — "Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts)"

So many of the great '90s rock bands have lost their lead singers, forcing them to either disband or reinvent themselves with new singers. So it’s good to see other '90s bands still going strong with most of their original members, like Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and the Smashing Pumpkins. The Pumpkins are no longer doing their best work after 3 decades, but they haven’t run out of inspiration.

(My blog tribute to Billy Corgan.)




81. Japanese Breakfast — "Boyish"




<— 91 - 100

71 - 80 —>

Happy 50th birthday to Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins!

As I turn 36, I'm thinking of someone else born on St. Patrick's Day: Billy Corgan, who turns 50 today.

It's hard to know what to say about Billy Corgan. Any words would seem inadequate to describe someone whose music has loomed so large in my life. The idea of growing up and being in the 1990s without the Smashing Pumpkins is inconceivable; to think of myself in an alternate universe in which I had never heard their music is virtually impossible, because the word "myself" would no longer seem to apply. Billy Corgan, and especially his inimitable way with melody, has colored so much of my life that if you asked what it feels like to be me, I don't know that I could come up with words more accurate than listening to a Smashing Pumpkins song. To paraphrase Mendelssohn, it is not that the music is too indefinite or hazy to be put into words, but that any words would be too vague to express music that's so precisely definite.

As a singer/songwriter/guitarist, Billy Corgan is not just great. He's life-changing.

I shall be free!

The Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness turns 20

20 years ago today, the Smashing Pumpkins released what to me was one of those rare life-changing albums, my favorite double album not by the Beatles, an album so good I recently paid over $100 for the reissue: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Even if you put aside the string of hits — "Bullet with Butterfly Wings," "Tonight, Tonight" (click the embedded video below), "Zero," "Thirty-Three," "1979" — the number of amazing songs on this album is just staggering — "Muzzle," "Jellybelly," "Love," "Galapogos," "An Ode to No One," "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans," "Thru the Eyes of Ruby," "We Only Come out at Night," "Beautiful" . . .

And the top 5 grunge songs are...

4. The Smashing Pumpkins - Cherub Rock

Of all the bands on this list, the Smashing Pumpkins may be the one I most associate with the idea of freedom.

I don't think Billy Corgan is the greatest lyricist. I don't know or care what he's singing about. All that matters is that the song sounds like freedom.

Let me out!!!



(Click here for song #3.)

(Click here for the whole list.)

The 40 greatest grunge songs (20-16)

(Click here for the whole list.)


20. Veruca Salt - Seether

This music video gives you a nice little recipe for coming up with a breakthrough hit song:

1. Write a lot of parts -- verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge -- but don't use too many different chords.

2. Make sure the chorus is a hook that people can't get out of their heads.

3. Use vocal harmonies liberally.

4. Have two cute female singers.




19. Collective Soul - Shine

This is exactly the kind of song that will get me in trouble with the official arbiters of grungedom (watch out -- they're out there!) for putting it on the list. "How can you include that lame MTV hit but not the real grunge like Mudhoney / Screaming Trees/ Afghan Whigs / Archers of Loaf?!"

Well, because I've never heard a song by any of those bands that I remembered the next day. "Shine" is a song I'll always remember.

Being commercial and accessible doesn't subtract any points from you in my book. I just care whether something's a good song or not. And this is.

Yeah!




18. Nirvana - School

Nirvana was always a heavy band, but they were more uncompromisingly heavy before they switched to a major label. "School," from their first album, Bleach, gives a taste of their early period.

The entire lyrics to the song are:

Won't you believe it, it's just my luck
No recess
You're in high school again

17. The Smashing Pumpkins - I Am One

This is the first song from their first album, back when they were a straightforward rock band with minimal frills. Billy Corgan and James Iha actually showed off their guitar virtuosity -- a relic of the '80s that would become verboten in the '90s (and even more so in the '00s). You certainly don't hear two simultaneous shredding guitars anymore.

There's something wonderfully unironic about this song -- possibly related to its surprising religiosity ("Time is right for a guiding light...").




16. Meat Puppets - Backwater

A solid, no-nonsense, well-constructed rock song. That's all.





>>> Go to #15-11 >>>

The 40 greatest grunge songs (35-31)

It's Friday, which means another 5 songs from the grunge top 40.

(Click here for the whole list.)

A quick disclaimer, since the definitional boundaries of the list have drawn comment from around the blogosphere:

As I said last week, my goal is not to spend two months just providing a dictionary definition of the word "grunge." If anyone wants to make a list like that, more power to you — send me your blog post and we can compare our lists! (Church of Rationality has already accepted the challenge! Except instead of staying with "grunge" and narrowing the definition, he's taken the opposite route: switching from "grunge" to "alternative" and expanding the timeline.)

I'm trying to collect songs that fit in that general style (and time period) but that stretched the boundaries of grunge and milked it for all it was worth. If they stretch the boundaries past the breaking point so it's a whole other genre that you wouldn't even call "grunge," then ... cool!

But more important than any of that, the "grunge" premise wasn't intended to open up an academic debate on the proper use of the term (which could hardly be more antithetical to the whole idea of grunge) — it's just an excuse for me to make a list of music I like. If you like the songs too, then mission accomplished.

On that note, here's this week's installment:

35. Dig - Believe

This is how it's done: young people who are really adamant about something or other, with five chords and two great hooks.




34. Superchunk - Hyper Enough

The intro to this video is an all-too-accurate reminder of a thousand band practices. No envelopes being pushed here, just a great guitar lead and tons of energy.




33. Belly - Feed the Tree

Here's a twist: a song without a wall of distorted guitars. Clean grunge!




32. My Bloody Valentine - Only Shallow

I think this is the earliest song on the list. I've made a point of staying within the '90s. You could start looking for "seminal" grunge songs from the '80s, and then pretty soon you're listing tracks from the Velvet Underground and the White Album. This is from 1990 — ancient.

You have to give them credit for pretty much inventing the Smashing Pumpkins. Compare this song to the next one, "Rocket," which came out a few years later. (Of course, you'll notice I rated the Pumpkins higher than MBV. Originality isn't everything!)




31. The Smashing Pumpkins - Rocket

Guitar-fuzz ecstasy with a video about childhood that always gives me goosebumps.

This song has a beautiful production that couldn't possibly be captured on YouTube, so make sure to get out your copy of Siamese Dream, turn up the volume, and give it a listen.

I shall be free!



I highly recommend the Smashing Pumpkins music video collection on DVD — each song includes the official video + an alternate version + commentary by band members and others.

>>> Go to #30-26 >>>