Double albums are quite the double-edged swords: yeah, you might make history if you could pull it off like the legends, such as THE BEATLES, PINK FLOYD, LED ZEPPELIN, or THE WHO, but it is more likely to be a commercial suicide. That said, even some of the most über-famous endeavors by these elder gods of rock’n’roll tend towards being bloated. So, in this respect, it is quite peculiar how Billy Corgan and his alt-rock regiment THE SMASHING PUMPKINS not only sold the idea of a double whammy to Virgin Records some 30 years ago, but convinced the label that it was a good idea to put out a 2-hour monolith, comprised of 28 songs! Their previous outing, “Siamese Dream” (1993) had misplaced the band into the grunge realm, but the gargantuan offering, “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,” released on October 23rd, 1995, reached far beyond the confines of the Seattle sound, and, in doing so, it indeed became the “White Album” of 1990s alternative rock. It was the band’s first and only album that went number one on the Billboard charts, and it was nominated in seven Grammy categories, although it only won in one – “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” won the award for Best Hard-Rock Song. If releasing such a lengthy homage to the 1970s-tinted excess was a gamble for Virgin, it surely paid off. Part of the album’s charm probably stems from the fact that “Mellon Collie” is a band album, whereas the previous landmark effort was rumored to have been mostly Corgan micromanaging the songs into form. Upon the album’s release, the stylistic range and overall excellent songcraft made this effort stand out from its peers in such a way that it still ranks as one of the absolute best albums of the 1990s in my books.
The first disc bears the sub-heading, “Dawn to Dusk,” and is somewhat more mellow in its overall mood, whereas the second disc, “Twilight to Starlight,” contains most of the punchier, more metal-tinted bangers. Of course, some songs do not fall in line with this divide, but I reckon the album flows much more smoothly like this. The hits, live staples, and fan favorites are spread quite evenly on both discs. While the production of this monolith was just as modern as you could get in the mid-1990s, courtesy of producer legends Flood and Alan Moulder along with Corgan himself, the nostalgia for the 1970s was (and is) writ large across the album; it is most notably brought front and center in the anthemic, string-laced declaration of devotion, “Tonight, Tonight,” and the bittersweet, Alesis HR-16 drum machine-driven banger, “1979.” The latter has been dubbed one of the most quintessential 1990s rock songs, capturing the sense of boredom and rebellion of the disenfranchised youth of the era (yeah, that’s me, guilty as charged), while the former could have fit Elton John‘s vintage repertoire in some alternate timeline.
Attempting to single out the highlights is pretty pointless since there are almost no fillers whatsoever in this selection. Of course, “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” was such a big hit that you could not avoid hearing it on the radio at least half a dozen times a day in 1995. Not that we minded, though. I think it was the very song that hyped me up for the album back in the day. The lyrics were either seen as cringeworthy and juvenile takes on the dark side of fame (by Boomers, I presume?) or cited as a definitive account of the frustration of the slacker generation. Corgan has stated, however, that some of the lines were a joke. The chorus, for example, was reportedly written during a soundcheck for a cover of FLEETWOOD MAC‘s old hit “Landslide.” Oh, you slick little devil, you tricked us well…
A couple of tracks stand out by virtue of being something completely different, in terms of the band’s signature alternative aesthetic; “Cupid de Locke” is straight-up chamber pop, and “Porcelina of the Vast Oceans” is a dreamy epic that’s almost prog. In August, I finally had the privilege to see THE SMASHING PUMPKINS on stage for the first time, and the live rendition of this fever-dream prog-epic was one of the absolute highlights of that evening! Then, the last four or five songs on disc two are mostly mellow, synth-driven affairs altogether, which works quite nicely after a good run of beefy metal riffers. Speaking of which, there are ample grunge-worthy punch-ups on both discs – “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” “Zero,” and “Muzzle” usually get the honorary mentions, but songs such as “Bodies” and “Where Boys Fear to Tread” deserve the love just as much.
True, there is a lot to unpack in this affair. That’s why I don’t think I listened to anything else for a couple of weeks when this monster came out. The sprawling album length and genre-hopping are not for everyone, but for those with an acquired taste for grandeur and ambition of this scope, “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” will remain quite an inspirational and brilliant musical journey altogether. Now, it feels just as fresh as it did 30 years ago. Sure, for a battle-hardened GenXer, the mid-1990s may seem like the Golden Era of music, in retrospect, but, to paraphrase a popular meme: 1999 was described as being the peak of human civilization in The Matrix, and I’m sure we all laughed at the time because, obviously, that sentiment would not age well, and then the next 25 years happened. Maybe the machines had a point. For one thing, we don’t see albums like this coming out anymore, do we?
Written by Jani Lehtinen
Tracklist Disc One
- Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
- Tonight, Tonight
- Jellybelly
- Zero
- Here Is No Why
- Bullet With Butterfly Wings
- To Forgive
- An Ode to No One
- Love
- Cupid de Locke
- Galapogos
- Muzzle
- Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
- Take Me Down
Tracklist Disc Two
- Where Boys Fear to Tread
- Bodies
- Thirty-Three
- In the Arms of Sleep
- 1979
- Tales of a Scorched Earth
- Thru the Eyes of Ruby
- Stumbleine
- x.y.u.
- We Only Come Out at Night
- Beautiful
- Lily (My One and Only)
- By Starlight
- Farewell and Goodnight
Lineup
Billy Corgan – vocals, guitars, synths, piano, autoharp, co-production
James Iha – guitars, vocals, additional production
Jimmy Chamberlin – drums, percussion
D’arcy Wretzky – bass, vocals
Label
Virgin Records
