This week’s song was suggested by a reader. Thanks, Dexter!
The Smashing Pumpkins’ 1995 double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was, in some respects, the biggest album of the 1990s. Not the best-selling, or the most popular, or the most acclaimed. But its hugeness was undeniable.
Twenty-eight songs.
More than two hours of music.
Artwork that evoked renaissance ideals and the mysteries of the universe. Not-so-subtle themes of day and night, life and death, everything and nothing.
If Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994 was the death of “Grunge,” then 1995’s Mellon Collie was its funeral. It stands in music history as a mid-decade monolith, a clear divider between the front and back halves of the decade.
One of the ways Mellon Collie was “big” was in its sound, and that was probably my own reason for liking it as a kid. Billy Corgan was a legendary architect of guitar tone. The thickly layered fuzz that made their first appearance on Siamese Dream in 1993 was like a grunge interpretation of Phil Spector’s 1960s “wall of sound.” I remember being mesmerized by that guitar tone, and trying to find just the right combination of pedals and amp settings to reproduce the sound on my own modest gear.
My love of the Smashing Pumpkins faded over the years, and I began to realize that while Corgan’s guitar tone was delicious hot butter, his singing voice was – and I really struggled to find the right metaphor here – a wasp riding a chainsaw straight through my eardrums. I realize that might be an unpopular opinion among Smashing Pumpkins fans, but you have to admit that there’s a real love-it-or-hate-it quality to Corgan’s twang.
In 2012, Mellon Collie was reissued, including 64 (sixty-four!) previously unreleased tracks; demos, outtakes, and pretty much anything Corgan recorded in the Mellon Collie sessions. This track, an early version of one of my favourite songs from that massive mid-nineties record, is one of them.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. It relies on Billy Corgan’s strength (his ability to create dreamy soundscapes) while avoiding his weakness (singing).
2. The amount of delay on the guitars is enough to make U2 jealous.
3. The strings that come in after the first minute are just cheap keyboard strings. Corgan probably knew that if he wanted to release it on the real album he could just hire a symphony orchestra, but he didn’t because it was just a demo. That image – of Billy Corgan being uncharacteristically understated because he’s by himself messing around with guitar pedals – is something I can’t get out of my head while listening.
Recommended listening activity:
Listing the five biggest turning points in your life.