[Joe Bananas]

As Siamese Dream approaches its twentieth birthday, and following on from the recent remastered editions of both Siamese Dream and Gish released by EMI, the time seems right to look back at this fabulous record, one of the greatest records of its time. Smashing Pumpkins' finest hour, and Billy Corgan’s insurmountable masterpiece.

Read the review here.

And start talking...and Tweeting!

[orchidaii]

Always enjoy reading your articles - I learn a lot about SP history :happy:/>

[snail33]

Joe Bananas, on 18 January 2012 - 07:21 AM, said:

As Siamese Dream approaches its twentieth birthday, and following on from the recent remastered editions of both Siamese Dream and Gish released by EMI, the time seems right to look back at this fabulous record, one of the greatest records of its time. Smashing Pumpkins' finest hour, and Billy Corgan’s insurmountable masterpiece.

Read the review here.

And start talking...and Tweeting!

except that he DID surmount it, on october 24, 1995.

[Joe Bananas]

Mellon Collie was mostly a great record, but it was no Siamese Dream. SD was Billy's pinnacle I think.

[frednirv632]

SD was mostly a great record, but it was no Mellon Collie. Mellon Collie was Billy's pinnacle I think.

:happy:/>

[LostSoul]

More of an opinionated article than anything. Some say SD is the top, others MCIS.

It is hard for me to say, but I'd end up going with Mellon Collie. It is more grandiose, and although there are a couple fillers, its diversity alone makes it stronger in my eyes.

"This was short-sightedness in its extreme, especially as Billy did sell out to some extent on the third album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, penning radio friendly unit shifters such as ‘1979’ and the endlessly irritating ‘Tonight Tonight’..."

It is fine to state your opinion in a review, as a review is exactly that. I just find this bit unnecessary. But HEY. Your review.

The singles may be overplayed as shit, but bad songs they are not. They play a part in the record, too. The Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness instrumental into Tonight Tonight is one of the best album openers I have heard. Every song on that album is excellent, save for (in my opinion) Cupid, Take Me Down, and Tales Of A Scorched Earth.

I hate when people rag on the singles for no reason other than the fact that they are popular. So, Disarm & Today weren't radio friendly unit shifters, then? Coulda sworn they were. Especially Today, what with that Visa ad in the last few years.

This post has been edited by LostSoul: 19 January 2012 - 07:25 PM

[Joe Bananas]

LostSoul, on 19 January 2012 - 07:23 PM, said:

More of an opinionated article than anything. Some say SD is the top, others MCIS.

It is hard for me to say, but I'd end up going with Mellon Collie. It is more grandiose, and although there are a couple fillers, its diversity alone makes it stronger in my eyes.

"This was short-sightedness in its extreme, especially as Billy did sell out to some extent on the third album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, penning radio friendly unit shifters such as ‘1979’ and the endlessly irritating ‘Tonight Tonight’..."

It is fine to state your opinion in a review, as a review is exactly that. I just find this bit unnecessary. But HEY. Your review.

The singles may be overplayed as shit, but bad songs they are not. They play a part in the record, too. The Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness instrumental into Tonight Tonight is one of the best album openers I have heard. Every song on that album is excellent, save for (in my opinion) Cupid, Take Me Down, and Tales Of A Scorched Earth.

I hate when people rag on the singles for no reason other than the fact that they are popular. So, Disarm & Today weren't radio friendly unit shifters, then? Coulda sworn they were. Especially Today, what with that Visa ad in the last few years.

I'm not ragging on the singles merely because they were popular, but the fact remains that the massive success of Mellon Collie was in some way down to the fact that the album was made more accessible to a broader, less focussed market by the mainstream radio and TV picking up on easy-on-the-ear songs like 1979 and Tonight, Tonight which didn't really reflect the first two albums. Much like the Verve did with Lucky Man and Bittersweeet Symphony. Disarm and Today were hardly unit shifters in the same way - have you considered the subject matter of them? - and did not garner the mass radio play that their successors from Mellon Collie did, certainly not in the UK at any rate. Tonight, Tonight reached number seven in the Uk charts (I think), Today and Disarm got nowhere near that and it would be churlish to suggest that that was because they were weaker songs, because they weren't. And the Visa advert was completely ill judged on a misinterpretation of the lyrics and happened years after Siamese Dream came out.

Mellon Collie was a fine, fine record, but not without it's flaws - overly long, punctuated as described above and would've been far better boiled down to one immense disc (containing Tales Of A Scorched Earth) rather than two simply good discs. Yes it had diversity, but being too diverse can take you off course here and there too...

This post has been edited by Joe Bananas: 20 January 2012 - 02:37 AM

[Fernando]

I think SD was better than MCIS in some points (mix/mastering for example), but the final product of MCIS is better and bigger than any SP album (Adore is my favorite though)

[astralweeks]

"1979" and "Tonight, Tonight" are pop songs, but they're easily two of the best pop songs of the past 20 yrs. I don't hear any artistic compromise in either case..

[soVerysadAboutyou]

SD was the greatest most wonderful thing that probably ever happened ever. i wished hoped and prayed that MCIS would surpass it. it didn't.

[Bountiful_Wasteland]

Yeah totally... http://www.smashingpumpkins.com/board_new/public/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes2.gif

[Inertia]

Joe Bananas, on 20 January 2012 - 02:36 AM, said:

LostSoul, on 20 January 2012 - 02:36 AM, said:

More of an opinionated article than anything. Some say SD is the top, others MCIS.

It is hard for me to say, but I'd end up going with Mellon Collie. It is more grandiose, and although there are a couple fillers, its diversity alone makes it stronger in my eyes.

"This was short-sightedness in its extreme, especially as Billy did sell out to some extent on the third album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, penning radio friendly unit shifters such as ‘1979’ and the endlessly irritating ‘Tonight Tonight’..."

It is fine to state your opinion in a review, as a review is exactly that. I just find this bit unnecessary. But HEY. Your review.

The singles may be overplayed as shit, but bad songs they are not. They play a part in the record, too. The Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness instrumental into Tonight Tonight is one of the best album openers I have heard. Every song on that album is excellent, save for (in my opinion) Cupid, Take Me Down, and Tales Of A Scorched Earth.

I hate when people rag on the singles for no reason other than the fact that they are popular. So, Disarm & Today weren't radio friendly unit shifters, then? Coulda sworn they were. Especially Today, what with that Visa ad in the last few years.

I'm not ragging on the singles merely because they were popular, but the fact remains that the massive success of Mellon Collie was in some way down to the fact that the album was made more accessible to a broader, less focussed market by the mainstream radio and TV picking up on easy-on-the-ear songs like 1979 and Tonight, Tonight which didn't really reflect the first two albums. Much like the Verve did with Lucky Man and Bittersweeet Symphony. Disarm and Today were hardly unit shifters in the same way - have you considered the subject matter of them? - and did not garner the mass radio play that their successors from Mellon Collie did, certainly not in the UK at any rate. Tonight, Tonight reached number seven in the Uk charts (I think), Today and Disarm got nowhere near that and it would be churlish to suggest that that was because they were weaker songs, because they weren't. And the Visa advert was completely ill judged on a misinterpretation of the lyrics and happened years after Siamese Dream came out.

Mellon Collie was a fine, fine record, but not without it's flaws - overly long, punctuated as described above and would've been far better boiled down to one immense disc (containing Tales Of A Scorched Earth) rather than two simply good discs. Yes it had diversity, but being too diverse can take you off course here and there too...

I've always enjoyed the SP fan base because of disagreements like these. :happy:/>
Anyways, it was a nice read by the way. I agree that SD is better than MCIS, but only by a tiny bit.

[Pisces Iscariot]

I love both albums! But i've got to say Siamese Dream for me is the better album, sure MCIS has more tracks and a wider range of songs and emotions but Siamese dream just flows perfectly from start to finish. Mellon Collie is still one of my favourite albums of all time but there is a couple of tracks that im not a fan of but it also has some of my favourite pumpkins songs, Galapogos,By starlight, Porcelina etc. But Siamese dream is just a perfect album! :cheers:/>

[Cundinama]

siamese dream got a 10.0 on pitchfork

[Inertia]

That's nice. What's even better is this score from Metacritic. The user score only got an 8.6 because some idiot gave it a 0 without any constructive reason to back it up.

[cookieshoes]

Joe Bananas, on 20 January 2012 - 02:36 AM, said:

I'm not ragging on the singles merely because they were popular, but the fact remains that the massive success of Mellon Collie was in some way down to the fact that the album was made more accessible to a broader, less focussed market by the mainstream radio and TV picking up on easy-on-the-ear songs like 1979 and Tonight, Tonight which didn't really reflect the first two albums. Much like the Verve did with Lucky Man and Bittersweeet Symphony. Disarm and Today were hardly unit shifters in the same way - have you considered the subject matter of them? - and did not garner the mass radio play that their successors from Mellon Collie did, certainly not in the UK at any rate. Tonight, Tonight reached number seven in the Uk charts (I think), Today and Disarm got nowhere near that and it would be churlish to suggest that that was because they were weaker songs, because they weren't. And the Visa advert was completely ill judged on a misinterpretation of the lyrics and happened years after Siamese Dream came out.

Mellon Collie was a fine, fine record, but not without it's flaws - overly long, punctuated as described above and would've been far better boiled down to one immense disc (containing Tales Of A Scorched Earth) rather than two simply good discs. Yes it had diversity, but being too diverse can take you off course here and there too...

I don't think the increased success of MCIS (over Siamese Dream) has much to do with anything other than the fact that Virgin was pouring insane amounts of money into the Pumpkins at that point. Siamese Dream was not promoted half as well as MCIS, because it was the Pumpkins break into the mainstream. And SD sold millions of records. That MCIS sold more copies, and had more singles that charted better has a lot to do with the promotion that went into the record, which capitalized off of the fanbase that was created by SD. Siamese Dream converted people into fans, and MCIS sold those same fans a more expensive item, while creating even more new fans based on the simple principle that people are most likely to get turned onto new music from "emerging" stars. That's what hype is. If the songs are about the same in quality as the breakthrough record (which they were), with a solid set of possible hits (which it had), the promotion can take the album to the next level (which it did). So, it's never a case of one album being more or less mainstream than the other. In fact, Siamese Dream was as mainstream as it got in 1993. "Alternative" was already a 3 year old term which many people had already started ridiculing. Nirvana's In Utero was already mocking "teenage angst" in September 1993, just two months after the Pumpkins put out Siamese Dream, full of Corgan's emotions about his troubled teen/childhood years. Corgan was 3 years late to the party, and other bands (Nirvana, Pearl Jam) had already moved on from the "angst" thing. That's what made those bands trailblazers in that regard, while bands like the Pumpkins, Radiohead, and Soul Asylum instead came off as mainstream "angst" wannabes. Once MCIS came out, the Pumpkins had successfully moved away from the angst and alternative tags, and were seen more as just another "big" band. "Big" bands do well with records sales, appearing on TV, collecting casual fans, and having their singles played a billion times on the radio. That's why "Tonight Tonight" was played as much as it was, not because the song or the band had suddenly sold out. They had already sold out before they had even made Siamese Dream.

[LostSoul]

cookieshoes, on 02 February 2012 - 09:52 AM, said:

I don't think the increased success of MCIS (over Siamese Dream) has much to do with anything other than the fact that Virgin was pouring insane amounts of money into the Pumpkins at that point. Siamese Dream was not promoted half as well as MCIS, because it was the Pumpkins break into the mainstream. And SD sold millions of records. That MCIS sold more copies, and had more singles that charted better has a lot to do with the promotion that went into the record, which capitalized off of the fanbase that was created by SD. Siamese Dream converted people into fans, and MCIS sold those same fans a more expensive item, while creating even more new fans based on the simple principle that people are most likely to get turned onto new music from "emerging" stars. That's what hype is. If the songs are about the same in quality as the breakthrough record (which they were), with a solid set of possible hits (which it had), the promotion can take the album to the next level (which it did). So, it's never a case of one album being more or less mainstream than the other. In fact, Siamese Dream was as mainstream as it got in 1993. "Alternative" was already a 3 year old term which many people had already started ridiculing. Nirvana's In Utero was already mocking "teenage angst" in September 1993, just two months after the Pumpkins put out Siamese Dream, full of Corgan's emotions about his troubled teen/childhood years. Corgan was 3 years late to the party, and other bands (Nirvana, Pearl Jam) had already moved on from the "angst" thing. That's what made those bands trailblazers in that regard, while bands like the Pumpkins, Radiohead, and Soul Asylum instead came off as mainstream "angst" wannabes. Once MCIS came out, the Pumpkins had successfully moved away from the angst and alternative tags, and were seen more as just another "big" band. "Big" bands do well with records sales, appearing on TV, collecting casual fans, and having their singles played a billion times on the radio. That's why "Tonight Tonight" was played as much as it was, not because the song or the band had suddenly sold out. They had already sold out before they had even made Siamese Dream.

I believe we've disagreed in the past, but hey, good post. I agree. :thumbsup:/>