Blast from the Past: Smashing Pumpkin's Siamese Dream

I once saw Smashing Pumpkins at Radio City Music Hall. It was during the Adore tour and Billy Corgan came onto the stage from the side riding a huge organ. It was a very cool moment, but the show was just okay from that point on. They refused to play anything off of Siamese Dream, and the rest of their fans didn't seem to mind this fact in the least. Personally I could have gone with a lot less of the new stuff that day and a lot more of the stuff that actually rocked!

I have no actual memory of hearing Smashing Pumpkins for the first time, it was probably on the radio somewhere and the song was most definitely "Today", but what I was doing, where I was, nothing like that immediately springs to mind. Such was the fate of Smashing Pumpkins as a whole. Their music was always pretty solid for the most part, but it was never so unbelievably awesome that you could vividly recall hearing it for the first time. Not like some of the other bands of those times like Nirvana or Pearl Jam or even Green Day. Those ones I can picture, I can hear it, I can frame everything about those moments, but somehow Smashing Pumpkins gets lost in the shuffle. It's kind of unfortunate, Siamese Dream is a solid album from start to finish with a few outstanding songs, a couple of okay ones, and a few that no one would miss if they never heard them again. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is an okay record too, but try to really remember listening to these back in the 90's and I'll say it's a tough feat to pull off.

When Siamese Dream finally hit record stores Nirvana was well on their way to recording their second great album, Pearl Jam was a mainstream hit, even Soundgarden was quickly building steam, and here comes this band that got lumped in with all those grunge acts that sound nothing like the grunge bands. Instead Smashing Pumpkins were experimenting with elements of prog rock and shoegaze, and no one even cared enough to notice that about them. They just knew they were alternative and so they must by that logic be grunge as well. It was sad, but it really goes a long way to explaining the whole Smashing Pumpkin story. This band fought all the time, the had drug addicts and control freaks and an ex-couple in the midst and had so much trouble just putting out one record that it's pretty remarkable they lasted as long as they did. Now people will say the episode that they guested on The Simpsons was the best thing they ever did with their career, and it's tough to argue that fact.

Still, if you listen to Siamese Dream these days, and I'm sure some of you still do occasionally, you will notice so much more about this music then you did in the past. You'll notice little things that were radically different from the dominant sounds of their times, things that sort of paved the way for some of the bands we listen to today but that no one will give them credit for. This was once considered a really good record and I'm sure there are still a few fans out there that feel that way, but there is just nothing completely memorable about it at all. It's kind of sad.
Smashing Pumpkins - "Cherub Rock"
Smashing Pumpkins - "Today"
Smashing Pumpkins - "Disarm"
Smashing Pumpkins - "Mayonaise"