Smashing Pumpkins celebrate 25 years of “Mellon Collie”

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Photo via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons license

This year marks the 25th anniversary of The Smashing Pumpkins “smash” hit album

Phoenix Wiggett, The Delphi Staff

In 1995, the grunge and flannel era that had dominated the US was nearing it’s inevitable end, but not completely gone. The Alt-rock and grunge-rooted band, The Smashing Pumpkins, formed in 1988 by William Patrick (Billy) Corgan, D’arcy Wretzky, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlain, would fix that by weaving together their biggest (literally and commercially) album yet, ​Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness.​

With 28 songs and running just over 2 hours long, the album remains the band’s most successful, having topped the Billboard 200 and being certified diamond by the RIAA. Featuring a wide array of instruments (including salt shakers, piano, cellos and violins), ​Mellon Collie ​was one of the most ambitious albums of the era, blending several genres of very different music into a masterwork. This year, the album celebrates 25 years of its release.

Exploring some of the most primordial aspects of human nature, ​Mellon Collie​ has several overarching themes, mainly of love, anguish, hate, human emotion, and, perhaps most importantly, the coming of age. Corgan wanted to target the album to listeners between ages 14-24, as he felt he needed a way to say all of these things but never could. These themes are portrayed in many different ways throughout the album, from the harp-charged, bittersweet ​”Cupid de Locke” ​to the vast extremes of noise-filled chaos with “​An Ode to No One” a​nd “​X.Y.U.,” t​o the uplifting, hopeful, and ethereal ​”1979.” Each song will have you guessing whether you’re even listening to the same album anymore. This, combined with the oversight of legendary producer Flood and eight months of effort, make ​Mellon Collie ​one of the most recognizable albums from the 90s.

Mellon Collie s​pawned a total of five singles due to its extreme length, and perhaps the most remembered of them is “​Bullet with Butterfly Wings,” a​ hard rock, guitar-heavy anthem about the stress of being musically famous. This first single was purchasable a day after the album’s UK release. An expressively angry song, ​”Bullet with Butterfly Wings” ​would become the ​Pumpkins’ second highest charting song, eventually landing at 22 on the Billboard 100. The next chronological single and highest charting song, ​”1979,” i​s a stark contrast to the anguish present on much of the album, fueled by drum machines and samples, a rarity for the ​Pumpkins, and an irresistibly happy guitar rhythm. Lyrically, however, the song details the transition from youth into adulthood in a fittingly melancholy way; ​”1979″ ​was the year frontman Billy Corgan was 12, which he declares was his transition. To date, the ​Pumpkins ​have never surpassed the song’s Billboard 100 position (12), but that doesn’t mean they haven’t done a marvelous job at making music ever since.

But what are the ​Smashing Pumpkins ​doing now? Currently, after several breakups, the band has since reunited with three of it’s original members as of two years ago, with their release ​Shiny and Oh So Bright Vol.1/Lp: No Past, No Future, No Sun.​ Scheduled to release November 27th is ​Cyr, a​nother tumultuously long double album with a vastly different twist of genre. From the songs that have been released, ​Cyr​ sounds similar to that of the synth-poppy, New Order and Tears for Fears-esque albums that shaped the 80s, and it’s delightful. Releasing with the album is a five-part, short animated series featuring songs and singles from the album itself that tell their own story, an idea Corgan has wanted to do since 2000.

A diamond-certified album is no small feat, and to have it be a double album is fathoms more unlikely. But the ​Pumpkins​ have never been one to conform to societal normalcy. Almost as if through a miracle, the band created one of the most popular, iconic, and ambitious hits of the 1990s, and they are still producing great music to this day.

Be sure to look out for ​Cyr​ and any other singles it may spawn.