A Year of Blind Spots: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die:

Siamese Dream, the Smashing Pumpkins' first mainstream album, had enjoyed both critical acclaim and reasonable commercial success, but its sequel, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, more frequently ranks as the band's best. Impressively, Mellon Collie made its mark without abandoning the emotional revelations and complexities of its predecessor. Comprising two disks, respectively named "Dawn to Dusk" and "Twilight to Starlight," the album covers the full spectrum of human emotion. Mellon Collie is a model of contemporary alternative songwriting, from the opening self-titled track, consisting of nothing but arresting piano, to the mournful and longing symphony of strings in "Tonight, Tonight," and the raging, bitter grunge rock of "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" and "Zero."

Following its release in 1995, a tumultuous series of events propelled the album and band alike into the public eye. Within twelve months, they achieved seven Grammy nominations, touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvin died of a heroin overdose, and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin was arrested for drug possession and fired from the band. Further, in many controversial interviews, singer Billy Corgan criticized his peers for failing to push musical boundaries. It is, however, undeniable that in creating Mellon Collie, Corgan effortlessly ventured into new territories and emerged with one of the most beautiful albums in rock's history.

Joe:

What I can say with full certainty is that this is someone's favorite album of all time. What I can say with almost full certainty is that there are a LOT of people, especially those who were at a formative age in 1995, who still consider this their favorite album of all time. What I can say with slightly less certainty is that, after a full week of as many listens of this two-hour album that I could manage, it is my favorite album of all time. It's not, but damn, I'm walking into the weekend feeling such a strong feeling about this fucking thing that I can't help but reflect on what life would look like if it was my Favorite. The image isn't too hard to see.

This is the stuff that Favorite Albums Ever are made from. This is the sound of the Smashing Pumpkins fucking GOING for it. I have always loved albums like this. It's a simple formula, really. One, there are a lot of songs. Two, most of those songs are good. Three, there are a lot of songs because the artist wants to make a statement and can only do so with this many songs. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is perhaps the most bald-faced attempt to create a Favorite Album Ever ever made. Billy Corgan—whose irascibility is something you're gonna have to overlook if you consider this your Favorite—made an art out of his inflated ego, and didn't shy away from talking shit on his contemporaries that would dare to not make a 28-song album packed with this many hits.

There is another formula for albums like this, and this formula has to do with my own personal ability to get into them, decades after the fact. The best songs have to be a surprise, the worst songs have to be interesting, and the hits have to be challenged by the non-hits. I thought for sure that the last piece of that formula was going to be Mellon Collie's downfall, but it was not. This is the area in which Mellon Collie succeeds the most.

Yes, I am intimately familiar with two of the Pumpkins' biggest hits, "Tonight, Tonight" and "1979." And it was particularly worrisome because these songs—compared to other songs I knew, like this album's "Zero," for example—seem to represent the least heavy, least RAWK AND ROLL output of the Pumpkins' discography. But you know Corgan was on top of this shit, like maybe he was self-aware of it, and now look to the songs after "Tonight, Tonight" and "1979." We have "Jellybelly" and "Tales of a Scorched Earth," two of the heaviest songs on here. I will say that "Tonight, Tonight" is straight-up one of the best songs ever, but when it ends and "Jellybelly" hits, I am ECSTATIC. My mind goes from "wow, this is a great tune" to "holy SHIT this album is fucking GOING for it." You see the difference.

The length is what took me so long to actually give it a fair shot, but the length is ultimately what makes it a worthy piece of art. I don't think I could hear "We Only Come Out at Night" isolated and think it was a good song, but when nestled in all the way down at Track #24, it stands out as something that manages to mix up the album's formula yet again, sounding nothing like anything else. Or like "Cupid de Locke," how its guitar part might feel silly if that's all you knew about this band, but how it manages to feel fucking gorgeous as a cool-down on Disc 1. And then maybe I have spent much of my life rolling my eyes at "despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage," but here, on this album, I hear the bonkers drum fills all over "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" and I fucking believe, man.

There's too much to discuss in what is supposed to be a short Saturday blog post, but the exploration is for you to commit to. I already have. I've fallen deep into this album, and I discover new shit every time. Coming out of that hole, I can say for certain that it totally makes sense that someone might consider this their Favorite Album Ever. This is what a Favorite Album Ever should be. It's not my Favorite, but only because I missed the boat. But I'm glad I can see Favorite Album Ever from a distance, and understand what it means.