Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness
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Free Music Notes for Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness
Free Music Review: A "Mellon collie" album
Hit: 5 Stars
"Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" avoids the pitfalls of many double albums -- too much filler, too few good songs, not enough of the good stuff. Instead, this is in the spirit of the Beatles' "White Album" or Pink Floyd's "The Wall." Billy Corgan's tight writing and the Smashing Pumpkins's brilliant instrumentation make this sweeping double album a must-have.The first disc, "Dawn to Dusk," builds up slowly with a mournful piano song, only to bounce into the sweeping "Tonight Tonight." Forming the rest are sizzling rockers ("Jellybelly," "Zero"), sparkling softer songs ("Cupid De Locke"), and quiet alt-rock ("Galapagos") and a few songs that stray into unknown musical turf (the sweeping ten minute "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans"). "Take Me Down" ends the first disc on the same quiet note that it began on.
Second disc "Twilight To Starlight" starts off on a very different foot. Jerky guitar riffs and drumming start off, sounding like a warm up, before exploding into the solid "Where Boys Fear To Tread." Having gotten that over with, Corgan and Co. switch into a somewhat quieter collection: gentle acoustics ("Thirty-Three," "Stumbleine," the sweet "In the Arms of Sleep"), catchy alt-rock (new-wavey "1979," "Thru The Eyes of Ruby"), blistering hard rock ("Tales of a Scorched Earth," "XYU"). The gentle "Farewell and Goodnight" rounds off the double album on a quiet note.
"Mellon Collie" has just about every kind of music you can hope to find -- ballads, prog, metal, alt-rock, and so on. A handful of songs feel superfluous, but the vast majority of them just feel like a musical quilt. That is, two musical quilts. The tone of each disc is quite different, with "Dawn to Dusk" being a rockier album more in tune with the past Pumpkins releases. "Twilight To Starlight" has a more experimental, sad feel.
Billy Corgan's reedy voice weaves seamlessly into the complex music, singing songs about loneliness, pessimism and longing for love. His songwriting is exceptional here ("breathing under water, and living under glass..."); his style is best described as poetry set to music. James Iha also dips into songwriting with "Take Me Down" and cowritten "Farewell and Goodnight." Guitar riffs both furious and gentle, sweeping strings, piano, Chamberlin's percussion and D'arcy's good bass work move up and down the scale, from soft to scathing.
With its epic music and tight lyrics, "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" is madly brilliant and among the best work that the Smashing Pumpkins did. Dark, sweet, sad, and angry, this is a modern classic.
Free Music Review: As vast as the ocean, as dark as the night....
Hit: 5 Stars
"Mellon Collie" is such a huge, multi-faceted, and stunningly beautiful album that it's nearly impossible to cover everything in one review. Suffice it to say, this was Smashing Pumpkins' most ambitious and overwhelming release by far, and IMO their artistic zenith. Despite the fact that Billy Corgan has always been the main songwriter, this album, perhaps much moreso than anything else they've done, was very much a full-band effort. You can just tell that there was a great deal of collegiality here between the members, and it really paid off.
To describe the album in greater detail is a daunting task, to say the least. There's just so much here, and the songwriting is ridiculously consistent throughout its 2-hour length. You've softer, plaintive tracks like "To Forgive" and "Thirty-Three", harder rock like the grunge anthem "Zero" and the raw and aggressive "Tales of a Scorched Earth". You also get more bizarre and experimental stuff, like "Cupid de Locke" and "We Only Come Out at Night", and more epic tracks like "Porcelina" and "XYU", all of which further add more eclecticism to the already rich tapestry of sounds.
And of course this album yielded tons of radio hits, like "Tonight Tonight", "Bullet with Butterfly Wings", and "1979", which prove that you can be artistic and still get commercial success.
There's also a really cool element of symmetry to the album, as the discs both end with lead vocals from other members (James Iha on "Take Me Down", and all of them on "Farewell and Goodnight"). Also, both of the aforementioned songs end with the line "in your heart", and the last track of the second disc ends with a reprise of the haunting piano melody that serves as the intro to disc 1. I don't know, I just dig stuff like that.
And of course the performances from each band member are all fantastic as well, especially Jimmy Chamberlin, who is definitely one of my favorite rock drummers. His powerful and diverse style really drives the music well, most notably on "Tonight Tonight", where his thunderous crescendos mimic the symphonic rise and fall of the song perfectly. His ability to conform to many different styles is surely no small part of this band's eclectism. And of course, Billy Corgan's vocals, while not for everyone, really convey the raw emotional power that this music demands like few others could. I wouldn't trade him for a "better" singer in a million years.
Simply put, this is one of the most stunning and well-accomplished albums of the 90's, and any music lover needs to hear it. As glad as I am that they're back together, and as much as I enjoyed their comeback album "Zeitgeist", they will never be as good as they were here.
Free Music Review: Pure aural bliss... ok, with the minor exception of two crap-ass songs...
Hit: 5 Stars
My personal favorite album of all time. Before I listened to this album the music I listened too was shallow bubble gum pop, I was more of a casual listener of sorts. The moment my sister showed me the album when she was about to check it out at the register I scoffed at the idea that such a wierd-looking album could produce what she called "prime music", and a double album none the least, I was like the hell!! I had a bad impression of the band from the start, I thought they were just a gothic band judging by their "Bullet with butterfly wings" Music Video which I watched when I was about ten. Damn, I just wish I could have fully appreciated this band in their hey days when they were all the craze. Thats how I felt after I gave this album a thorough listen, I realized how skewed my vision of music was... all this time I was listening to shallow music, but out there, beyond MTV were the deep pumpkins, and could they kick it to the wicket man! On the drive home we popped it in the cd player and I listened intently cause I expected my sis too have a much more sophisticated taste in music than me... and there it went... tonight, tonight with its beautiful orchestral accompaniment, I was like the F***! wheres the blaring unmelodic guitar riffs!? then then its signature guitar strings went off and I was like damn... beautiful... and what the hells up with that guys voice!?
I mustered enough courage and commitement to finally listen through the album one night I popped it in my cd player and went to bed with it... and we made beautiful music together, for two hours! The diverse array of styles blew me away and the consistency with the songs, I was amazed. From the emotinally moving "tonight, tonight" [ my favotite song of all time] to the bleak "zero" to the soothing sounds of 1979 and "porcelina of the vast oceans" , never once during the whole listen ok maybe except twice was I let down. The next day I bought the album for 30 bux from my sister 5 bux over the sticker price, I was crazy about em'. My life was changed from that moment I have idolized billy corgan and the pumpkins, I have all their albums and b-sides. Its just that this band showed me what a rock band was capable of. The heavy experimentation, the lyrics
THey won my respect, they awakened me to the world of music and I will be forever grateful to them, i have even picked up guitar. Their other albums were just as ambitious too, check em' out siamese dream, adore, all of them! I listne to them on a daily basis.. the pumpkins are my anti-drug!
Buy this album, after that you will be praising them just as enthusiastically as me!
To the best band ever SP FOREVER MAN!!!!!!
By the way their getting back together!!! boooyah!
Free Music Review: Impressive And Ambitious
Hit: 5 Stars
"Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" is an incredible work from the American alternative band The Smashing Pumpkins. Released on October 24th of 1995, the double CD (triple album) features some incredibly diverse styles and more input from D'arcy Wretzky and James Iha, though certainly Billy Corgan is still the dominant creative member of the band.
The album is not afraid to take some chances. It opens with an instrumental, which is relatively soft. There is tremendous diversity, as the sound can go from acoustic to very heavy and vice-versa from one song to the next. The majority of the album is made up of relatively short pieces of less than five minutes, but there are a few longer pieces mixed in with the 28 tracks. The shorter pieces tend to stick to one type of sound, while a couple of the longer pieces are more diverse within themselves.
The opening instrumental leads into the excellent "Tonight, Tonight", but the softer and more orchestrated sound doesn't sound last as it then turns much heavier with tracks like "Jellybelly", and "Zero", and the first single "Bullet With Butterfly Wings". The contrast in sounds goes back and forth, between the heavy and the light until eventually the group delivers a longer piece itself filled with contrast in "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans", which is then followed with the first half closer "Take Me Down". The album is a concept album of sorts, dealing with the very simple realities of life and death.
The second CD is more of the same, which is to say more diversity of sound and more changes and surprises. The transition from "1979" to "Tales of a Scorched Earth" is a great example of moving from one type of sound to almost its polar opposite from track to track. Not that every track change is so dramatic, but their changes help to keep things fresh and interesting. There also is a rather unusual use of tunings as well as instruments. Overall, this is an album which one needs to listen to many times, and one which the listener will hear something new each time. With its incredible diversity, there may be pieces which you don't like on this album, but for myself I found that they were all at least intriguing. From the titles mentioned before, to the delightfully odd "We Only Come Out at Night" and the stalker song done as a simple love song "Lilly (My One and Only)", this is a great album to experience over and over.
The Smashing Pumpkins are Billy Corgan (lead vocal, guitar, piano), James Iha (guitar, vocals), D'arcy Wretzky (bass, vocals), and Jimmy Chamberlin (drums, vocals). Guest artists include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra ("Tonight, Tonight"), and Greg Leisz (pedal and lap steel guitar on "Take Me Down")
Free Music Review: why cant corgan make stuff like this anymore? he's insane, thats why
Hit: 5 Stars
Billy Corgan is interesting to me, he seems like a musician well developed and innovative in his own sub genre of harder rock. And yet for some reason anything released by Smashing Pumpkins after this album was average, if that at best.
Sad to say, this is the last classic Smashing Pumpkins album. Whether they tried to develop their sound with Nuevo-drum machines/ sounds in Adore or loud and noisy industrial sounds of MACHINA/The Machines of God, nothing has worked for them, and their latest album Zeitgeist is the pinnacle of crap. Stupid, pointless and thus ruining the Smashing Pumpkins name forever. He may as well have put this album under the Zwan title, it was so unworthy of SP recognition.
All things aside, this review is about Mellon Collie. I remember getting this album and thinking that it was insane that SP would release a double CD, my first introduction to the band was through Siamese Dream, which I followed closely to with Gish and Pisces Iscariotand never chose to pay much attention to them, until I gave this album a listen. And now SP are one of my favourite bands of all time.
Raw, Gentle, Hard, Soft, all within the same album. I remember as a teenager listening to this how I would just have both CD's on rotation with Soundgarden's Superunknown. And listen to it all night. All the time.
I used to only appreciate the first CD, but at the same time, learnt to appreciate the second CD as the opposite, but complimenting side to this album. I don't think there are that many albums I could listen to over and over, but this has to be one of them. Without a doubt. I will make my kids listen to this double CD one day as an example of the crazy stuff their dad listened to in their day, only to dream that they may feel a little bit of what I did when I first listened to this album.
Never again will their be an album like this, I believe if there is a point you want to hail as Smashing Pumpkins best work, you don't need to look further then this. It's a shame that despite all things, billy corgan will not look to reconciling with James Iha and D'arcy.