Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
Smashing Pumpkins' first album, Gish, was well recieved by the critics, but was ultimately overshadowed by another Butch Vig produced album, Nirvana's Nevermind. Although the latter album stunted sales for Gish, it set the stage for alternative rock to inherit mainstream dominance for several years. Virgin Records executives were not blind to this, and started promoting Smashing Pumpkins as "the next Nirvana", and put a lot of pressure on songwriter Billy Corgan to deliver with a breakout album for their next release. This pressure as well as a recent break up with his girlfriend (and future wife), caused Corgan to have a nervous breakdown of sorts. For this reason, an obsession with absolute sonic perfection overtook him, and tensions with other band members were exacerbated.
Hours would be spent on 45-second segments of songs, countless overdubs would be done for each song (producer Butch Vig claims that almost 100 guitar tracks would be compressed into a single song), Corgan would even re-record many parts that were intended to be played by guitarist James Iha and bassist D'Arcy Wretzky. The only member of the band besides Corgan to completely record all their own parts for the album was drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, who was battling a heroine addiction at the time, and would disappear for days at a time. Eventually Corgan had a meltdown about Chamberlin's behavior, and laid down the law one day; he forced Chamberlin to record the drum parts for "Cherub Rock" until they were perfect, which ended up being until his hands were bleeding from the effort.
The artwork for the release was originally intended to be done by some outside artist, but to save money (at least according to reports), Corgan ended up putting together the artwork with the ex-girlfriend/future wife that many of the songs on the album are about. They selected pictures (mostly of people from Corgan's family) and wrote the lyrics to the album over them. Original issues of the album had a 20 page booklet, with one page devoted to each song/picture, but Corgan eventually felt unhappy with the way the artwork looked, and the packaging was changed. The pictures were reduced in size drastically, and a four page foldout format was adopted. The problem with this format is that the lyrics became unreadable. The liner notes offered the listeners the option to mail a dollar to the band, and recieve a lyric sheet (a one page, two-sided sheet). After 1999, the booklet was returned to the 20-page format.
After the album was recorded and mixed (many months behind schedule and over $250,000 over budget), it was finally released by Virgin, and was met with mixed (though mostly positive) reviews, and climbed quickly up the charts. It has since garnered many accolades, including being listed on many lists for top album of the '90's.
These accolades are certainly not unfounded. Siamese Dream is the perfect blend of heartache ("Soma", "Today"), outsider pride ("Cherub Rock", "Geek U.S.A."), and soothing ballads ("Luna", "Mayonaise"). Loud and aggressive as well as soft and beautiful, the album runs the full range of sonic possiblities and human emotions without being the least bit maudlin.
Although I personally think that there is one album that is technically a better album (that would be Black Flag's masterpiece, Damaged) Siamese Dream is my personal favorite album of all-time. The impact this record had on me (I was 13 when I first heard it) is immeasurable.
Those of you who believe in Jung's theory of synchronicity will want to try the experience of combining this album with Disney's Fantasia. (Cue the album to start as the moment the director conducts the first beat of the first song, you won't be disappointed, I promise you).
Siamese Dream - 11 out of 10
There was a number of music videos recorded for Siamese Dream.
"Cherub Rock"
Click to view"Disarm"
"Today"
and two different versions of "Rocket" one here and one here.
The following two performances are from the live video Vieuphoria that was released to accompany Siamese Dream.
"Geek U.S.A."
"Mayonnaise (Acoustic)"