“A resolution point”: the album Billy Corgan called the end of an era
Nothing captures the alternative spirit of the 1990s quite like The Smashing Pumpkins’ 1995 album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Being born at the tail end of the decade, my childhood was filled with skateboarding video games soundtracked by albums like this. The Smashing Pumpkins were one of the first bands to successfully bring a lo-fi indie sound to such a large audience—their music was fit for both stadium tours and your local smoke-filled skatepark.
For the band’s frontman, Billy Corgan, the album reached a commercial milestone, which he’d been building up to since the release of his debut LP Gish in 1991. Despite the record being highly rated, it only solidified the group’s underground following at the time. Their follow-up Siamese Dream was released two years later, in 1993.
It was a massive commercial leap but received backlash from other musicians who considered it a bit of a sell-out move. Steve Malkmus of the indie band Pavement famously dissed The Smashing Pumpkins in his well-known track ‘Range Life’, where he ironically recites the line: “Out on tour with The Smashing Pumpkins…I don’t understand what they mean, and I could really give a fuck…I want a range life, where I can settle down…”
It’s amusing to imagine Corgan in a pair of cream chinos and a collared shirt driving a golf cart down the fairway, but it must have been a little embarrassing for him. The album was also criticised by Bob Mould of Hüsker Dü, who analogised the band as “the grunge Monkees”. Also, Steve Albini (the godfather of grunge) spoke outwardly about his contempt for the band at the time, comparing them to REO Speedwagon. That one must have stung especially badly.
Or maybe it didn’t. Why? Because The Smashing Pumpkins still hadn’t released their third (*fourth album, if you count Pisces Iscariot, released in 1994 as a kind of b-sides LP to Siamese Dream) and by far most commercial album ever, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Clearly, those tasty royalty cheques made up for all the hate.
To be fair to Corgan, I don’t think he ever thought about the commercial viability of his music at all. Ultimately, he was able to create and live at the forefront of a sonic trend that just so happened to become popular. Either way, after Mellon Collie, he was kind of done with grunge anyway. Speaking with The Chicagoist in 2014, Corgan reflected: “We knew Mellon Collie as an album was a resolution point, and then that opened up the door to an out like Machina, and we were willing to go down in a different direction. I think that we’re at that point with the idea of what the band means.”
The Smashing Pumpkins’ next release was the single ‘Eye’ in 1997, a much edgier track that was quickly selected by David Lynch to appear on the soundtrack to his film Lost Highway. Even Steve Malkmus must have been a little jealous to learn that news.
