The most “over the top” album Billy Corgan had ever heard
While some of his work has perhaps played things on the safer side, Billy Corgan has frequently found himself dipping into histrionics and creating albums of outlandish proportions.
There are plenty of examples where The Smashing Pumpkins released bodies of work that felt over the top, with their third album, Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness being a prime example of where ostentatiousness has benefitted them: an ambitious double album which proved that the brilliance of Siamese Dream was no fluke, and that the band were capable of pushing things to the limit and creating something that still managed to be a marvel rather than a self-indulgent mess.
However, there have been times where Corgan has taken things a fraction too far, and when he and the band have taken concepts and stretched them across multiple albums, the listens become more laborious. The two Machina albums released at the start of the 2000s were perhaps a sign that the band needed to tone down the extravagance, but they didn’t heed their own warnings and would go on to release the even more lacklustre Atum project in three acts over the course of another couple of albums.
Perhaps with the exception of Melon Collie, the shorter and punchier The Smashing Pumpkins are on record, the better they end up being, and Corgan of all people should be able to recognise his own limitations when creating works that are more elaborate in nature.
His desire to do this is likely down to his love of other artists who took their output to extreme levels, and there’s one particular record that has always struck him as being a shining example of how to be over the top, while managing to do it in a tasteful way that doesn’t make it frustrating for the listener.
Speaking to Melody Maker in 1993, Corgan revealed that one of his favourite records of all time is Queen’s second album, Queen II, and while it isn’t regarded as being on the same level as the likes of Sheer Heart Attack or A Night at the Opera in terms of its artistic scope, it’s the sort of album that outlines exactly where Queen were heading in terms of making their work more expansive and progressive.
“It’s so over the top, so many vocal and guitar overdubs,” Corgan claimed, calling the album “total Queen overload.”
He continued: “I loved it. I loved the cool, weird, ambiguous songs about Freddie’s sexuality and the way it shifts from heavy to beautiful ballads.”
While the record isn’t known for having many popular singles on it, save for the exception of ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’, there are still some glorious examples of Queen coming into their own in terms of songwriting abilities and being able to create these lavish and opulent works that showcased all of their charm. Queen II brilliantly captures the essence of early Queen as they were navigating a transitional period before they turned into global megastars.
One could argue that Queen would fall foul of the same fault that Corgan was guilty of in terms of making albums that drowned under the weight of their own loftiness later in their career, but at the same time, nobody is going to deny the fact that at their respective peaks, both Queen and The Smashing Pumpkins were formidable acts who knew how to test the boundaries of rock music in fascinating ways.
