Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Alternative Rock Existentialism (The Bus 2.7)
Welcome aboard The Bus!
The Stop
Released on 23 October 1995,1 Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was the third studio album by the Smashing Pumpkins. A 28-track two disc CD and triple LP, the album was expected by ‘almost everyone, from the press to their panicked record company’ to fail as while certain bands did release double albums, inevitably these were acts that were already selling tens of millions of records when deciding to do so.2 However, the decision paid off enormously: among other accomplishments, the album debuted at number one on the US Billboard Top 200 chart, was certified Diamond3 and received seven Grammy nominations.4
Composed almost entirely by frontman Billy Corgan5 and co-produced by Flood and Alan Moulder,6 Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was one of the most ‘varied, far-reaching rock records’ that had ever been released. With tracks moving from ‘gentle lullabies to heavy metal epics via electronic pop and razor-edged alt rock,’ the extreme confidence of the band was a major factor in the album’s success: ‘its secret weapon was preposterous ambition and the bolshiness required to pull it off.’ This ‘confidence and ambition’ worked well with an ‘America settling into the Clinton administration, its economy gathering strength, the first Iraq war receding into memory and the paranoia of the post-9/11 years still half a decade away.’ Throughout the album a sense of optimism is present, though ironically this is ‘misleading’ as the majority of the songs are concerned with ‘Corgan’s abusive childhood and with the anxieties and emotional trauma of youth.’
Though the album’s songs are ‘intended to hang together conceptually,’ with the two halves of the album - ‘Dawn to Dusk’ and ‘Twilight to Starlight’7 - representing day and night, Corgan has denied it is a concept album in the classic sense.8 Nevertheless, he has said the album is thematically cohesive, based on the ‘human condition of mortal sorrow’ - which as a description of its intent belies Pitchfork's assessment that it was a ‘record that only teenagers could love.’ A prolific composer,9 Corgan was in a ‘song writing frenzy’ at the time of Mellon Collie’s creation10 and produced what turned out to be the ‘last really big record of the alternative rock era.’
Of course, the best way to truly appreciate the album is to listen to it, though working through 28 tracks is a lengthy ask. You could start with the singles - ‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings,’ ‘1979,’ ‘Zero,’ ‘Tonight, Tonight’ or ‘Thirty-Three’ - but singles aren’t always the best tracks on an album. My personal favourites are ‘Porcelina of the Vast Oceans’ and ‘Thru the Eyes of Ruby’ - two songs which certainly give a flavour of what was at the time my favourite album. If you’re so inclined, here’s the link:11
The Detour
Today’s Detour is Textless, a short (2:23) video which imagines all the signs in LA suddenly losing their text. Set to a brilliant drum track, it questions both the ubiquity and importance of words - and in an odd way asks if we truly need them to communicate.
The Recommendation
Today’s recommendation is The Andromeda Strain. Based on the novel by Michael Crichton12 and directed by Robert Wise, the film - released in 1971 - is the story of a group of scientists who are racing against the clock to discover the truth about a highly contagious organism brought back from outer space.13 The true star of the film is the multi-levelled lab - Wildfire - which has secrets of its own. It’s a great film and one I was gripped by whenever it appeared on Saturday afternoon television in the 70s and early 80s.
Trailer: The Andromeda Strain (1971)
The Andromeda Strain streams on various platforms.
The Sounds
Today’s playlist is a selection of five of my favourite Smashing Pumpkins tracks - three from the albums before Mellon Collie and two from the one released afterwards: ‘Set the Ray to Jerry’ (The Airplane Flies High, 1996), ‘Obscured’ (Pisces Iscariot, 1994), ‘Window Paine’ (Gish, 1991), ‘Spaceboy’ (Siamese Dream, 1993) and ‘Medellia of the Gray Skies’ (The Airplane Flies High, 1996). Enjoy!
The Thought
Today’s Thought is a lyric from ‘Thru the Eyes of Ruby,’ off of the second half of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. It’s a cliché, but when delivered in Corgan’s snarl its impact works perfectly - and anyway, I don’t think anyone who’s reached a certain age would disagree with its sentiment:
‘Youth is wasted on the young.’
If you have a thought on this Thought - or any part of today’s issue - please leave a comment below:
And that’s the end of this stop - I hope you enjoyed the diversion!
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Until the next stop …
That’s right - 27 years ago yesterday.
Think of The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Who and, well, even Peter Frampton.
5,000,000 + sales in the US alone.
I loved this album when it came out and - as I did in those days - listened to it on repeat. I was especially struck by what I interpreted as its existentialist leanings and certainly quoted a few of its lyrics in my lessons. I possibly might have read a bit much into them, but, hey - I was an English teacher … and that’s what English teachers do. Sources for today’s Stop include: Mellon Collie (Guardian), Mellon Collie (SPCodex), Mellon Collie (Pitchfork) and Smashing Pumpkins Fan Collective.
Corgan wrote 26 of the 28 tracks, the other two - ‘Take Me Down’ and ‘Farewell and Goodnight’ - were written by guitarist James Iha.
Flood (AKA Mark Ellis) has produced numerous albums by groups including U2, Depeche Mode, Erasure, Foals and Sigur Rós. Alan Moulder has mixed, engineered or produced albums by groups including U2, Moby, Nine Inch Nails, Foals, and Foo Fighters.
The three-record vinyl version has six sides: ‘Dawn’/‘Tea Time,’ ‘Dusk’/‘Twilight,’ and ‘Midnight’/‘Starlight.’
For a classic concept album, see Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon (The Bus Vol. 1; Issue 15).
In addition to the 28 tracks on the album, another 28 were released as B-sides collected in 1996’s Aeroplane Flies High box set, and an additional 40 have been added to various reissues - all of which were written between 1993 and 1995.
A note: this is the Deluxe Edition and only tracks 1-28 were on the original album. Tracks 29-50 have been added as bonus material.
Crichton is, of course, the source of numerous brilliant sci-fi novels and their accompanying films. The Andromeda Strain was the first novel he published under his own name (having published previously using pseudonyms as he was a medical student and feared his patients would worry he’d use them in his books), but others include: The Terminal Man, Westworld, The Great Train Robbery, Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Disclosure and The Lost World amongst many others.
The film was rated G - but with the caveat that it ‘may be too intense for younger children.’
Saw them play the District last week. The show was hard and featured a near death metal cover of the Talking Heads' Once in a Lifetime. Cherub Rock was another blistering standout. Jane's Addiction opened if you can believe it--with Whores--and Farrel's clarion call to lawless excess as clean and electrifying as ever. They even trotted out old Daniel Ash (of Love & Rockets) for an ill-fitting number from his Bauhaus days. Hey, but it's the thought that counts, right? Kids loved it. Still & all, I can't shake that antique road show hangover. Rock & Roll is dead, even when its last & loudest practitioners are fkn killing it.
True! And once Lockdown 2020 began, it was the first film I thought of!