So why is The Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
Siamese Dream reminds me of the Long Island Railroad, the good old LIRR.
I’ll explain.
I grew up on Long Island, over an hour by train east of Manhattan. By the time I was home on college breaks from Binghamton, I’d be itching to get into The City as much as possible.
My man – and later best man – Adam was a part of that. I now mythologize the era when his family had a sublet in SoHo, but it really was a magical time, traipsing around downtown Manhattan during the mid-1990s, seeing live music, talking to (and occasionally kissing) girls, and then crashing in this wild artist’s loft space with pop-up installations of ‘60s-era vintage lunchboxes and massive chalk drawing depictions of Pangea, the earth of millions of years back.
The long voyage into The City was both boring and exciting in that way that things maybe only can be when you’re young – and throw in that this was pre-smartphones and streaming Internet for good measure.
Therefore, while I’d occasionally buy a newspaper – New York Newsday or The Daily News for the sports section, mostly – I’d typically content myself with my portable tape player. The Beasties’ Paul’s Boutique, early Green Day, or some ska punk workout tape were in the mix around that time, but it’s The Smashing Pumpkins’ brilliant Siamese Dream that stands out most of all from this era.
That quintessential ‘90s alt rock guitar tone on “Quiet” or “Rocket” or “Mayonaise” would help me in body and spirit to glide into Penn Station, which meant – finally – final stop: New York City. Time to hit it, energy spiking and anticipation for the night’s future soaring.
And while I can’t quite remember if it ever worked out this way, there’s something fun about imagining rolling into Penn Station while opening track “Cherub Rock” loops around for its second playthrough as LET ME OUT! blares through my young ears.
Or maybe TODAY IS THE GREATEST DAY I’VE EVER KNOWN from “Today” works just as well.
In any event, on an album where there’s not a second that’s weak or wasted, “Cherub Rock” is an astonishing table setter.
It’s Billy Corgan and the band at their best – aggressive yet soothing, meticulous yet loose – with Corgan precisely deploying his thin voice with maximum impact. It’s that layered, fuzzed up soundscape of guitars that truly dominates though, as it should.
By the summer of 1993, “alternative rock” had essentially morphed into mainstream rock music. Into that swirl came Siamese Dream, with Butch Vig (see: Nevermind, Garbage) behind the boards and the hyper ambitious Billy Corgan hellbent on making a guitar record as lush and layered as anything rock had ever seen.
Where their Seattle peers leaned the raw and ragged fusion of punk and metal, Corgan doubled down on obsessive overdubs, walls of fuzz, and a symphonic sweep that managed to sound both heavy and sweet at the same time.
That sound is what makes Siamese Dream one of the best albums of the 1990s, and puts it within the Top 50 of the best 1,000 albums ever.
While several of the hit songs from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (#252 of best 1,000 albums ever) might qualify as the best known or most popular Smashing Pumpkins songs currently, I’d wager that “Today” is clearly more deserving.
It’s a perfect mid-tempo rock song, with its pretty, delicate opening guitar notes quickly getting subsumed by that powerful and dense guitar fuzz tone I note above.
It occurs to me that while Billy Corgan has a lifelong obsession with competing with Nirvana*, “Today” is the song that Oasis wishes it had crafted but never quite got there.
* Billy and Nirvana is a little like Boston and New York. The former is obsessed with the latter while the latter barely seems to notice.
“Disarm” is even more delicate than “Today,” and deftly adds strings and chimes into its sound production.
And “Soma” is a (mostly) quiet masterpiece, just gorgeous.
But it’s tracks like “Quiet” and “Hummer” and “Geek U.S.A.” that prove out the band’s hard rock and alt rock cred.
It’s that mix of hard and soft, delicate and crushing, fuzz and chimes, dream and roar that sets Siamese Dream on a different level.
Maybe give it a whirl the next time you’re on a train to somewhere you’re bursting with excitement to get to.
Some stats & info about The Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Alternative Rock, Hard Rock, Chicago Bands
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – #341
- All Music’s rating – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was Siamese Dream released? 1993
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #47 out of 1,000
The Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from The Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Today is the greatest day I’ve ever known.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.