MELLON POLLIE AND THE INFINITE SADNESS

(ans: 5. "Here Is No Why" – 3:45 )

Pick a good album why don't you oh wait.

stumbeline

no idea, since the better tracks are fairly even

So many great songs, but it's gotta be "1979."

Muzzle

Holy christ what is the point of this.

1979 easily, though there are several great songs on this album.

Shoulda been one disc

Man those last eight tracks are such a great run.

Someone start a thread "best names of Poll Threads"

This one gets a gold.

Man those last eight tracks are such a great run.

Glad you said that as most people would consider things like "Beautiful" and "We Only Come Out At Night" to be filler, but I reckon these make the album.

As for best track, that's very very difficult. Tempted to go with 1979, but there are so many decent songs on this.

"Porcelina" easily.

I think I bought and listened to this album once when it first came out, and haven't touched it since. Thought 1979 was alright though, so that's my vote.

Good lord I agree with geir

Thru the Eyes of Ruby gets my vote.

1979...otherwise still trying to figure out how to make listenable sense of this album, which I want to love since I thought the first two were great (maybe it's the mix that grates and makes me want to stop listening after "Zero"? or maybe it's that I'm not metal enough? or blah blah Corgan's voice? not the latter, actually)

haha and here i was thinking the thread name was a typo

"By Starlight" over "Porcelina" by a nose.

It was crap then. It's crap now.

Zero's OK.

here is no why.

Whoa, I agree with Geir too.

This is impossible, so I'll go with their NIN impression, "Love".

I'm leaning towards "Bodies" but I should pull it out to check. I like "Love" a lot too. And "Thirty-Three".

1979 ftw

ha GIS for "porcelina" sort of hilarious:
http://images.elfwood.com/art/r/o/robinbean/merland.jpg

Just barely like it more than "1979", because shit is EPIC man.

The only SP song I like is 1979.

I never quite got these guys, but Muzzle is a great song.

'here is no why'. i'll be surprised if 1979 doesn't win

Yeah, "Muzzle" is pretty great too. I could have voted that easily.

I'm gonna tip my hat to disc 2 & "We Only Come Out at Night"

I used to claim I didn't like Smashing Pumpkins. Then I realized I own four of their albums and don't want to flush them. So while I despise the "guilty pleasure" concept, SP would rank high on my list.

I just listened to this album for the first time in 5 years and hereby DENOUNCE and REJECT my previous vote for "Porcelina" in favor of "Jellybelly" which is my absolute favorite Punkins song and how the fuck did I forget about it!???

voted for Muzzle, but so many contenders. great album(s).

Through the Eyes of Ruby for me.

I'd love to hear the vinyl version of this with the different tracklisting.

Lots of great songs on this album. I saw them on this tour as well, they were great.

definitely MUZZLE

Cupid de Locke vs Love tossup

"Muzzle" was disappointing live but when I saw them it was the guy who isn't Jimmy Chamberlain. Otherwise also a fav.

This is actually one of the best examples of patchy double albums that could have made great single albums.

people try and make that case about all double albums

I think you'd be lucky to get a decent EP out of this, to be honest.

agreed. Maybe a single in 'thirty three'

No, really. There are around 10 "pop" songs here that are actually quite nice. They would only have to get rid of the noisiest and most aggressive tracks and they'd have a marvellous single album. Shame about that singing voice though - this is one of few cases where I agree it was a good idea to keep the vocals behind in the mix.

Impossible to choose between "Muzzle," "Porcelina," "Thru The Eyes Of Ruby," "Galapagos," and "Where Boys Fear To Tread," but I think I'll give it to the latter since it hasn't been getting upped yet on this thread...

As for the "make it one disc" thing, I raised that question on this thread and got some responses, for anybody into that kind of thing...

who gonna be the kook that votes 4 tales of a scorched earth

Fuck's sake - the whole point of Mellon Collie is that it's an overblown indulgence-fest; one of the last ones in mainstream rock - and that's why it's a great album. All this trimming-down talk, fffff!

haha, Alex in NYC makes the same exact diss in both this thread and mine.

it's definitely 1979 for me

very tough choice between "Tonight Tonight" and "In the Arms of Sleep"

TRULY TRAGIC THIS

I don't think I ever listened to anything but the singles, and of those "1979" is the only one that still rates.

Kinda feels like this is the 'last album of the '90s.'

I actually think an Adore poll might be more interesting. Although maybe "Perfect" is the obvious winner there.

this album is the sound of me at 14

vinyl tracklist:

Side one: Dawn

1. "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" – 2:52
2. "Tonight, Tonight" – 4:14
3. "Thirty-Three" – 4:10
4. "In the Arms of Sleep" – 4:12
5. "Take Me Down" (Iha) – 2:52

Side two: Tea Time
1. "Jellybelly" – 3:01
2. "Bodies" – 4:12
3. "To Forgive" – 4:17
4. "Here Is No Why" – 3:45
5. "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans" – 9:21

Side three: Dusk

1. "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" – 4:18
2. "Thru the Eyes of Ruby" – 7:38
3. "Muzzle" – 3:44
4. "Galapogos" – 4:47
5. "Tales of a Scorched Earth" – 3:46

Side four: Twilight

1. "1979" – 4:25
2. "Beautiful" – 4:18
3. "Cupid de Locke" – 2:50
4. "By Starlight" – 4:48
5. "We Only Come Out at Night" – 4:05

Side five: Midnight

1. "Where Boys Fear to Tread" – 4:22
2. "Zero" – 2:41
3. "Fuck You (An Ode to No One)" – 4:51
4. "Love" – 4:21
5. "X.Y.U." – 7:07

Side six: Starlight

1. "Stumbleine" – 2:54
2. "Lily (My One and Only)" – 3:31
3. "Tonite Reprise" – 2:40
4. "Farewell and Goodnight" (Corgan/Iha) – 4:22
5. "Infinite Sadness" – 4:02

^^^^ would much rather listen to it this way. This makes it seem more like a 6-EP box set s.t. you can put on a different side for different moods. Which I think brings the whole album to a perfect level of pretense and pomposity.

xxpost "Appels + Oranjes" is far and away the best thing on that album. And there are a lot of great songs on that album.

That vinyl tracklist is WILD! Wow. What's "Tonite Reprise"?

I always felt like this thing needed to end on something a little more dramatic - probably "By Starlight."

And I'm with Curt1s, "Appels + Oranjes" is my favorite Adore track, although at the time "Tear" ranked really high with me, and to this day does a more precise job of bringing back the exact feel and smell of a certain era in time than any other song, not sure why or how that happened but it did. "Perfect" is, I'm sad to say, kind of boring! Am I right that it was a single? Not that this was an album really overflowing with obvious hits, but it seems like a weird, wimpy kind of choice.

Granted, by that point Billy had taken a 90-degree turn away from the blatant arena majesty of SD/MCIS, in favor of a kind of extended love letter to particular electro goth genre work, lush and watery on one end and aching/sparse on the other. I like a lot of songs off Adore and Machina I, but they're really different animals than Melon Collie.

My fave on Adore has to be "For Martha," what a stunner. That and "Blank Page" actually outdo the closing ballads on Mellon Collie.

I'm half into DAWN of vinyl tracklist, it is better this way.

I mean TEA TIME.

"Tonite Reprise" is an acoustic guitar version of "Tonight, Tonight"

I remember seeing this post-Siamese Dream MTV news bit about how Smashing Pumpkins were readying their new album, and it included a 4 second clip of Corgan recording the vocals of "Muzzle" in their studio, and I played that 4 seconds over and over in my head for months until the album actually came out. And the finished "Muzzle" totally lived up to it - I love how the drums roll in on that song...

I think my answer would be "Thirty-Three", but i'll have to listen to this album again to work it out.

I never liked "Perfect". I liked Adore at the time, but in retrospect it has a lot more cloying, embarassing moments than Mellon Collie.

Back to Mellon Collie - "Beautiful" is the perfect soundtrack to teenagers in love in 1995.

Adore more cloying than Mellon Collie? Hmmmm...

no wai

this album is the sound of me at 14

-- latebloomer, Friday, March 7, 2008 3:59 AM (15 hours ago)

YES. well, 13 for me, but it's hard to explain how deeply invested i was in this album. not much of it holds up anymore for me, apart from a few tracks, but there isn't any other album that's more of a nostalgia trip for me back to '95-96 than this one.

1979 vs. muzzle, for the vote. i'll probably go with 1979

voted "muzzle". go figure, it might actually win...tho now i have a twinge of regret for not voting "bodies"...that "love is suicide" lyric perfectly sums up the overwrought adolescent romantic fatalism that drips from this album...

btw, my favorite song off adore is definitely "shame." "blank page" gets 2nd, but it's not really all that close.

btw, my favorite song off adore is definitely "shame."

Cosign, to eternity.

actually, weirdly enough, in response to the "it-would've-made-an-awesome-single album" comments, i actually think this would have made an awesome double-album if billy would have put some of the b-sides on it ("cherry," "rotten apples," "medellia," i know some folks out there like "set the ray to jerry") and ditched some of that stylistically-adventurous filler. if "cherry" was on this album, i would voted for that instead.

'have voted' i mean. sry bout that.

Oh, yeah, "Set the Ray to Jerry" is my favorite SP song, period - I would have voted that in any poll it was on.

It's top five for me. First time I heard it I was all "And this is buried away as a B-side!"

obscured

fave track on adore has always been 'to sheila', love the mandolin solo in the middle. i'd totally be down w/ a MCIS that had both 'set the ray to jerry' and 'cherry' on it

i never got into STRTJ but i just soulseek'd it and it does sound pretty stupendous...terrific drumming it's got there.

i read somewhere that someone thought that maybe it was written for d'arcy.

also, that it was flood who put the nix on it being on MCIS.

unsafe levels of muzzle love thread so far

sane people: vote for 1979

*in this

i'm kind of obsessed with the concept of billy releasing "the aeroplane flies high" as the follow up to mcis in a total "fuck you, eat some rawness" move. it would work pretty well split up into 6 sides.

the 12 year old in me wants either "Bodies" or "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" and I'm going with the latter...and I still have my copy of aeroplane, loved it back then...

"Bodies" > "Bullet"

Relistening to Zeitgeist (yeah, I know) reminds me how much credit Flood should get for nailing such a diverse set of songs, both on this and "Adore," when producers nowadays will drown a fucking simple rock record in endless overdubs and hyper-compression.

jergins OTM

Anybody else get the Aeroplane Flies High box set? It has some really cool stuff...I remember one super mellow James Iha song especially being great.

I'm gonna go up to the attic and get it.

It has like seven great mellow Iha songs on it. Makes me think he should've just saved them up and released another solo record...then again I suppose Iha makes more off of Pumpkins obscurities than from his actual solo records.

Iha's SP b-sides are alright, but his solo album...who was it that called it "the gayest album ever recorded"? Pretty OTM

My memory was OTM. "Bodies" FTW, "33" close 2nd.

Is any of the stuff on that Machina II album any good? There was never any proper release of that, right? I seem to remember the story was that Billy pressed 25 vinyl copies, and someone made heinous low bit rate rips of the vinyl, and that circulated... am I way off there? Surprised they haven't put that out "properly."

The rips don't sound that bad. "Slow Dawn" is on Judas O and doesn't sound any different from the mp3s of Machina II.

"White Spyder" is good

Machina 2 has some nice things on it, depending what flavor of Pumpkins you go for. It's all less polished than MCIS, but thankfully less overcookeed than Machina itself. For the rawk I would go for "Glass' Theme," "Car Star," "White Spider"... then there are some nice lush midtempo things, mainly "If There Is A God," "Here's To The Atom Bomb," and James Iha's lovely "Go." "Lucky 13" has sweet drumming and a cool weirdo riff, kinda feels like a turned-down "The End Is The Beginning Is The End."

It's all DEFINITELY worth hearing if you're a fan.

It also seems to be where some of the Adore-era rock material ended up, if I understand the chronology correctly. I remember a Spin interview around the time of Adore where the interviewer was like "I visited you in the studio and heard all these awesome rock songs and none of them are on the album" and Billy was like, well, they didn't fit in well, or something like that. I'm almost certain "Dross" is one of those songs, for example - but Ned would be able to clarify...

tonight I heard a dance remix of "Zero"? Anybody know where I can find this?

omg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfTYbqUTZG0

wow, what a find

Hahah, what a cute widdle goth boy he was. "Dude I saw that one Cure Lovecats video, I have an idea!"

but Ned would be able to clarify...

Really, the whole slew of songs recorded from 96-97 onward all become this bizarre mass of material. I'd say just go here and check out individual song histories as best as they are known. (For instance, that indicates "Dross" was done no earlier than late 98, where, say, "For Martha" first hit tape in 1994.)

bumping 1 day early

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Where's the Aeroplane Flies poll?

This is a nigh on impossible choice. I went with "To Forgive" in the end. If I could pick one "loud" one and one "quiet" one it might be a little easier. I might go with "X.Y.U." for my choice for the former.

I hope enough people vote in this to make the results interesting.

Single disc version:

Zero
Thirty-Three
Here Is No Why
Fuck You
Love
Cupid De Locke
Galapagos
Muzzle
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
Bodies
In The Arms of Sleep
1979
Thru The Eyes of Ruby
By Starlight

Mellon Collie needs the line "the world is a vampire" in it somewhere.

Where's the Aeroplane Flies poll?

-- billstevejim, Sunday, March 23, 2008 9:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

^^^^

Do it by disc not song though pls.

haha I made a bicycling mix tape this weekend and it has "Jellybelly" on it 3 times.

Also as a seasoned cynical adult and not an optimistic hormonal teenager, I am really impressed at how strong a reaction I still have emotionally to "Galapagos".

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Surprised bullet did so well!

Dissappointed bullet did so well.

You crazy

Whoever voted "Take Me Down" deserves some credit.

Those three songs deserved at least one vote!

Disappointed bullet did so well.

Ditto. Also how did "Scorched" get two but "X.Y.U." only got one?

"Bullet" is a great song, guys. Admit it. (I wouldn't have voted for it, but I'm certainly not disappointed!)

a lot of people seem to voting, having only heard the singles...

That was my first thought when I saw the results too. The singles are disappointingly prominent, when for me at least they are by far the less interesting songs on the album.

hahah yeah, pretty amazing that the likes of 'thru the eyes of ruby' should be so comprehensively overlooked in favour of the (admittedly more immediate-sounding) 'bullet with butterfly wings'

"1979" a deserving front-runner though (even if I prefer "Thirty-Three").

"Beautiful" should have gotten at least one vote just for the "na na na" part.

"beautiful" is a really sweet track.

GOAT album

is the "Mellon Collie and The Infinite Ga Ga Goo Goo" boot any good? I saw them on the tour after this (I think Veruca Salt opened? I was like 11) and I would lvoe to hear what they sounded like, that seems like the msot popular one

No votes for 'Beautiful'? Fuck, man.

"Mellon Collie and The Infinite Ga Ga Goo Goo"

lol

Hard for me to think that any song besides "1979" should win this. It's also hard to believe that the time between now and when "1979" came out (1995) is longer than between 1979 and 1995.

1979 is so overrated, it's good for the first minute or so and then it just does the same thing for another three minutes

Yeah, if I compiled a Top 10 of my favourites from this album, '1979' wouldn't make it in there. I love the way '1979' sounds, but I definitely think there's much much better songs than it here.

Poliopolice = the Accidental Parodist

1979 is so overrated, it's good for the first minute or so and then it just does the same thing for another three minutes

this describes most songs though. i like this song because it, more than any other song on the album, captures an elusive nostalgia that is hard to describe. Most of this album is full of lazy, indistinct, by-the-numbers Pumpkins tracks that sound like they were cranked out very quickly. "33" is good though.

1979, here is no why, ruby, tonight, muzzle, porcelina are the most euphoric songs on the record so they will always win over the dour/angry/goofy songs. even though the range of moods is what makes mcis so amazing.

CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

Crut OTM.

Aeroplane Flies High is every bit as good as Mellon Collie. They were riding a ridiculous songwriting hot streak at the time. "Cherry"? "Meladori Magpie"? The beautiful piano cover of "My Blue Heaven"? "Ugly"? "Set the Ray to Jerry"? "God"? That rocking instrumental with the drum solo? All great great stuff.

it bums me out that Aeroplane isn't on Spotify

yeah, I just went looking for it there. ;_;

reissue coming v soon. with even more c sides

Neato

ZERO, people

where boys fear to tread, lately. monster riff

i haven't done this for many, many years, but tonight i think i will crank up the old stereo and play the entire album

I still can't believe that 'Beautiful' didn't get any votes, it's always been one of my highlights of the album... I particularly love the way it changes from this seemingly loop-based thing to the full band playing in the middle section, with that gorgeous sitar-like guitar sound.

yeah I love that whole last side

These days, I would definitely vote for Ruby. Blue disc is a monster!

nearly a decade of listening to this album nearly constantly I never thought much of "To Forgive" but it fucking kills me now. happened all of a sudden last fall, I remember the day. it opened up, or swallowed me in.

and funny how Billy's singing on "In the Arms of Sleep" is so hard to take seriously sometimes but then sometimes you're riding on every syllable and sibilance.

1:00:15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDYyGECNfz0

(newly uploaded show btw, never circulated afaik)

is the "Mellon Collie and The Infinite Ga Ga Goo Goo" boot any good? I saw them on the tour after this (I think Veruca Salt opened? I was like 11) and I would lvoe to hear what they sounded like, that seems like the msot popular one

― surfboard dudes get wiped out, totally, Wednesday, December 8, 2010 9:12 PM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Ga Ga Goo Goo

Tracks

Tonight, Tonight
In the Arms of Sleep
Cupid de Locke
Thirty-three
Today
Soma
Take Me Down
Beautiful
Rhinoceros
Rocket
Disarm / Spaceboy
Dancing in the Moonlight [Thin Lizzy]
Tonight, Tonight
Cupid de Locke
Thirty-three
1979

thumbnails | text

Label: Foamhead
ID: FH004
Track info: Tracks 1-10: 1996-02-07 - Kezar Pavilion; San Francisco, CA, US - audience, acoustic
Tracks 11-12: 1993-06-30 - VPRO Radio; Hilversum, NL - studio, acoustic
Tracks 13-16: 1996-05-15 - Brixton Academy; London, UK - soundboard, acoustic
Length: 01:14:31

Notes

Track 6 is mislabeled as 'One Last Kiss Goodnight'.
Track 10 is mislabeled as 'Skin Head Fag'.
Track 11 is mislabeled as 'Disarm'.
The liner contains an obviously modified photo of Billy with a swastika on his forehead, and a juvenile insult "Produced by the Bald-Headed Butt-Lover".

o_O

I am once again having fun toying with the sequencing of MCIS and its b-sides / outtakes. the songs I like to incorporate are the ones that don't feel like they have exact, existing analogues on the existing tracklist - "The Boy" and/or "Pennies" (way more relaxed and economical than usual), "Medelia" (always loved the slightly lo-fi production and piano sound), "...Said Sadly" (country duet vibes), "Transformer" (silly angst-free riffy rocker), "Set the Ray to Jerry" (basically its own genre), "Aeroplane Flies High" (OK, this one is a little redundant but it's also like one of their 10 or 20 best songs). I also like "Infinite Sadness" a lot though I guess it's technically SD-era.

"God" and "Ugly" and a few others are also good but they do feel like lesser counterparts to songs that are already in the mix

The bridge of “Beautiful” is a tight piece of business.

xp “Infinite Sadness” is the last track on the 3xLP version of MCIS!

what if Kurt Cobain sang "1979"

I never fully appreciated “1979” (beyond “good song”)—due to its ubiquity, my lack of interest in the Pumpkins by that point, etc.—but it’s really a home run on every level. I was “unexpectedly ambushed by emotion” this afternoon, when it came on as I listened to the album driving home on the freeway.

(It’s funny how it’s randomly plopped on the album as track #57, or whatever.)

every single line of that song (except “Beneath the sound of hope”) is annotated in Genius dot com

it’s official: billy corgan is a rap genius

xp “Infinite Sadness” is the last track on the 3xLP version of MCIS!

I forgot! It's funny that it literally has "Siamese Outtake" tacked onto its Spotify title

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46ISK1g54Fc

this really does sample an awful lot of "1979"

i think it even samples the cover to the CD single

so.... they're getting wasted and hanging around? man anybody who gave Puffy shit over his sampling should listen to this and then come back and think again imo

lol imagine hearing this shit in like 1998 or something

That song really brought out the angry boomer in me, not so much because of the obvious Pumpkins sample as because of the 'Californication' line.

if this were a one direction song i'd be so down

it is nowhere near as good as a one direction song though

one direction sampling smashing pumkins would be the best dream ever.

I just fixed the CD player in my car - well got the penny out that my kid stuck in there - and busted this out after a long time and damn this is so well recorded. The drums absolutely thump

Trudat.

Of all the cuts on here, Thirty-Three was an odd choice for a single, while 1979 was unusual but inspired. Agree?

Don't get me wrong, it's a good song, just wouldn't have pegged it. Even one of the daft soppy goth songs at the end would have been a better choice imo

saw them this sunday and was far better than the last show i saw them on, old billy even cracking a smile here and there, lots of younger people in the crowd loving it - clearly crossed over a lot to some audiences despite no obvious tiktok hit?. setlist:

Glass' Theme
Heavy Metal Machine
Pentagrams
Today
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Muzzle
1979
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
Sighommi
Mayonaise
Take My Breath Away (Berlin cover)
Edin
Disarm
Tonight, Tonight
Cherub Rock
Jellybelly
Bodies
Ava Adore
Zero
The Everlasting Gaze (with a snippet of Black Sabbath's "N.I.B.")

opening with glass' theme... you love to see it

SHATTERING FAST I’M GLASS I’M GLASS

Nobody voted for Beautiful. That makes me a bit sad

Mellon collie, even

33 is great, some of my favorite corgan lyrics for sure

yeah good song, absolutely, but I could think of several that would make more sense as A-sides. Even off that side of the record, "Bodies" or "Where Boys Fear To Tread" feel like more obvious picks, and would have been as iconic as "WBFW". Apparently "Muzzle" was being considered instead. Corgan must have really liked "Thirty Three".

yeah i'm glad "Muzzle" at least got some radio play without a video or CD single because it's easily my favorite song on the album. it always kind of bugged me that the singles were 2 heavy rawk anthems and 3 pretty pop songs when they could've better expressed the full spectrum of the album's variety in the singles.

I haven't listened to this in years. Been dipping in and out of it for the last day or two. What I'm hearing differs a bit to how I remember it:

- It sounds terrific. Like one of the best-produced albums I can think of. There's so much going on but everything sounds pristine.
- It's an incredible pop album, brimming with riffs and melodicism. What I originally thought of as proggy excess just doesn't hold for me today - every song is memorable, there are very few extended freakouts or fillers. Even lengthy songs like Porcelina feel earned. Looking at the poll and the spread of votes proves there are very few truly overindulgent moments or any real skips here.
- I remember fans saying this was the beginning of the end for them and that Siamese Dream was their crowning achievement. That never rang true for me, even as a teenager - I always suspected an element of rockist classicism at play in that opinion. I maintain this is quite easily their best record.
- So many tracks could have been A-sides. 'Love', 'Galapagos', 'Muzzle', 'Where Boys', 'Bodies', 'In The Arms', 'XYU', 'Beautiful' - all of these could have been huge alternative hits in an alternative universe

opening with glass' theme... you love to see it

― ivy., Thursday, 14 August 2025 15:37 (yesterday)

get on the bomb or gtfo

fucking monolith, monumental guitar sound. was there a crankier set opener in all of 90s alt rock?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4bGp257Fgg

me: ‘i've never understood what ppl have against this record!’ (presses play)
Billy Corgan: “…we’ll crucify the insincere, tonight”

fave songs
1. Where Boys fear to tread > 2. Bodies
3. Here is no why (the most obvious huge radio hit that never was, xps to DL)
4. Jellybelly (holy shit @ the drums)
5. To forgive

this is unchanged in 30+ years

Here Is No Why is great. It sounds like it could have been on Siamese Dream (in a good way). Speaking of which, think I'll listen to that album this morning

I think no matter what, a sixth single was out of the question... Thirty-Three came out in November '96 and The Aeroplane Flies High came out two weeks later as the big Christmas item. A sixth single would necessarily been excluded from the box, and I'm certain that would have driven Corgan crazy.

As for swapping something out... Hrm. I can just about hear "Here Is No Why" as a single, but somehow not any of the other titles that have been floated. I think the strategy of keeping "Muzzle" as a promo single worked out great... it got it on the airwaves and made clear, if you hadn't *yet* sprung for the double CD package, that it had the deep cuts to justify it. It's only four minutes long, but totally feels "epic" and kinda stands in for the other epics that would never have made it into semi-regular rotation. I also think "Thirty-Three" was a cool single to represent the softer wistful sides of the album, and a great song anyhow.

It was also really rare for an album to spin off 6 or so official singles (IIRC, Monster charted six tracks on the US Alt. Airplay charts, which was a record). Also, the Mellon Collie tour wrapped right before Xmas and the 'New' Pumpkins debuted on the radio in early '97 when "Eye" from the Lost Highway soundtrack hit.

fave songs
1. Where Boys fear to tread > 2. Bodies
3. Here is no why (the most obvious huge radio hit that never was, xps to DL)
4. Jellybelly (holy shit @ the drums)
5. To forgive

this is unchanged in 30+ years

― i hid your comb in the teapot (Deflatormouse)

Lol are you me? This is pretty much my top 5, I’d probably give “to forgive” a step or two up because of memories attached to it.

as someone who thinks "Tonight, Tonight" is one of the best songs on the album, though, i will say i think the title track kinda sucks. on paper it seems like a good way to tee up the first full song and a little dreamy instrumental should be welcome, but it just sounds cheaper than the rest of the album and a little unimaginative compared to the instrumental sections of various SP epics.

i will often ask my Amazon Echo to play a particular artist's songs on shuffle while my family has dinner, and it usually sticks to the act's most popular songs. but the last time i put on SP, it played the Mellon Collie title track and i was just like ughhh absolutely not!

“ I remember fans saying this was the beginning of the end for them and that Siamese Dream was their crowning achievement. That never rang true for me, even as a teenager - I always suspected an element of rockist classicism at play in that opinion. I maintain this is quite easily their best record.”

I remember this talk too at the time, lol. Siamese Dream was kinda over for me when Mellon Collie made it into my collection.

Or, more succinctly, dog latin OTM

On a purely personal and emotional level, Adore is probably my favorite Pumpkins LP, but this has gotta be a very close second

I’ve always really liked the melody of the title track and the mellotron sound and I think its smallness intensifies the sudden violent start of “tonight tonight”. But I can totally understand getting rapidly irritated at it appearing on shuffle as anything other than the start of this album.

I’m not as into the “infinite sadness” instrumental which was the last track on the vinyl version iirc but was recorded closer to Siamese era. It’s okay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpr-4h1aYIU

It’s been more than a decade since I listen to the original album. I pretty much only play a revised version I made removing 10 tracks off it and adding 2 b-sides… here’s how I arranged it:

A side

1. Where Boys Fear to Thread
2. Bodies
3. Muzzle
4. 1979
5. Here Is No Why

B side

1. To Forgive
2. Pennies
3. Thirty Three
4. Thru The Eyes of Ruby
5. We Only Come Out at Night

C side

1. Set the Ray to Jerry
2. Love
3. Zero
4. Bullet With Butterfly Wings
5. Jellybelly

D side

1. Galapogos
2. Stumbleine
3. Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
4. Lily (My One and Only)
5. Tonight Tonight

i remember somebody i know getting the triple LP and i thought it was pretty beast mode that there was even MORE music on the vinyl version

it’s so criminal that set the ray to jerry isn’t on the album

Had similar sentiments upthread. Really is something, Pumpkins in quiet electric mode may be most underrated Pumpkins in the end.

I need to do a proper relisten to everything (and all the B-sides and bonus tracks and etc.) -- but I admit I'm currently pondering ways to get a version of the Machina set somehow (and can actually listen to it).

i love this album but the sequencing is really chaotic and doesn't work for me overall. it's absolutely too much all together but neither disc really works that well on its own either. there is still a bit of filler and some of the metal doesn't work for me but it's still remarkably strong

a lot of the production is fantastic but then there's "tales of a scorched earth", i'd forgotten how terrible it sounds because i always skip it

the single disc tracklist i ended up with years ago and probably posted here somewhere else is:

tonight, tonight
thirty-three
1979
here is no why
jellybelly
bullet with butterfly wings
to forgive
thru the eyes of ruby
stumbleine
beautiful
galapogos
muzzle
porcelina of the vast oceans
by starlight

which is a pretty much perfect album

(Whisper it)

I don't care at all for Tonight, Tonight. Makes me think of Meat Loaf or something

Nobody voted for Beautiful. That makes me a bit sad

Andy Rooney of all people visited my school and he brought up how out of touch he was with current music. An understatement as when John Lennon was killed decades ago, he wrote in a column that he was surprised how his death was a big deal to a lot of people. He mentioned his granddaughter or some other relative (I can’t remember) once suggested this album when he asked for a recommendation, and he did give it a deep listen because he proceeded to quote (and mock) this verse:

Beautiful, you're beautiful
As beautiful as the sky
Wonderful, it's wonderful
To know that you're just like I

In true Andy Rooney fashion, he complained about the grammar, saying “they could have used ‘sea’ so it would have rhymed with ‘me’ but whatever…”

Amazing how all bar three tracks were voted for..

Andy Rooney sitting down for a thorough, open-minded listen to this album is pretty charming to consider.

Rooney would have been a great guest for Corgan's recent podcast

"Billy, you could have said 'Cause I'm a sister, and I'm a motherfucker', but whatever..."

While I can’t deny his songwriting skills and how interesting he gets on guitar sometimes, the older I get the less I can stand Corgan’s weasel vocals. But also the older I get the more I appreciate Jimmy’s drumming. I wonder how far the SP’s would have gotten without Corgan having one of the best drummers of all time next to him.

every song is memorable, there are very few extended freakouts or fillers. Even lengthy songs like Porcelina feel earned. Looking at the poll and the spread of votes proves there are very few truly overindulgent moments or any real skips here. -dog latin

i love this album but the sequencing is really chaotic and doesn't work for me overall. it's absolutely too much all together but neither disc really works that well on its own either. -ufo

the way I've always felt about this is, the album is made up of constellations of recurring moods, motifs, tempos and sounds that on one hand can feel a little bit redundant and could 'stand in' for each other- but in fairness it isn't usually clear where each of these is best expressed or represented. one-off experiments aside, if there are evenly matched variations on a similar shape, what do you cut? for me, it's almost getting into a 'no two sunsets are the same' kind of space. because I agree with ufo that the sequence is a mess and really doesn't work.
the first and last song or two on each disc are where they should be; other than that, it feels completely random. there are abrupt cuts and unwelcome disruptions and shifts. and the album is, yeah, too long all together and neither disc stands alone...
but that's okay!! because the organizing principle of the record is not the sequence, it's these constellations of repetition, where some of the parts are almost interchangeable. once you've absorbed the whole thing, you don't need to hear every piece all at once to feel like you've experienced the totality of it. tomorrow you'll watch another sunset. that's how it 'works'.

anyway, it was fun to revisit this the other day.

I’d probably give “to forgive” a step or two up

I don't object!

the older I get the less I can stand Corgan’s weasel vocals

aw but he uses it so well! and it has to cut through that huge sound. a less abrasive voice wouldn't work as well in this band

he's an excellent vocalist imo. total dickhead, of course, but excellent vocalist.

His vocals are consistently the biggest irritant for me, as I re-listen to this album thanks to this thread

he started doing that really nasally whiney thing hardcore on this album, but his super dreamy voice like in "obscured" or the quiet part of "geek usa" is just wonderful. and often he just sounds like mick jagger to me.

I don’t know if the songs would work with a different vocalist because I know them so well I can’t imagine them with anyone else singing them. They match the music that much is true. Still I get tired of them in such a loaded album as this one.

I have a distinct memory of watching MTV News at the time, and they did a short feature on the band. And -- it was either Kurt Loder or John Norris -- ended by saying 'Muzzle' was going to be the next single. Was that the plan? I always wondered what happened.

xpost: Otm. 'Obscured' is lovely, as is 'Whir'. He could use his voice in an effective way, I wish he did more of it.

corgan's pretty far from my favourite rock singer but he's not too bad most of the time and when he's at his worst it's usually because he's leaning into it for a song that really needs it like "zero"

outright duds here:
-title track (should have been like, a minute at most)
-where boys fear to tread
-tales of a scorched earth
-we only come out at night
-lily (my one and only)

there's a fair few more that i don't really care much for but they all at least have something going for them

Ahhhh I love all those. Even the title track which has nice King Crimson-lite / Opening titles of an old video game vibes, which is the perfect opener to such a long album./

Can't think of too many I'd take off.

Maybe some of the whispery Iha-coded closing tracks, sweet as they are. Necessary as they are too for these kinds of albums (we all need a "Goodnight" to send us off to bed). But I'd never put the album on to listen to them.

Never really loved 'Tonight Tonight' as a single for its Steinman-isms. It's a good "proper" opener.

There are maybe a few meat'n'potatoes rockers that are great on their own but sound like they belong to the Siamese Dream era (sorry Jellybelly and Muzzle).
I like Galapogos and I like Thru The Eyes Of Ruby, and they're similar songs - I have to drop one and I think it's going to be Thru The Eyes.
'Stumbleine' aims to be Lennon's 'Julia' of this album but it's not as good. I could imagine Big Thief covering this one though, lol.

So if I were to kill some darlings, they would be:

Tonight, Tonight
Jellybelly
Cupid De Locke
Muzzle
Through The Eyes
Take Me Down
Stumbleine
By Starlight
Farewell And Goodnight

i can only agree that "cupid de locke", "take me down" and "farewell and goodnight" are inessential (though not outright duds) but the rest are fantastic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaQXRHV-ajw

this version of "stumbleine" isn't too far off the new big thief album really lol

“Cupid de Locke” is amazing, though. Pure cyclical float.

outright duds here:
-title track (should have been like, a minute at most)
-where boys fear to tread
-tales of a scorched earth
-we only come out at night
-lily (my one and only)

there's a fair few more that i don't really care much for but they all at least have something going for them

― ufo, Monday, August 18, 2025 5:02 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

everything post XYU is absolutely essential to the overall album comedown.

My kids are named Lily snd Ruby, but not because of this album which I do like but not as much as a lot of you.

Siamese Dream is my favorite Pumpkins album, but MCIS has loads of good stuff. I have never been partial to Bullet With Butterfly wings though. It just comes across as stiff cheese to me. 1979 is probably the best one here.

the biggest shocker for me in this entire thread is BWBW getting as many votes as it did. it had it's time in the sun but if i need a "bad-corgan" song template that's the easy default choice.

everything post XYU is absolutely essential to the overall album comedown.

This is absolutely true, but also, when any of them show up on their own in shuffle or whatever, they don't really work at all out of context.

i used to listen to "we only come out at night" on its own all the time. one of my first favorite very deep cuts on the record

albeit i was 10 years old

"where boys fear" is also like. the best song ever, imo. so groovy

first time I heard BWBW it was a live version played on BBC radio, and when Corgan shrieked (rather than snarled) "The world is a vampire..." I was immediately sold

WBFTT rocks and I love that it samples the Doom rocket launcher sound. I also love the bizarre kettle-whistling sound (some kind of resonant filter sweep?) thru the whole track

Wait, scratch what I posted before. I just remembered Corgan wrote several Celebrity Skin songs which sound like Smashing Pumpkins songs but they sound great with Courtney on vocals both in the agressive songs and the dreamy/melancholic ones. A good female singer splitting vocal duties would have worked for me.

What I mean is that re-listening to it now I think even having D'Arcy (a bit non-descript as a singer but it works out in Gish's Daydream) doing lead vocals in 5 of these songs would help cool down from Corgan doing the weasel thing in 28 tracks. Imagine a similar dynamic as Rachel/Neil in Slowdive.

I don't know... the songs where Jimmy Chamberlin is not as present makes me focus too much on Corgan's vocals and I find myself skipping them nowadays.

There's definitely something that happened to Billy's voice starting on this album that made it worse. I can't put my finger on what it is. Obviously the snotty nasal quality was always there, but it sounded fine on Gish and Siamese Dream. Maybe Butch Vig just had the magic touch.

I think it may come down to how *loud* he is singing a lot of the time along with how the vocals are mixed.

iirc his decision to record his vehicles as rawly as possible on this record was a deliberate decision by him and flood. he really scales back for adore

"in the arms of sleep" is one of my favorite songs here and he sounds godawful on it

Yeah the "raw" mixing is likely a big part of it. I also think he started doing fewer breathy sighs and more crooning which sounds like honking

There's definitely something that happened to Billy's voice starting on this album that made it worse. I can't put my finger on what it is. Obviously the snotty nasal quality was always there, but it sounded fine on Gish and Siamese Dream. Maybe Butch Vig just had the magic touch.

― c u (crüt), Monday, 18 August 2025 17:34 (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I was listening to Siamese Dream yesterday and I think the answer is that his voice is mixed quieter on SD and even more so on Gish (where he's absolutely awash among the arrangements, barely more than a presence). I feel like alt-rock and indie music generally tended to a more "buried" vocal mix pre-1994, and then around the mid-90s they started coming much more to the fore.

could probably chart billy ego vs billy vocal loudness

I remember seeing him in concert, in Houston during the SD tour and he was whining at the audience and that was the first time I really heard his speaking voice and it surprised me and I thought it was kinda funny. Then the first single from MCIS comes out and it's that same voice "THE WORLD IS A VAMPIRE" and I just could not take it seriously whatsoever.

First two albums are relatively mature offerings. Mellon Collie is juvenile, flamboyant and a seriously undergoes album

"Seriously unserious"

Corroborating all this: I first saw SP with Hole in late 1991, club level gig for Gish (the Whisky in LA IIRC), and what struck me about Billy's performance then was that it was *meditative*, for lack of a better word. It almost felt like he was sitting down (even though he wasn't) and calmly singing and playing while everything was exploding around him, a good loud and very compelling performance from everyone. My abiding memory is of him and his then big ol' head of hair, his eyes closed, lost in it all but still delivering a show. So the changeup between that and next time, which was the two times I caught him/them in LA at Lolla 94 -- the literal end of the whole SP tour cycle, to be fair, fuck knows how tired and cranky I might have been myself then -- was instructive. Still amazing performances both nights (and different setlists, even better) but jeez was he on one.

Gish is my favorite because his voice is not as protagonist to the songs or “in the front” of the mix.

Also it’s more drenched in psych-rock / dreampop. As the 90’s progressed they started shedding it.

If I had my druthers, I'd definitely trim a few tracks from this set. But after having tried to make a one-disc edit playlist a few years ago, and discovering today how many tracks I wanna hear that are missing, I'm convinced that this not only misses the "sprawling abundance of a double album" train, but that the hit:miss ratio here is too high for it to ever pan out. So if anything I think the way I've come to think about Tusk: you could PROBABLY make it into an unquestionable three-sided LP (with some aching, beautiful illustration etched into side IV), by cutting, say, Stumbeline, In the Arms of Sleep, To Forgive, Fuck You, Tales of a Scorched Earth and the instrumental.. Those are the only ones I really have no interest in hearing ever again, but for somebody else they might be the core (the heart music) of the album. If I'd known how to work my stereo fully in the 90s I could have probably just programmed those out anyway.

Man but I LOVE the doomy roar of Where Boys Fear to Tread!

messy but good, thats what I think of this album. the hits make a strong case for getting into the uh less effective moments or giving them a chance ... that said im with raymond that "adore" is my fav overall project, maturation of corgan's songwriting, sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-shaaaame

Adore is the dark lodestone of it all, his Projekt Records entry, a perfect poised point. And both "Shame" and "Behold! The Night-Mare" will live in my brain forever.

I couldn’t even say how long it’s been since I listened to the whole thing!

When in the mood for the album I’m probably reaching for “Galapagos” or “Zero” or “1979”, maybe “Beautiful” or “Lily”.

Maybe I should try Adore again. Did the Lost Highway soundtrack and “Eye” come out before Adore? That’s the first I remember hearing that mode of Pumpkins and I really don’t like that song. I think it turned me against their electro-goth direction but enough fans like it that I would try again. Nothing after that though.

Lost Highway was ‘97, I think. Adore was ‘98.

XP Lost Highway was early '97, so pre-Adore, as were the two Batman & Robin songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OEvDqRr898

ugh

i like adore but it's somehow less consistent than mellon collie and the production is so much worse, it's so muddy and compressed. idk why all of flood's production work started sounding like that - pop and is this desire have the same problem but adore has it the worst. it does have some of their best work like "behold! the night mare" and "for martha"

adore isn’t that muddy ??

and is this desire. does not have that problem omg

“perfect” is basically my idea of a… uh… perfectly produced song

I'd never heard Eye until now. Huh...

I did like The End Is The Beginning Is The End though

“Eye” is so fucking good!

There are maybe a few meat'n'potatoes rockers that are great on their own but sound like they belong to the Siamese Dream era (sorry Jellybelly and Muzzle).

what's the distinction you're drawing here? I don't know Siamese Dream all that well, and I mean there are a lot of other 'qualities' to Mellon Collie that someone might latch onto. but the one I tend to fixate on is, the sound of the live band is the bedrock of Mellon Collie, and the more kitschy ornamental shit weaves around that. For all the wacky 'arrangement ideas' and songwriting and production experiments, it has a very live feel most of the time. SD sounds a lot more 'constructed'.

I just remembered Corgan wrote several Celebrity Skin songs which sound like Smashing Pumpkins songs but they sound great with Courtney on vocals both in the agressive songs and the dreamy/melancholic ones. A good female singer splitting vocal duties would have worked for me.

I'm not so sympathetic to the idea of Corgan as the auteur here, or the band and record as a vehicle for his songwriting. Great as most of the songs are, it's the other way around for once. And that is one killer band! They can all really play and they have this iconic, glamorous sound like rocket ignition.

WBFTT rocks and I love that it samples the Doom rocket launcher sound

...not a coincidence! That Hole record is really good too, but Hole are not the Smashing Pumpkins (and I know you specified it's "the songs where Jimmy Chamberlin is not as present" where you want to hear another vocalist- sure, I'm just too lazy rn to find a more relevant post to quote sorry)

smh that "Jellybelly" is anyone's idea of 'meat and potatoes' rock. Damn.

lol Adore and esp. Is This Desire are two of the better produced records of that era IMO

I thought so too

Never seen this band live, but listening to Disc 6 (lol?) of Aeroplane and this is an amazing document of an amazing band

"outright duds here:
-title track (should have been like, a minute at most)"

My one disc version, which is mostly the hard crunching songs that don't go over four mins, would begin with this nice little ditty, though I like Stumbeline and To Forgive, a couple of others..

Re listening to much of it yesterday and can hardly stomach the epics. Just do the meat and potatoes, I'm a simple person.

years back made a single disc version and i'm pretty sure it opened with the title track before going on to the punishing "tales of a scorched earth"

smh that "Jellybelly" is anyone's idea of 'meat and potatoes' rock. Damn.

― i hid your comb in the teapot (Deflatormouse), Monday, August 18, 2025 10:41 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

when i first bought the album i would always skip this song because i was a sulky teen that just wanted to get straight to "zero". now it blows my mind they never considered it for a single.

and is this desire. does not have that problem omg

― ivy., Monday, August 18, 2025

Seconding this. Is This Desire sounds marvelous.

'Beautiful' just came on. Shoulda been a single, it would have been huge

Okay, going to bump this while I run errands today. Will report back. I remember Jellybelly as being Cherub Rock but not as good.

more like ‘fast-forwarded smashing pumpkins cd’

If I'd known how to work my stereo fully in the 90s I could have probably just programmed those out anyway.

whoa fancy

this album suffers from late-90s cram-every-last-minute-of-the-CD disease. it's not that there are too many songs on it (they're all really good), but they all go on for at least a minute too long (except '17' which gets cut off early!)

Save for Ava Adore and Once Upon A Time, I can take-or-leave the opening half. Things really kick into gear on Appels + Oranjes, then it's through-and-through a pretty great listen. Behold The Night Mare is a real standout

oh whoops, that was meant to be on the adore thread.

I'm not so sympathetic to the idea of Corgan as the auteur here, or the band and record as a vehicle for his songwriting. Great as most of the songs are, it's the other way around for once. And that is one killer band! They can all really play and they have this iconic, glamorous sound like rocket ignition.

Not in every song he co-wrote and obviously Eric and Courtney’s fingerprints can be traced all over these songs. But a song like “Malibu” has a very similar DNA to “1979”, “Perfect” or “Stand Inside Your Love”.

The first time hearing the album without knowing BC had co-written some of it “Hit so Hard”, “Petals” and “Malibu” immediately made me think they had a massive SP influence. Little did I know.

One of the great things about Celebrity Skin is that both of these things can be true. You can hear Corgan's impact but you can also hear that he wouldn't have been able to do these songs himself (and a lot of the best songs didn't involve him).

It's collaboration resulting in something greater than the sum of its parts in the best possible sense.

I'm reminded of how Bjork's work on her first four albums clearly bore the imprints of her collaborators (the tricky songs sounded a bit like tricky etc.) but never in a way that indicated or suggested she wasn't the predominant driver of the sound(s) of her work.

i was talking about Mellon Collie there, not Celebrity Skin. i see how that was very unclear. sorry Moka!
just saying that i hear the songwriting as mostly subordinate to the Smashing Pumkins’ gargantuan live band sound on Mellon Collie. as great as the songs are, i usually put that album on to be pulverized and dazzled by the sound of the band. your proposal of subbing in Darcy as the singer (on specifically some songs where this is not the case) is tantalizing the more i think about it, but i shouldn’t have quoted you since it wasn’t really in response to your posts.

i think the last time i actually listened to Celebrity Skin was more than 20 years ago, and i mostly remember the first 3 songs (it’s easy enough to imagine the Pumpkins doing Hit so Hard)

the bigger thing that makes me love this album is the treasure trove of material left off. i love "set the ray to jerry" but it feels undercooked for this album and a relic of the SD/PI era. "Meladori Magpie" would've fit snugly into the back half of disc 2.

set the ray to jerry doesn’t sound like anything else on earth

there's a bunch of bloc party songs that it sounds like

“Set the ray to Jerry” is one of my favorite songs from this era! Melon Collie is filled with guitar bombast so I like the variation of the bass and drums leading the song.

I kind of relate that sort of sound to a certain U2 sound where the bass and drums provide the backbone to the whole thing and the guitars are there as a more subtle, texture sound.