Reader Review: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - IGN (original) (raw)

The Smashing Pumpkins double album opus.

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

. No one would expect a name like that to conceal the highest form of aural bliss. The fourth album by The Smashing Pumpkins (fifth if you count Lull), it is a masterful double disc set containing a total of twenty-eight songs. In MCIS, the Pumpkins revived the magic of Siamese Dream and in the process have unleashed an epic masterpiece in music.
There is no one specific genre that this album may be classified under. Things open to the emotionally charged classical piece which shares the same name as the album. Then, as the beautiful piano fades, we are introduced to the next song, "Tonight, Tonight." This song brilliantly mixes the sound of modern alternative with carefully orchestrated strings. But the icing on the cake comes when Corgan's lyrical--if not pure poetic genius--is revealed on the track: "Time is never time at all. You can never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth."

From here on out the album moves swiftly through musical genres - there's thrashing hard-rock ("Bullet With Butterfly Wings," "An Ode To No One," "Tales Of A Scorched Earth"), there's slow & heartfelt passages ("Galapogos," "To Forgive," "In The Arms Of Sleep"), mournful minor key odes ("Thirty-Three"), pure rock ("Zero," "Where Boys Fear To Tread," "X.Y.U."), as well as delving into the realm of techno/new wave ("1979"). To further add to the diversity, we are even treated to an occasional James Iha-sung lullaby.

Despite the vast musical schizophrenia, everything comes magically together on MCIS. Iha's guitar shreds and wails, while D'Arcy's bass serves as a perfect compliment. Chamberlain's drums guide themselves through every song, not sloppily, but perfectly calculated and immaculate, adding the perfect rhythm to both thrashing hard rock and slower, softer odes alike. All of this is amplified by Corgan's lyrics, which reflect the title of the album; melancholic, and pessimistic, but still, however, able to convey a remote sense of hope. Throughout the entirety of the twenty-eight tracks you will never once feel bored of or inclined to skip over a track that is simply "no good." As they say: "It's all good."

The Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was perhaps the most influential album of the 1990's, dwelling in the ranks of other such revolutionary albums like Nirvana's Nevermind. As the band's magnum opus it single-handedly changed the face of Alternative Rock. That said, it's not just music, but a work of art. Spend the twenty-five dollars. Heck, spend fifty and get ripped off. Just don't miss this album. It won't be repeated.

- Jesse Priolo

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