20 Years ago… One of the most prolific albums, a soundtrack to my life personally, was released by Virgin records on this day. 10/23/1995. What an album and what a year. For me, this album said everything about myself and my generation at the same time. Personally, this album was right were I was mentally at the time– raging, yet eternally all over the place, happy, depressed, sad, swarmed by people, lonely, everything. That summer was the last summer I would work in Yellowstone park, bleeding into the late fall, the summer of a complete breakdown of several relationships, I was literally travelling between Seattle, Yellowstone and Buffalo trying to figure out where I really was going to live, how I was going to end up– I was 23, headed to 24 and I was a mess. It was time to grow up or not– but I needed to figure out where next was. I was so old, right?
The album itself was a much different take on what was the Pumpkins previous takes, both of which had been the soundtrack of those college years at Buffalo State– Disarm was the AEPI initiation song, courtesy of David Blaustein. When Mellon Collie came out– a risky double album, intended to be a legendary album, it was an instant hit, with Bullet with Butterfly Wings really launching the album, but it wasnt the poppy hits that really resonated with the album for me, it was the work as a whole, the emotion that Corgan was belting out along with all of the rock– the anger and the sadness blended perfectly together– the band assisting with this assault. 5 songs total were the “singles”, timely released over a year– from Bullet to 1979 to Tonight, Tonight to Zero to Thirty-Three. The songs were meant to be played together– the discs, one red, one blue, represented night and day.
These two discs were purchased at least 5 times as one set would get worn out and I would need to repurchase when my disc player in my car would no longer play them without erroring or skipping.
(Side Note)The only other CD’s to be purchased multiple times were Dave Matthews Band Live at Red Rocks, Crash and Everclear’s Sparkle and Fade.
In all, MCIFS is 28 tracks total– although the new box set, released 2 years ago, it adds additional sessions, outtakes, songs that never made the final wax, etc. For years, I stuck to the traditional 2 disc set — until today. Today is the first time, waxing nostalgic, that I decided to give the additional tracks a listen and they are a nice additional layer of sound, but they are all subpar to what was selected for release.
My generations music (and I am sure most people/generations say the same thing)was the beginning of the end of rock. Bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana and Pearl Jam were at the tail end of the rock anthem style of music. Radiohead started out in the same category, but the saw the changes coming in rock, pivoted and became much more electric in their sound– bands like the Pumpkins, who were powerful in their songwriting and its sound, really began to lose out to pop and hip hop. Mellon Collie still spoke to the rage, depression and wanderlust that all 20 somethings felt in the mid-90’s. Despite all of our rage, we are just rats in a cage spoke to a generation of people wandering. For me, personally, the songs roller coaster of emotion were what I needed to get through a difficult time in my life- a time where I felt like the Zero he was talking about– “I never let on, that I was a sinking ship”, “Emptyness is loneliness, Loneliness is cleanliness, cleanliness is godliness and God is empty, just like me.” “I’m in love with my sadness”– all of this speaks to an entire generation of us– we felt like everything was wrong with the world and it was all on our shoulders.
The album goes through the various stages of grief, anger, sadness and it does it gradually, building itself into powerful rock ballads like Bullet with Butterfly wings and then taking it down into songs like “To Forgive”, I learned my loss before I even learned to sleep. Corgan comes clean into all of us, broken families, broken relationships, were damaged goods– even if we didn’t come from the dark places he spoke of, we were familiar enough with them that we understand what he is so remorseful in songs like “To Forgive”. He doesn’t stay there long through– the very next song, An Ode to No One, he takes a different tone, a harder tone– “To Forgive” does just that– but “Ode” erases all, disconnects it all, moves it forward, get strong, move on. As I move through the album, I remember all of the words, but I recognize so few of the titles, another sign of a great album.
But because of when it came out and where music was at that time, will it ever be that classic on the shelf that stands the test of time like other albums that really define a band? Will it be in the same place as Physical Graffiiti? Exile on Main Street? The Wall? My perspective is that these other albums, as mentioned above, do they speak or carry the emotional power that Melon Collie does? Because music is all about experience, our own experience with the art, it’s difficult to make a case either way and its frankly irrelevant.
Here we are 20 years later. Crazy to think about it. Is this at the top of your list of top albums?
