Reviews (page 11 of 16)
Here folks were complaining about Morgan Wallen putting out super long albums. This was a painful listen. Broken up into 3 sessions. I don’t like anything here. I don’t like this band. This is two of my least favorite things combined- prog and 90’s slop. Next.
I like this you can cancel me if you want but I love that it shifts genres midway through. I like the second half more, even though my favorites are in the first half, when it is more like whiny. The more mellow indie first half sounds a little folk and it also has way more harp and shoegaze vibes.
I didn’t like this but I’m just so glad it wasn’t as I initially thought from the deluxe version 6 hours long
1. zadnezz - 1 2. tonight - 2 3. jelly - 1 4. zero - 1.5 5. uuhy - 1.5 6. bullet - 2 7. forgive - 1.5 8. ode - 1 9. love - 1 10. cupid - 1 11. galapagoz - 1.5 12. muzzle - 1 13. porcelina - 1.5 14. douun - 1.5 15. boyz - 1 16. bodiez - 1 17. 33 - 1.5 18. armz - 1 19. 1979 - 2 20. earth - 1 21. ruby - 1 22. ztumb - 1.5 23. z y u - 1.5 24. night - 1 25. beautiful - 1 26. lily - 0 27. ztarlight - 1 28. goodnight - 1
Two things prevent me from giving this (in)famous early-nineties "alternative rock" record a 5-star grade. First there's the issue of its guitar sound and overall production values, which sound paper-thin at times--at least if you manage to hear through the avowed grand pretensions of the multiple arrangements and layerings. Maybe recording so many songs for those sessions (far more than the high number of cuts that ended up in the final album) happened to the detriment of giving the production and sound dynamics of this thing a real flair. Hard to say whose fault this is. Billy Corgan's? Alan Moulder's? Flood's? And of course, there's the issue of the "double-CD" length, with a second volume plagued with too many fillers (half of the tracks by my count)--secondary cuts that would have made interesting b-sides, but that were never the stuff of proper album material. And this time, Corgan's notoriously overblown ego is clearly at fault here. Make no mistake, "double-albums" are *always* topsy-turvy affairs, this goes with the (large) territory here. Yet too many songs in here are way too self-indulgent to allow me to give this thing full marks. Yet as uneven the whole shebang is, and as obnoxious as Corgan is today (and already *was* at the time, let's face it), *Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness* is still an *iconic* album (and its "haters" certainly helped build its reputation, very ironically). Which is the reason why I will include the record in my own list. With its immediately memorable and singable alt bangers, insane metal-inspired scorchers, heartfelt and touching ballads, along with its more long-winded-yet-ultimately-epic tracks, this album has a bit of everything for everyone, which is where its length comes handy, in spite of the shortcomings the latter also brings. Corgan's vocals and lyrics are obviously an acquired taste, but oddly enough, the whiny, juvenile and somewhat forced tones of what the Smashing Pumpkins frontman and songwriter does have never rubbed me the wrong way. Once again, this goes with the territory here, just as Ozzy Osbourne's antics go with the one of Black Sabbath. I have always banged my head over the chorus of "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek manner. But deep inside, that does not prevent from genuinely enjoying the song. Call that a "guilty pleasure"--the sort of pleasure I can feel for 70% of the record. "Zero" 'and "Jellybelly"'s heavy guitar riffs, "Tonight, Tonight"'s string extravaganza, "Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans"'s prog-rock regalia and "1979"'s chorus immediately come to mind here. But honestly, I could feel the same thing for a lot of other songs taken from the album. About the latter's interminable length, and just for the sake of a quick experiment, I've imagined what a "redux" version of it would look like. Its duration could fit in a *sole CD*, and I have an inkling such a shorter tracklist would give you a tighter listening experience while still managing to convey the band's multifaceted essence. Maybe I'm wrong about this. Yet it was a really a no-brainer picking the best songs. Maybe some of you can more or less agree with me on this selection. Push the "like" button if you do. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness Tonight, Tonight Jellybelly Zero Here Is No Why Bullet With Butterfly Wings To Forgive Fuck You (An Ode To No One) Muzzle Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans Where Boys Fear To Tread Bodies Thirty-Three (or alternatively, In The Arms Of Sleep) 1979 Tales of a Scorched Earth Love X.Y.U. Thru The Eyes Of Ruby (maybe in an edited version - and, if possible, segueing into an extract of the original album's closer, Farewell And Goodnight) 4/5 for the purposes of this list of "essential records". 9/10 for more general purposes (5+4). Number of albums left to review: 174 Number of albums from the list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 360 (including this one) Albums from the list I *might* include in mine later on: 206 Albums from the list I won't include in mine: 262
Bullet With Butterfly Wings is a great song. If I had to listen to an entire album, I would find the vocals annoying.
A continuation of the 90s trend of quantity not quality when it comes to albums. Boring, dull, dreary. A 2 hour long headache.
Absolutely loved this, especially the 1st half, just pure great tunes. Some decent ones on the 2nd half as well, but not as much as the 1st half. Not a fan of an album being this ridiculous length, should be 2 albums really. But still, loved it and will listen to it again.
I enjoyed parts of this. the is a couple of songs on here that i would deffo lissen to again ( Tonight tonight and Bullet with butterfly wings) however it was far too long as a final note the the album title is perfect for this.
I’m sure it’s not what these guys were going for but there was some funny shit on this album. Emptiness is loneliness And loneliness is cleanliness And cleanliness is godliness And God is empty just like me Mary had a little lamb Her face was white as snow And everywhere that Mary went I was sure to go Now Mary's got a problem, and Mary's not a stupid girl Mary's got some deep shit, and Mary does not forget It didn’t save the album but it at least got me smiling politely
Loooong - but still beautiful. Some great tracks throughout. But it can be difficult to stay focused for the entire album.
Two hours and five minutes is too long to listen to Smashing Pumpkins. This record is bloated and beyond the singles there’s not much to write home about. Two stars but one star is for nostalgia.
Some bangers but my gosh it felt like there was some filler
I cannot be unbiased. For two hours I was back in 7th grade, laying on my bed after another rough day of middle school just soaking in the guitars and terrible singing. I adore this band.
1979 is primo. Seems like a lot of the songs are pretty similar and fall into a couple camps even tho those camps are different. This could be shorted and be a 5 probably, but I’d say it’s a 4
2h viistettään.. paskaa... Muutama hyvä biiis lopusssa vaivan väärti... Kiitos.. hyväö musiikkia.m heh..
One of the greatest albums of the 90s. The musical range on this is amazing, a sonic voyage across a two hour roller coaster ride. I saw them on the RHCP tour double opening with Peal Jam during their Gish release. Thought they were okay, but kinda shitty to the crowd and each other so their next couple of albums were had stuff I listened too but never picked up. Then Mellon Collie came along and blew everything around it out of the water, it raised the Smashing Pumpkins out of the 90s era 'Every Grunge Band Ever' into a whole new pantheon. It has to be in my top 50.
I’ll always applaud an ambitious artist, but it’s rare that the ability rises to the level of the ambition. Even rarer when the level of ambition is this high. I’d only heard the singles, so I didn’t know the range of the whole album. It’s crunchy, sometimes. It’s melodic, sometimes. A gamut of emotions, all beautifully expressed.
I understand why this album is on here but I am not a big Pumpkins fan.
Wat een verschikkelijke stem heeft de zanger van deze band. Een soort midden van schreeuwen en zeiken, het is echt dramatisch. Dan kan het instrumentaal nog zo vet zijn, wat het ook al niet is, maar dan word ik hier gewoon niet vrolijk van. Album duurt fucking 2 uur. doe normaal. Wie wilde dit? Dit album voelt als de blauwdruk voor edgy tieners die dan dit heel hard aan hebben terwijl ze denken aan alle wreedheid op de wereld die uiteindelijk heeft geleid tot dat ze niet op hun computer mogen na 10 uur s avonds. Houd. je. bek. Het is niet zo erg. FAVO: het moment waarop ik me realiseerde dat het was afgelopen.
Long album. Only so much of that voice I can take. Quite a few good songs though. 3.75
There's criticism to be had for the vocals and the lyrics at times. But this was and continues to be absolutely killer. I have fond memories from on fall of 96 with this album and it essentially holds up. What I most appreciate is how often the verse-chorus-verse format gets a slight spin
fond memories of listening to this in the car a year ago n going insane lol
Smashing pumpkins do this sound better than anyone else - makes me want to pick up a guitar and start learning it all
There was a time in the musical zeitgeist when a turn of phrase as farcical as "Emptiness is loneliness and loneliness is cleanliness and cleanliness is godliness, and God is empty just like me" would score you a Top 10 hit on actual radio. The year was 1995, kids, and this fucking band was inescapable. Especially "Tonight, Tonight" -- which I think may be one of the overwrought songs ever recorded. There's no mistaking that Billy Corgan can write angsty songs. A LOT of angsty songs. But his desire to be an artiste gets in the way of what should be something you can enjoy listening to. And I've never really liked his voice. What's interesting to me listening to all two hours of this monstrosity is that there are some songs where he actually sounds *good* and his voice lines up with the music. But his screeching (like on the horrid X.Y.U) just puts teeth on edge. And noisy guitar can be fine -- but some of this is just noodling. That said, there are some songs that have aged nicely. I've always liked "Muzzle" -- it's a great stadium rock song. "33" makes me think of Rolling Rock beer. In The Arms of Sleep is strangely affecting. But dear lord does the back half of Disc 2 just drag and drag. This is the Pumpkins "Use Your Illusion" -- which would have been great if it would have been a single rather than a double album. Same here -- you could compress this down to a single disc with the same range of styles and not lose anything.
The Smashing Pumpkins are great!
Much prefer the debut album, classic double album that’s too ambitious in my opinion. 2.6
3.6 Lots of classic burners, lots of double album filler. I had this album growing up and there are lots of songs I didn't know when going through this exercise. Thats got to speak to the skip-a-bility of some of the tracks.
2 hours is egregious. I remember Alain said he listened to the 5 hour long deluxe version which is a little crazy. I liked the first disc more, the screeching vocals worked for some of the tracks, mostly because they were more high tempo. The second disc was mostly boring, wasn’t a fan of the slower tracks and the others didn’t sound great.
I don’t get it. Why would u make an album so long. Disc 2 is an easy 5, disc 1 felt like so long ago I don’t even know, maybe like a 3. It’s hard to pay attention to what I like when there’s so much it kinda blends together. But like some of this was really good. 1979, SO GOOD. I liked a lot of the stuff that wasn’t super noise heavy. I really wish there was just an album that had the good songs from this. I guess that’s what playlists are for. makes me appreciate mixtapes. Would prolly melt if someone ever made me a mixtape. I’m ab to sleep so the last song being all good night is super cute. 8.5/10
Take Me Down was very nice. The rest was honestly pretty good but so long. It makes sense that it’s good because they had so many finished songs to choose from for the album. But they should have chosen a few fewer songs. 7.5/10
4/10 - The second song seemed decent enough so I was expecting an ok album. But its been pretty bad after that. The songs are so screamy and not enjoyable imo. Nearing the end of the first disc it chilled out a bit. Straight into disk 2 its equally as bad. For instance tales of a scorched earth is absolutely awful. I went back and relistened to the most popular songs and they were better but still not fantastic.
There was one or two more metal songs that I didn’t love but everything else was a vibe
This is some shit that I think people are either gonna really like or really dislike, and I can totally understand hating this album. Corgan’s voice is ass and the album is long as fuck and a lot of the songs are weird, but I love it. The more mellow songs are definitely more my thing than the in your face stuff, but I honestly enjoyed the whole thing, which is crazy for something 2 hours long
Not exactly my cup of tea on first listen, will give it another listen at some point though as I did actually quite like what I heard
Certainly a couple of good tunes in here, but it's not nearly as good as I remember. Even "Bullet" and "Tonight, Tonight" don't do much for me any more, it seems. "Love" isn't bad. "Thirty-three" and "1979" have stood the test of time, though. The "novelty" songs ("We only come out..." and "Lily") are still just that. Can't take them seriously - and I can't imagine that we were meant to.
This album is everything. I love it so much.
First of all, this was 2 hours because it had 2 disks. Secondly, it sounded very generic and it was a bit meh. There were some interesting guitar solos here and there, but overall not very exciting.
I heard Cherub Rock in August ‘93 when it came out, and slowly over the next year, really absorbed it. It’s energy and Corgan’s way of tapping into your frustrations and rebellion at that age really resonated. That album is an absolute classic. I got into the history of rock and popular music when I went back to college that fall. Really delved into classic rock, jazz, and jam bands. By the time this album came out in ‘95, and Bullet With Butterfly Wings was the first single, it seemed out of touch. The song itself didn’t seem very good, and leaning into Corgan’s limited vocal range seemed like a terrible idea. I never had interest in hearing the album. It sounded to me like he had sold out to everything he was rebelling against previously. This rat-in-a-cage refrain sounded like a forced idea to sell this “rebellion”. I heard Tonight, Tonight, and then 1979. Tonight felt even more like them going pop, but 1979’s pop sensibilities worked for me. In short, I had no interest in listening to this album. Sounded to me like it was made for the pop charts. So now I’m finally listening to it. And … it’s OK. Some good songs here. Some not good songs there. Some tracks that are a little too grandiose or self-congratulatory. But overall it is a perfectly OK album.
Good album. One that I have a copy of. 1979 is the stand out track
A couple of great songs and a bunch of average ones. Pretty good album for the 90’s
I LOVE THIS ALBUM. I’ve never listened to it in full, but I knew 12 of the 28 songs before listening. It was great to get the opportunity to sit down and force myself to listen to this masterpiece in full! A spectacular sprawl of art rock mixed with progressive metal awaits you…
"Tonight, tonight" was the only song I added to my library. Originally, scored the album as a 4. It's great chill music to put on in the background or drive to, however, I'm subtracting a point due to the length. Disc 2 is an unnecessary addition. If music is a journey, I felt I was driving 500miles nowhere listening to this.
It's good but just too long. If this were two separate albums it might have been better, but there doesn't seem to be a reason that this is a 2 hour album. Nonetheless, there are some great performances here, like on 1979, Farewell and Goodnight, and Tonight Tonight. The lead's voice isn't great, but it's unique and matches their style well. Great 90s rock, but could be a lot better.
This album is really good. This album is also two hours long. His singing is still not the best. The energy on the heavier songs is there and the instrumentals are as good as they were on the last one. The length and singing hold this one back. Favorite songs were Tonight, Tonight, Jellybelly, Here Is No Why, Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Galapagos, Bodies, 1979, and Thru The Eyes of Ruby.
You have to appreciate when bands take swings this big, especially when they come out with material this consistently great.
Gave it a listen - not my taste
"Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" is the third studio and first double album by American rock band the Smashing Pumpkins. The album was produced by vocalist and guitarist Billy Corgan, Flood and Alan Mouder and contains a wide array of musical styles - art rock, grunge, alternative pop and heavy metal. It was lauded by critics for its ambition and scope. The album contains two disc sides, Dawn to Dusk (day) and Twilight to Starlight (night) which work together conceptually. Billy Corgan has stated the lyrics sum up all things he felt as a youth. The album debuted at #1 on the US charts and hit #4 in the UK. The opening song and self-titled "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness'" is an instrumental with piano keys and a cello. This leads directly into "Tonight, Tonight." A big open with a live orchestra and drums. The song has a start-stop quality with the acoustic guitar and strings. A song about encouraging to be yourself and live for the moment. I sometimes feel that songs #3 through #6 is one of the best moments on any album. Four onsecutive rockers. "Jellybelly" has a heavy metal start and the band kicks kicks i, killing it. "Zero" was a single with a grungy guitar open and is a dark song. Depression, drugs and being a fool seem to be the topics. My favorite song in this song string is "Here Is No Why." Catchy rhythm guitar melody. Guitar slashes. Overlayed guitar. Corgan screaming as he looks back at his 18-year old self. Speaking of screaming, the first exposure we all got of this album was "Bullet with Butterfly Wings." Pulsing guitar and drums and then the band explodes. We get that soft-loud-soft dynamic. He's stuck in this world which is a sucking vampire. Great song title name by the way. Guitar strums, drum rolls and the band rips into it to open "Muzzle." This is a straight-forward rocker and a song he wrote about his wife, soon to be ex, admitting his own faults but it's too late. The epic "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans" begins with a long silence and slow guitar keys. The band comes in and there's a soft-loud-soft dynamic. A dream love song about Porcelina. The second half (Twighlight to Starlight) kind of alternates between soft and harder-edge songs. One of the best harder-edge songs and my favorite song on the album is "Bodies." A needle scratching a record changes to the band in full throttle aggressive mode. No messing around with any dynamics here. Corgan's voice screaming and straining. It's about the after-effects after someone breaks up with you. The band goes softer with a piano and guitar strumming in "Thirty-Three." This is a hopeful song. Who said this band couldn't create a top-forty pop song? "1979" is just that. A drum machine. Vocal and instrument loops and samples. This is a solid pop song as Billy sings about making the most of the day. The album closes with a bittersweet song about death in "Farewell and Goidnight." A piano very similar to the opening song. All four members (Billy, James Iha, D'arcy and Jimmy Chamberlain) contribute vocals. This is a big and sprawling album. There's a lot of songs with melodic hooks, hard and soft songs and straight-forward rockers. I suppose they could have made one heck of a hard rock album limiting it to like 12 songs. But, it is what it is and it is a great album. This listening time I really tried to focus on the lyrics and Corgan covers a lot - love, anger, depression, dreaming, resentment, regret, pain and more I'm sure. This album has aged really well and sounded great again today. I would think there's something here for everyone to enjoy.
A good album, but way too long for me
I’d always meant to give this a go but never got round to it. It’s alright but goes on a bit
Wow, that was a slog. I liked how the vibes changed so often, but of course that means there were plenty of songs that I didn't vibe with. I did enjoy some songs, but I don't think any of them enough to seek them out again. This album was too long. More often than not, I would notice a track change and then several minutes later would think "bloody hell, we're still on this song?" We don't need 7+ minute songs.
I used to listen to this album all the time in middle school. Haven't played the whole thing through since then probably. I remember really liking the whole album and listening to it again after so many years, I don't think it really holds up as well as I thought it would. There are a few fantastic songs on this album - Tonight Tonight, Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Zero, 1979. Zero is probably my favorite on the album. But outside of those the record kind of drags a little bit. I think the 2 hour play time is excessive. I can see why this album has such mixed reviews. Billy Corgan certainly isn't for everyone. Assuming this is the only album on this list from Smashing Pumpkins, I'm surprised they chose this one instead of Siamese Dream. I know this one was commercially more successful and was higher up on the charts but I think Siamese Dream is a better album. 3.5/5 from me, rounding to 3 because it should have been half as long.
Not the thing to listen to when your packing (stressed)
It's really wild how many genres / musical styles are represented here -- the album is really long but worth it!
Tight
Similar to the previous Smashing Pumpkins album, I still think the way the vocalist sings is really weird and off-putting. But songs and instrumentation are surprisingly high quality, at least on the first disc. And that's the main problem here for me (apart from the singing): the quality difference between the first and second discs is massive. I'd like to rate the first one 4 stars, but the second one a mere 2 stars. It feels more like a collection of B-sides than an album. Instead of 2 hours of some good stuff and some bad stuff by The Smashing Pumpkins, this could easily have been just 1 hour of only good stuff.
Masterpiece.
cool kids never had the time
Don’t know a lot of the Smashing Pumpkins catalog and was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed the music/arrangement Of their songs. Not a fan of the lead singers voice, but he does a good job with what he has.
So I’ve always been a fan of Smashing Pumpkins, and really appreciate the uniqueness of their sound… Much more familiar with “Siamese Dream” – as well as a number of the best tracks from other albums – but not so much “Mellon Collie”, so I was really looking forward to this deep dive… Unfortunately, the songs that really clicked with me, are the ones that were the most popular tracks from the album… IMO, the 4 below were definitely the cream of the crop – “Tonight, Tonight” – 5-stars of 7… “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” – 5-stars of 7… “Muzzle” – 4-stars out of 7… “1979” - 5-stars out of 7… The rest however sounded pretty similar, and to be honest – there really wasn’t a need to do a double-album… I know a lot of folks don’t like Billy’s voice, and while not an outstanding – his vocals are perfect for their music – much like Kurt’s with Nirvana, and Geddy with Rush… Really though I would like this more, but just going to give it a 2 due to it being over an hour too long…
Love this band. Fan from the first album. This one though, has its ups and downs.
I appreciate the musicality, the arrangements, the guitar playing. But the lead singer’s voice is like nails and a chalkboard to me and makes me want to punch something.
Like many double albums, I wish this were a single, 12- or 13-track playlist without all the repetition. But you can't debate its impact on the 90s. I wish the lyrics were a little stronger to keep up with the music.
Not sure why I like this screaming better than other screaming, but I do. Maybe it’s the variety of songs - the melodic ones that come after the yelling ones. The voice isn’t great, so it’s not that. My 45-year old self only likes about half this double album so 3 stars.
Huge Pumpkins fan. I always wanted to live this album more than I do. It’s just too long. Some great songs that I will always go back to but it could have been cutdown to one album instead of a double album. Hoping for Siamese Dream soon. Gish also amazing.
Handful of good songs, the rest of this bloated 2-disc album felt self indulgent and forgettable
It has all the 90's Emo angst that I typically adore, but listening to the entire album became a bit more grinding and repetitive than I needed on a Monday afternoon. An expansive work, with 2 volumes showcasing Billy Corgan's prolific output and talent. I liked a few tracks that had escaped my attention two decades ago including Cupid De Locke. 1979 remains the star of the show and made it worth getting to it on Volume 2.
2024-05-05...
I wasn’t the biggest fan of the last Smashing Pumpkins album on this list, but honestly this was a treat! I enjoyed most of the songs a bunch, but like with a lot of longer albums I did get fatigued by the end. Favourite track: Zero.
Buena Banda
Rot
the singles are good but he is just so damn pretentious...
Brilliant new sound
This took fucking 3 days to finish. Bloated as fuck. There's no good reason this is two hours long. I'm giving it a 2 which is such a shame because there's some absolute ripper tracks in here. But those unfortunately represent .01% of the total ruintime. I misspelt runtime there - but my error absolutely adequately describes listening to this full record. It has a ruintime. It strips a very serious amount of time from your day. My time has been ruined. My algorithm is forever going to think I love Smashing Pumpkins, because I've now got a Lord of The Rings length of listening time with them. Fuck.
i’m sorry but no… not for me and that’s ok! 1.5 for opening piano track
Could have been a Single album but holds some iconic gems
80% of the album was 80% more rage than I expected. The start and end of the album was rly good, could have cut 8 of the middle songs
Listened to this album most of High School and College. Great entry, finally more than 2 stars!
great entry... best pumpkins album. Fun listening two all the way through again. Even the less popular songs have some great moments/riffs. Playing the air piano along with the title track, middle of "An Ode to No One", the gritty effects on "love", the awesome build up in "where boys fear to tread"
The instrumental songs were gorgeous. The slow songs were pretty good. The rest was nails on a chalkboard.
I was hoping this would make me have a greater appreciation for this band. Didn't work. Definitely worth a listen, but run of the mill 90s grunge, which never really spoke to me. I appreciate what that genre did to save Rock & Roll, however.
Not good, not bad; guess I’m not a SP fan. Track after track of same nasally, whiney, high pitched delivery. Not really original.
3.8 too longgggg, god but too longggg faves: beautiful, cupid de locke, mellon collie
they've got their sound together more than on Siamese Dream, in that most of the guitar solos figure out how to make the shred thing more of a noise collage (like all the other grunge bandwagon jumpers had already figured out how to do). there's still at least one extra tacky solo, on the track called "Fuck You (An Ode to No One)" which is a perfect title for what that song is (terrible). they show off a little more range with varied instruments (sounds like a big recording budget more than musicality) and styles. you can hear more that doesn't sound like a thousand layers of the same guitar smashed into paste, but it's heavy on compression & noise gate that makes it fatiguing to listen to. "Bodies" and "Tales of a Scorched Earth" are very nu-metal titles for very nu-metal songs that sound like they wanted to be a little more groovy & cool like sludgey grunge metal. I feel a little bad accusing these Pumpkins of copying the grunge wave so often, because I don't think that's what they were going for on the whole. it's just the rest of their vision isn't interesting enough to comment on. "The Wall for Generation X" sounds exactly right for how much this sucks. I like 1979 a lot. music: hated. (⌐■_■)
I should have given Siamese Dream a higher rating. I only gave it a 3. It’s just that it was the first time I realized the Smashing Pumpkins are good, and now, a few months later, I know it for sure. This one, too, whips ass. A band that is built to be self-indulgent, and does it for two hours, and the whole thing is, at least, Good to Very Good. Sorry Caleb
3.5 out of 5. Lots of standouts, but the album is just sooo long.
Two starts but only for nostalgia for my high school years.
I feel weird giving this a 2 because the album is obviously so good. And there are more than a few songs I really like. But it’s long. Corgan said he aimed the album at people 14 to 24, and I felt that. The album was so long I almost quit this 1001 albums thing because I finally listened to the whole thing after many months of failed attempts. It’s like 2 hours of music.
this is a really mixed bag, where some tracks are really good and others are really bad. also the intro tracks are just piano on a rock/grunge album??? way too long and the vocalist really hates hitting notes.
A lot of the same.
Grunge is the absolute worst genre, the music is mostly thrash without melody, I mean you couldn’t possibly hum one of these songs and have people have any idea what you’re doing. And the lyrics are mostly indecipherable, a fact for which we can be truly thankful.
Long as hell man. Bullet w butterfly wings will intermittently be in my head going forward, but other than that not too notable
Popular alternative rock/grunge album from the mid-1990s. There are some really great songs on it (Tonight, Tonight, Cupid de Locke, We Only Come Out At Night, just to name a few) which could make this album an easy 4 if it wasn't 2-hour long. It's longer than any other album I've had so far, even longer the afaik the sole triple album on this list. It's just way too much, and too long. It's a shame that they couldn't put put out an album with the best 13-14 songs and instead they also released songs that are well below the level of other songs. I love the video clip for Tonight, Tonight and also the album cover for nostalgic reasons, but I feel the album as a whole doesn't deserve more than 3 (3.5) out of 5.
For an album just over two hours long (yes I know it’s a double) this managed to maintain the quality and interest throughout. Looking forward to giving it another go.
t h i c c
Als Mellon Collie herauskam, hat mich das Werk gar nicht gefallen. Heute war es schon eher, mein Fall, aber so richtig vom Hocker hat es mich nicht gehauen. Gute Konzeption, gute Unterhaltung
A bit different sound than I expected. A few moments of experimentation and a couple of bangers. Not a huge fan of the vocals, but it is trademark Pumpkins, so I can give a pass. Would listen again. Low 4
I had this cd when it came out. I liked Siamese Dream better. If they would've kept this a single album with 10 to 12 tracks it would be considered one of the greatest albums ever. There's some really classic stuff on here, it's just too long.
not horrible.
Man, if only this had been a normal, single-disc release. It would have been such a legendary work. Just pick the best 12-15 songs and walk home with handfuls of cash from releasing a nearly perfect album. Instead, Corgan shoved every song he had into a bloated, 28-track slog of an album. It's still legitimately great, don't get me wrong. But it could have been perfect if they'd been willing to kill the weaker tracks. Not even BAD tracks because there aren't any. But there are definitely some that aren't as strong as the others and I just wish we could have had the 1-hour, face-melting, alt-rock beast that's hidden inside this ridiculous track listing. Anyway, it was still a good time and I can't give it less than 4 stars. But you can't get 5 stars unless you're willing to thin the herd and kill your darlings.
Love Smashing Pumpkins. Also love the top reviews hatred for them.
Great album!
Indeed as the review on Tidal says, this certainly is a challenging listen. My second time listening, and I really enjoy the remastered version. Listening first time I thought the album dragged at the end and sounded a bit flat. Still think it drags, but the remaster sounds better. Enjoyed the journey a lot more the second time around sonically. Hits get the album going and then the journey begins. Mostly hit - some miss. Don’t regret spending the 2 hours listening to it.
This is on my mt Rushmore of albums. It covers so much musical ground that there is something for everyone. Yes it's long. But it's all good. And even the singles had bsides with another 15 tracks that could have been on this record. This is one of the best records to come out of the 90s hands down.
Hadn’t heard them.., loved this album!
This album is so awesome. It feels never ending but in a good way!
An ambitious album that does a great job balancing lots of different sounds. The variety doesn’t make the 2 hr run time feel that long. Lots of bangers on this one
I'm sorry, but this was simply underwhelming
Why do they smash pumpkins? Good album though.
The one song I've heard before and a ton of others. It's comfy pop rock or something, and it's decent in my ears.
Very melancholic and grungy. The Pumpkins defined a sound of a generation of angsty teenagers. Listening to this record again after some decades, it still doesn’t resonate with me and it didn’t when I was an angsty teenager. It’s not a terrible record, just not my kind of sound, but I appreciate what it represents and how it shaped the landscape of music.
Masterful tour de force. Kinda lost me at the growlcore B-sides. But to be honest with myself, I'm just not that excited about Smashing Pumpkins. Respect this album a lot, but for my personal listening enjoyment, it's two stars.
Oh, nice more Smashing Pumpkins! Have never done this album end to end, so looking forward to the journey. Lots of classic smashing pumpkins on this one. Not every song was amazing, but an overall enjoyable album. very diverse but within a sound. 4* Tonight tonight after the piano intro is a really cool ease into the album. Highlights: tonight tonight, 1979 (goes so hard, timeless), zero, bullet with butterfly wings
I had this album when I was young, but I tended to skip around the tracklisting a lot. Oddly enough, revisiting this album years later, I found it easier to sit through the entire thing. Like many double albums, it can feel like a slog at points, but there's a refreshing variety of styles which means that the low points are far from fatal. The music is orchestral, dirty, dark, and light all at different points. And it's seething with Gen X against and energy. Truthfully, this is an extremely 90s album, but it has aged pretty damn well (even if the band didn't as much). Personally, I'd have cut a few tracks out, but it's still strong enough to support being a double album.
Masterpiece
I grew up in the 90s and love rock music, I obviously know the Smashing Pumpkins but they never made it as high on my list as other grunge bands. In fact I’m not sure I’ve ever listened to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness from start to finish…. It’s possible no one ever has. It’s 2 fucking hours. C’mon man. But I gotta say, it’s really really good. Is Corgan’s voice objectively bad? Yes but he’s got a great scream and somehow for me the softer songs are often so beautiful it doesn’t matter. Tons of bangers on it as well. One of, if not the greatest double album ever. That’s being said, if it was a single, it would undoubtedly be 5 stars 8.4/10
What an album
I'm not their biggest fan, but this is an epic wide ranging album.
Incredibly solid album from a distinctive sounding group. I didn’t listen to this album at the time so I didn’t really realize so many of these songs were on a single album.
Hadn't heard much of these guys beyond the big radio hits and those hold up. Unfortunately, the rest of the two hour runtime isn't as good and a solid chunk goes beyond "not as good" and into "just not good". I think I would have given this a 4 if it was average length. Points for diversity though.
Masterpiece. 28 songs masterpiece.
*Another* Smashing Pumpkins album?!!! I'm not sure why they'd really warrant two (or more?) entries in the 1001 album collection, and it always seems like a perverse form of torture to inflict a double album on any but true fans anyway. (Worse, the YouTube music link went to some 5-hour version of the album with 92 songs, which was fortunately so long that I knew it wasn't the version I should have gotten.) I've always wanted to like them more than I do. And this album didn't help, with it's annoying Belle-Epoque-style cover and title (although in some ways they occasionally *do* have a Hugo-like aesthetic, so maybe it's fitting?). However, at least there's more range on this album than on "Siamese Dream"...
my ex used to listen to this album and so I've already paid my dues. I'm sure it's fine if only I could remember it....
Another high school graduation year classic that I have listened to so many times on a spinning disc. Hearing it again now for the first time in many years, I fully expected to write that it is too long because I have come to dislike bloat and prefer shorter songs. But somehow there really is not much filler in this gigantic undertaking. A collection a varied, perfectly executed alt-rock tunes elevated by a few timeless classics like 1979. The one sort-of negative I can find is that the album doesn't innovate, it just perfects the medium of the grunge era. I am one that believes Corgan's voice is part of what made the band interesting, but then again I'm a Neil Young fan so I guess I have a soft spot for unconventional singers. Some of the lyrics are pretty 90s angst/cringe, but that is a product of the time. Siamese Dream is an absolute 5-star album for me...this is 4.5.
Joy!! 🙂 4.9
What a range of emotions. I didn't realize the album was a double disc, it seemed to mostly blend together after a while.
OK
I love the hits from this album and overall enjoyed the deeper cuts.
Good old double albums - at least when they are good this is a good thing.
Gran disco doble. Grunge con toques orquestales.
1979 - one of those songs I can never remember.
Forgotten, was a treat to be reunited, this music was a big part of my early adulthood.
Tonight Tonight is one of the best songs of all time. The Pumpkins often miss the mark. But when they hit it, they really hit. Still, there's no need for the album to be this long.
Smashing Pumpkins are one of those bands that have received commercial and critical appeal, and yet I have never given them the time of day. Tonight, Tonight is a classic hit of theirs. Very pretty song. By comparison Jellybelly is a more "grungy" sounding song that feels like it was mixed into the form factor of a poker chip. Really wish it were opened up a bit more to let the guitar breath. Zero is one of my favorite of the Smashing Pumpkins songs that made it to the radio. I used to think the guitar riff was sick. I used to, and I still do too. Bullet With Butterfly Wings is a catchy goddamned song. I really do wish this mixing felt less compressed -- maybe that's all purposeful, but I can't shake the feeling that this would scream if unleashed. Love An Ode To No One. Wall of sound riff propelling endlessly forward with some controlled stop-start play in the middle. Galapagos is a really pretty song. Love the twinkling guitar, and while I always found his voice strange as a kid, I really appreciate its oddness here (and across the record for that matter). So very distinct and unconventional, but able to run the spectrum from rage-filled to tenderness. Jesus this is a long album. I thought it was an extended edition until I looked up the Wiki page. I'm not hating it, but my god this is a lot of music. X.Y.U. is a fucking dirty jam. I was loving the sludginess of it. Such an odd juxtaposition followed up by We Only Come Out at Night. Such a long album, but I enjoyed everything it contained to a greater or lesser degree. This only solidifies what I already knew: I ought to go down the Smashing Pumpkins rabbit hole. On the first half I think I was listening with too low of volume and losing too much in the condensed mix. Really nice album with a lot to like. This is a strong 4 for me.
2 hours. Buckle up. At least it is a reputable band and not someone unheard of so it's a bit easier to prepare for this. Album feels like a bit of a grab bag with some whimsical sounding songs and some grungy songs. Definitely some of their more popular songs sprinkled in here as well. As with most albums, they tend to lose points for me when they are this long. The singer's voice is not that wonderful, but the instruments go! Tales of a Scorched Earth was pretty bad. As was XYU. I think there is a lot of good stuff in this album and I really like the variety, but I feel like as it gets longer I start to pick up more on the songs I don't like. It's like they're cutting their product with filler. The musicians should leave that practice to the cartels. Definitely has a some high 4 potential, but it slowly crept into the 3.5 category and then I was just happy for it to be over. Side 1 was significantly better than Side 2.
Was never a huge fan of Tonight, Tonight as a stand alone song, but man that was pretty awesome song to kick it off following that short intro leading into it. This was a weird album with the changing back and forth between the heavy grungy songs and the slower songs. I never knew what was going to come next. I liked a lot of both types of songs, but disliked some of both as well. I have never really jived with the singers voice but the instrumentals are pretty sweet on this album. I wish they had one more really heavy song as one of the last few songs. But the piano outro was quite nice. This is a 4 because I couldn't possibly give this album a 3, but it is a quite low 4
Oof this is a long one. Apparently they went into it with the Beatles White album as inspiration and says it is "The Wall for Gen X." That's a pretty high pedestal to put yourself on for a 2 hour album. The first half of the album def has some jams that I know and love but never necessarily seek out. All in all pretty solid just wondering if they can keep it up for another *checks watchless wrist* hour and a half. Cupid de Locke is a random pretty one that's in a different vein than most other Smashing Pumpkins I know. Really beautiful sections of Porcelina. Was worried looking at the 9 minutes but that was highly enjoyable. Nothing sticking out too much on the back half so far, but obviously know 1979 which is good enough. Tales of a Scorched Earth is probably my least fav song so fav. Don't really like the mixing of it something sounds off. Then goes into a song Thru the Eyes of Ruby which I'm enjoying. This album took awhile to get through and that's probably why I find it a bit disjointed. Way too long to be as enjoyable as it could be. Middling 3.
Not as bad as the last smashing pumpkins I listened to, but I still wanted it to end. Only listened to the first disc. A couple tracks were alright.
Previously rated: Siamese Dream (3/5) ************************ This album was long, obviously, but pretty good. If I were a few years younger, I'm sure I would have big nostalgia for it. I do remember teenagers I worked with singing that they were a rat in a cage. One or two of the songs reminded me of Coheed and Cambria.
music 5; "singing" 1
Not my favorite. Sounded like loud indie rock. I’d give it 2.5 stars.
Must be a generation thing. I can see why people love this album just does nothing for me.
Amazing. Great songs, great musicianship. Awful vocals but they grow on me to the point where I love em.
The quintessential Smashing Pumpkins album. There's something for everyone here. You definitely gotta get used to Billy Corgan's voice, though; I would say he's an acquired taste.
Way better than I remember. I'm more partial to the softer, album cuts than the over played mega hits. Still too long though, as all double albums are. If this was a tight ten or twelve songs, would be a five star.
This was the first album I ever bought. Loved it back then, love it still.
I have listened to this album too many times to count. I was in 6th grade when this came out and listened to this album almost nonstop. It has been at least a decade since I've listened at this point, and I have to say I still love this album. Everything from the music to the artwork, it's just a great album. Nostalgia is definitely factor in my rating.
Definitely not my deal. Aside from Nirvana who I appreciated for their contribution to the evolution many sub genres of rock, the 90s grunge did not sit well with me…likely generational as I need more than just angst.
Well, here I am listening to this album. When The Smashing Pumpkins hit it big with this album, I was intrigued and I wanted very much to like them. Indeed, I do like some of their songs, but listening to this album is a bit hard. This is my first time and here are my thoughts. My first reaction was...wow! so many discs to listen to. And on Spotify, at least, the reissue is not in the order of the original, so I am painstakingly flipping between tracks to listen to the original order. I am a traditionalist. I like the sound. I really like the singles. But unfortunately, all of the songs start blending together and they aren't so distinctive. My feeling is that this could've been a great record had there been an editor to cut it down to a manageable size. There is good stuff here, but it gets lost among everything. This is just my opinion, but there's no way that I could listen to nearly 3 hours of their music nonstop.
I liked the first two songs. I cut the next two short because I didn't like the "noise".
Fantastic mammoth album, though its length drags it more than expected. The singles in this are iconic, and some of the deeper cuts occupy a privileged spot in the Smashing Pumpkins' discography. Unfortunately, I'm very strict when listening to double albums, so the lesser songs did affect my experience.
The occasional utterly amazing track mixed up with way too many oki-ish songs . I quite liked it when i was younger , but not my thing anymore as a full album .
This was the first cd I bought with my own money, along with the Soundgarden single Pretty Noose. Yes, there are to many tracks, Corgan overindulged in his own talent on this one, but still, the talent is doubtless. The variation sometimes makes the record less coherent, but on the other hand it kind of wakes you up as a listener. Even if its not the record that has aged best from this decade it still is a 90s classic.
Nice, but gets kinda repetitive. Double feature that could have been trimmed a little more imo
I love Siamese Dream. Top 10 album for me. I couldn’t wait to buy this when it was released! Anddddd never cared it for it much. I still want to punch stuff when I hear tonight tonight come on. Zero slays
I would almost say this album's a little long but still 5/5
I have always like their sound instrument wise, but they sure are lyrically depressing. I guess the album is aptly named.
Some of the songs are too much but others like the first song allow the listener to clear their mind from the madness made out of sadness
Ok look, this album has some really good songs on it like "Bullet with Butterfly Wings", "1979", "Zero", but it just doesn't need to be so freaking long. I do not understand why Billy thought making a double album would be a great idea. I don't want to listen to his voice for 2 hours. It starts to sound whiny after 2 songs. However I did like the variety between lullaby feel songs and the grittier, grungier feeling songs, that made this not absolute agony to sit through. I feel this deserves a 3.5 but I can't give it that so it's getting a 3.
it's a solid "meh" album. like the variety of sounds & tempos, some solid tracks, but the super long run time is a negative. and it's a whole lot of Billy.
Big ol' double feature project. Wide variety of sound. Songs like Jellybelly and Zero don't really do it for me. Bullet is fantastic. Tonight, Tonight is incredible. Cupid De Locke, love it. Porcelina so good. 1979 is my absolute favourite. I wish songs like that, Thirty-Three, Stumbleine were more prevalent on the album
A very long album. I could not listen to it in day. Some of the songs are very edgy and had a hard sound to them.
Quite possibly my favorite album of all time.
Voice is whiny and grated on my nerves. Not a classic in my view
A couple good songs, but generally a blah album for me. I just never really liked their sound.
Instand classic. A l little long. But I really like it.
favs - zero, bullet with butterfly wings (duh), an ode to no one, cupid de locke, where boys fear to tread, x.y.u 7.5/10
3.8 Good, very bloody long though...
The Smashing Pumpkins pra mim tem som de adolescência. Mas 2h de álbum é complicado. Mesmo assim a experiência foi boa, tive várias músicas que gostei mto. Bullet with butterfly wings Cupid de locke In the arms of sleep Tales of a scorched earth
I have not listened to this album before but I have listened to some Smashing Pumpkins songs. I wasn’t looking forward to listening since the album was so long but it helped that I enjoyed all the tracks to get through it. I recognized Bullet with butterfly wings. And some tracks that stood out to me were: Here is no why, and Thirty-three. I will listen again!
Loved it
What can I say that hasn't already been said about this album? Probably not much. As an avid music lover, being asked who my favorite artist is has always been a stressful question, but my easy answer is simply The Smashing Pumpkins. I've been a massive fan since I was probably about 16 when I bought Rotten Apples, their "greatest hits" album from a local music store, then proceeded to dive into their albums properly. This album is just such a power-house. It's got the hits like Tonight, Tonight, 1979, Bullet With Butterfly Wings, and Zero (hits that have never overstayed their welcome, in my mind), but it also has some wonderful overlooked treasures. In the Arms of Sleep is probably in my top 5 SP songs of all time. This song is absolutely gorgeous and has some of my favorite vocals from Corgan. Jellybelly, Here is No Why, To Forgive, An Ode to No One, Cupid de Locke, Muzzle, Porcelina of the Vast Oceans, Where Boys Fear to Tread, Bodies, Thru the Eyes of Ruby, X.Y.U, like holy crap there are so many bangers on this album. It has the nice soft ballads, screeching vocals with heavy distortion, and everything in between. And while it covers this whole spectrum, it all still feels like it maintains an identity. These songs are all undeniably Mellon Collie. I love it all. I also feel the need to shout out The Aeroplane Flies High (Turns Left, Looks Right), a song that was cut from the album but can be found on the deluxe version, great tune.
yeah sorry not a fan of this one. it's not bad but lord it should be illegal to have an album this long with not that much going on. everything on it is really middle of the road with the exception of a handful of songs that are sort of interesting. but nothing really grabbed me at all. i just found myself bored for two hours. honestly it felt a little like a waste of two hours for me :( sorry :(
Could have, and should have, been a single album. It was ok, just way too long.
Despite the length of the album, this is really a classic. Somehow it does not feel like there are fillers and there a lot of really incredible tracks.
It never quite regains the momentum from its first 6 tracks, but this is still a fantastic album. It’s true that it is indulgent, overly dramatic, pretentious and all of those other things the other reviews say, but that’s what makes it such a great rock album. I never spent much time on the 2nd disc back when I used to listen to this album, but it was fun to listen to after many years. A rare 5/5 from me.
William Corgan is a good songwriter. The man writes a hell of a hook. Just look at his collaborations with Courtney Love. Billy Corgan is a godawful front man. His delivery is just trash. I know I suffered from pumpkin fatigue because I was still a young person when this album dropped, and you simply couldn't escape it. And the audacity of dropping a double album when you're a pop band is the height of hubris. Tonight, Tonight was on heavy rotation on MTv for, like, *ever*, and it's just not that good (yes, despite the fact it has a killer hook). And the band fell apart a few years after this release. So, yeah. Hubris, then. All that aside. 1979 is one of the best-arranged pop songs there ever has been, and I *will* fight you on this. I had never sat down and listened to this whole thing, and many parts of this (very too long) release surprised me. Some even delighted me. But I still have a visceral cringe reaction to Billy Corgan's voice, and you can't take that away from me.
Tempted to drop this to a 3 due to the clutter from a half dozen or more songs that distract from the overall work. But there’s enough winners to hold the line.
Good sound, a lot of hits I recognized. But the length though. Two hours? Not for me.
"Scratch my face with anvil hands, and coil my tongue around a bumblebee mouth". Let's just face up to it. I won't deny that Billy Corgan invites ridicule, he wrote lyrics like the above, dressed as Uncle Fester (intentionally or not, who knows) for his wedding, and he's in love with his sadness. So, a 2 hour long album exploring said sadness is going to take a critical thrashing from some quarters. And I guess who can blame them. Now introduce those of us who were teenagers when this was released, already primed by the magnificent (and just about superior) Siamese Dream, swimming in all the feels, completely ready to drink this in in all of its glorious and expansive hugeness. It's very rare you get a double album which actually succeeds in its lofty ambitions, and I really do feel that this does. I enjoy the concept here of one CD for 'day' and one for 'night'. They both work separately as hour long albums, or together if you have the time for a marathon session. Sadness? There's more than sadness here. There's outright euphoria, and some of the greatest ever Pumpkins songs, Porcelina ("without a care in this whole world"), Galapagos, Thru the Eyes of Ruby. There's tender beauty both fragile and soaring, To Forgive, Stumbeline, By Starlight, Take me Down. There's balls out rock - Where Boys Fear to Tread, XYU, Bodies, Ode to Noone (silly lyrics notwithstanding) and Tales of a Scorched Earth. Finally, there's also fantastic stadium rock with Tonight, Tonight, Here is no Why and the other big single smashes. Christ, I almost forgot to mention 1979! what an absolutely gorgeous song. As is Thirty Three. Will always be one of my favourite albums, and I still think Billy Corgan is a bit of a prick. He even let James Iha play on this one! Shout out to Jimmy's exceptional drumming once again. "and in the eyes of a jackal I say ka-BOOM!" oh, Billy...
3.5. Some hits. A lot of filler.
3.3 stars rounded down. "1979" and "Tonight, Tonight" are beautiful masterpieces. Even second string singles like "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" and "Zero" are great. It is unfortunate these tracks are embedded in 2 hours of mediocre filler.
Een klassieker, een meesterwerk. Geslaagd als conceptalbum, maar ook met nummers die op zichzelf gewoon pareltjes zijn.
Grundgier than I expected. Seemed to lack direction.
The songs on this album wasn't bad but they just where not for me. And personally this album was way to long for me, when i lissen to new music i like to take good time and really lissen to the songs too find out which ones ii like and what stands out to me, so if the album was shorter or i had more time to lissen to this i feel like it would have been more enjoyable.
The hits on this album are fantastic including "1979" and "Bullet With Butterfly Wings". The other songs are also great. MCatIS dips into a diverse range of styles- Check out the title track and "Tales of a Scorched Earth"! It's albums like this that makes me love alt-rock.
Despite all my rage.. I had blast rocking out to this. I prefer the heavier tracks but the ballads are nice too. Just about justifies the long running time!
This album is a journey in the way few others are. They're so much emotional depth and wild ideas being thrown around. I absolutely understand people who say it's too long, can't deal with Billy's voice, etc. But for me this is peak alternative rock and maybe the magnum opus for the genre in the 90s.
I mean, it’s definitely too long, but has so many of the best songs of the ‘90s on there it’s forgivable. 4.5/5
Pas de quoi faire un album de 2h hein
Interesting mix of their talents.
Right off the bat I didn't like the lead singer's voice and that's kind of a problem. I agree with one reviewer's apt description that he sounded like Cartman from South Park trying to sing. Then I got annoyed when I discovered that this album was over 2 hours long! If I enjoyed the music that would have been a good thing but I just couldn't get into this.
Smashing Pumpkins was a big part of my childhood for sure. Songs like Disarm, Today, Tonight Tonight, 1979… honestly can’t be beat. Rocket was my favorite music video of the time. Total 90s Edward Scissorhands meets Radio Flyer vibes, maybe throw in a little Explorers/Flight of the Navigator. Anyway, musically the album is fairly varied, some songs heavier, some songs more brooding or melancholic, some more melodic and upbeat. There’s angst, drama, hope… music at its best should always be so dynamic. But being a double album it’s perhaps no surprise that some of the material isn’t as consistently engaging. Nonetheless it’s all still very solid and one of few albums I don’t really skip songs. While listening to To Forgive I thought of AFI’s This Time Imperfect, the final, “hidden” track from Sing the Sorrow. They have similar chord progressions and trajectory, although AFI’s song is a bit more emotionally hefty. Just an interesting thing to look into, and I found out Billy Corgan actually helped write a more recent AFI tune, Dulcería. The more you know, I guess. Speaking of which, I always loved the Tonight, Tonight video directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Ferris, in all its Méliès-homage glory. Did you know they directed Little Miss Sunshine? And married couple Tom Kenny and Jill Talley, who were in the video, met in 1992 while working together on a sketch comedy show called The Edge, for which Charlie Kaufman was one of the writers? They were also in Mr. Show, and voiced Spongebob and Karen in Spongebob Squarepants. And Tom Kenny also voiced Ice King. And I haven’t figured out how Kevin Bacon fits into all this yet. But now I want to watch The Edge.
I don't care what anyone says about Billy Corgan or The Smashing Pumpkins, this is a masterpiece of modern alt rock. There aren't many 2 hour albums I can say I've enjoyed as much as this. It's very raw and intelligent and catchy as fuck and Billy has possibly the most unique male voice on this list, which yet again has played into the inclusion of this album. The lyrics aren't pretentious in any way and almost read like teenage poetry but teenage poetry is sometimes the best kind of poetry and for catchy music like this simplicity just works. But it isn't just catchy, it's abrasive and loud and quiet and soothing and it has a gamut of feelings and sounds that other albums can only hope to achieve. It deserves its rightful place on this list because it is a masterpiece.
I went into this rolling my eyes. I like some SP songs but thought 2 hours was going to be WAY too much. I’m delighted by how wrong I was. This album was incredible and never lost my attention. I could gush over how dynamic and varied it is all the while remaining cohesive, but I’ll just leave it at incredible. What a feat The Smashing Pumpkins pulled off here.
I haven't realized until now, how intense, sweet and contrasting is this album. dreamy lullabies and intense rage and fury, at the same time. Bittersweet and divine, in a classic gods sense.
A massive, daring, and expansive follow-up to the masterpiece, "Siamese Dream". It's basically about two hours of them exploring sounds beyond their usual creamy brand of grunge. Experimenting with different instruments, including salt shakers and scissors. They would put as many as 70 guitar tracks in one song. Corgan reportedly played the guitar until his fingers "saw blood", and turning up the amp so loud the whole thing was on the verge of exploding. The resulting tracks range from acoustic melancholies to heavy pieces that almost qualify as metal. Overall, it's a sprawling experience that is more exhausting than uplifting, personally.
Outstanding start to finish
This was my brother's teenaged angst album. I'd never listened to the whole thing through, and well I'm not sure I'm better off for it. It was so long. So so long. Fairly samey after a while. I still liked a couple of the tracks at least.
Undeniably epic. But I still just don’t love that whiny voice of Billy’s, okay?? I’M SORRY, internet.
This is literally my favourite album of all time. Cannot fault anything.
Tonight, tonight is a freaking banger. Very 90s, I liked it. Can’t say that I’ll ever go back to listening to it much though.
Cool mix of styles, alt rock
It did not need to be this long. I enjoyed it but lordy. I was also shocked to read the wiki and that this has been certified diamond and was the the number one album on billboard. It just goes to show how weird of a time the 90s were for music. Also that’s what she said to my first sentence
The new holder of the Skyrim award. Such a huge amount/variety of content. It really is a sign of the times though. If I had to pay $10 for an album like this vs $10 for a 45 minute album, the value would be insane. The problem is that time is a lot more sacred in music now because of accessibility and streaming. I don’t just have a cd in my car, instead I can stream basically whatever I want. As a result, this album becomes a chore to listen to after some time. That being said, they spread their hits out very well on the album and it was definitely generally enjoyable. It would at least be a 4 if they took 40 minutes of the best songs and made an album out of that. I really do applaud the band for the work as a whole. It’s just not captivating enough for me to not feel inconvenienced listening to the whole thing.
Second time with the Smashing Pumpkins in only a couple months and I think a lot of the initial statements remain for this one. Billy Corgan’s voice is unique and the band will give you a bunch of different rock sounds. This album has two of the first songs that come to mind when I think about the Smashing Pumpkins with 1979 and Bullet With Butterfly Wings. The heavier metal usually isn’t for me but I feel like it works within the album and kept the energy up when cycling between metal, early punk/emo, and the softer rock. The biggest drawback to this album is that it’s two hours long. Yes, the music is good, but that length is excessive. I’d give this one a 3.5 if given the opportunity, and I’m gonna round up because of the iconic 90s alternative rock hits on this album.
I really enjoyed this album. It's more than just the album with 1979 on it. There's a good variation in songs and they work well together, but it did it really need to be 2 hours long? Obviously I love the big hits, but I really love the punk sound of XYU. There is a lot of variation in this album
It was pretty cool! Some of the slower songs were nice i didnt love the lead singer's voice though.
Not my cup of tea. Too heavy rock a la AC/DC. Jagger like vocals. No . No . Nothing new or groundbreaking here.
I wish bands were still able and willing to make albums this sprawling, diverse, and ambitious
Long album but a lot of good songs, 8/10
I've heard the album before but probably skipped over much of it. Was a fan of SP with Siamese Dream album which is the only album of theirs I have listened to in its entirety more than once. Some of my favorite SP songs of from this Mellon Collie album: Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Tonight, and 1979. Have heard them a thousand times and still get excited hearing them. On this album, things I love include the mix of hard rock instrumentation, great guitar, and drums, and emotion from Corgan, along with some fantastic lyrics. There is a lot of sadness, anger, vulnerability as well as obsession with sleep and dreaming. I saved a few songs that I hadn't appreciated before: Porcelina of the Vast Oceans, Bodies, By Starlight, and In the Arms of Sleep. Some tracks reminded me of The Beatles: Take Me Down and We Only Come Out at Night. I found some of Corgan's screaming to be over the top and too painful to listen to, making my vocal cords hurt for his. Although I might have replayed these as a teen, I don't need to hear them again: Tales of the Scorched Earth, XYU. It is a long album that I typically do not have the patience for and grow bored with. However, I would say it should be listened to at least once.
The hits are bangers but the album has a shit ton of filler tracks. They also don’t do thrash metal too well.
Tonight, tonight Ok Jelly belly Bra Zero Bra Bullet with butterfly wings Mycket bra An ode to no one Mycket bra Love Bra Galapagos Bra Muzzle Bra
Zero brought up childhood memories. Definitely a precursor to emo music of the 2000s. Not totally my jam.
the greatest album of all time and my answer to the "if you were stranded on a deserted island and could only bring one album" icebreaker question
Amazing. So full of great songs, many absolute classics. Still as strong as the day it came out.
Phenomenal. They really take on a variety of styles throughout the album. Truly a masterpiece.
Many of the classic singles: Tonight Tonight, Zero, Bullet With Butterfly Wings, 1979
excellent!
One of the best alternative rock albums of 90s. So much energy and in the same time some calmness like in the song To Forgive. And, of course, the legendary 1979, the anthem of youth
Tycker bara det är ett fåtal låtar som håller. På tok för jävla lång är den dessutom.
Blast from my high school past
Beautiful full Orchestra. 4/5
Two whole hours of Billy Corgan's rather annoying voice and yet i don't hate it entirely, interesting...
1979 is all I can listen to and enjoy unfortunately.
I like 1979….
Quite good no album has to be over 2 hours tho.
Good lo-fi down low. Despite all my rage, I’m still just a rat in a cage.
4. It's a 3, but gets an extra star for nostalgia
id like the loud parts more on a faster day and the soft parts more on a slower one. shockingly long, there absolutely ARE good songs on this album, if you have the patience to listen through 5 okay ones in between each. favorite new track is To Forgive
Weird one for me, absolutely loved half of it and absolutely hated the other half.
Dużo za długie. Ale nie najgorsze. 3/5
Liked this one quite a bit! They are kind of nostalgic for me, and 1979 is one of my favorite songs. Recognized a few others, and even found a few new ones to add to my library! Cool album art too.
I was never a huge fan of The Smashing Pumpkins. It's not a negative thing. It's just that while other people were listening to them, I was listening to somebody else. I didn't get any feels from their stuff. I didn't connect. I can listen to them, but...they're OK.
What a yawning chasm between the quality of songwriting (at least musically) and instrumental performances, and the singing. Tonight, Tonight is one of the most beautiful songs that I never listen to. One day I hope to find a cover of it by a band that changes nothing about the arrangement and performance but has a halfway decent singer. I’d listen to the hell out of that. The voice is less off-putting in some contexts (it’s relatively inoffensive on Bullet and 1979), but other times it’s just distractingly forward in the mix with little to no processing to cover up the weaknesses, and ends up ruining otherwise good songs. Frustrating! Also, rock stars with egos are nothing new, but how up your own asshole do you have to be to think that anyone wants your next album to be more than 2 hours long? Speaking of which, fuck good-friend-of-Alex-Jones Billy Corgan. His guitar playing is great, the songwriting is frequently great too, but all of these positives are overshadowed by things that are clearly the product of his insufferable self-importance, from the insufferably self-pitying lyrics, the awful, awful title, his lack of perspective to realize that his songs would be better served by being sung by someone else, to the mind numbing length of this thing. On the positive, the guitars sound great in a very-1997 way, and Jimmy Chamberlin is a great fucking drummer. There’s an alternate universe where the Pumpkins have a lead singer who can actually sing and make a 45 minute-long album (or even a 90 minute double album) made of the best songs here and call it something - ANYTHING - else. In that alternate universe, I probably love this album. Unfortunately, we live in this one.
While this evokes feelings of nostalgia, I can’t really stand Billy Corgan’s singing and honestly a lot of the songs sound the same. Reminds me of my annoying older sister pretending she was an edgy teenager in the 90s. Also, it’s unnecessarily long. Tonight, Tonight rips though.
Long album, some absolute classics on here, but never actually listened to the whole thing. 1979, Zero, Bullet, Tonight hold the album up, but there's a little bit too much filler to be a 5.
Like the music and the compositions but the voice is starting to grate on me...maybe a double album is a bit too much.
Amazing.
Smashing
wow first song has over 1m views right off the bat nice. sounds nice and calming and beautiful so far...no words tho.... next song tonight tonight has SIXTEEN MILLION VIEWS omg and it has lyrics. its an alright song. its really intense and like...a movie soundtrack or something stopped listening at jellybelly. continue from there
Really good album. Very creative band.
משעמם
Somehow angstier than I had already thought from Bullet with Butterfly Wings. I do really like 1979, but didn't much enjoy the rest of the album.
I do not like this band in any way. Whiny voice
Mellin collie de smashing - uno de los mejores albums de los 90 y de el alternative en general. Completamente diferente y el productor se la comio. Ningun album despues se compara a este y sus mejores hits y non hits estan aqui. Este posiblemente sea el pinnacle de la era. Odio a Billy pero este album esta cabron lo unico malo es que es muy largo. Pero 5⭐️
Break down, 1979
Love it! So many great songs. Fave songs "1979", "Tonight, Tonight", "Zero", "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" and "XYU" 5/5
Another album that I've listened to previously but didn't really stick in my mind, thought I wouldn't care for it and it's too damn long. Actually listening I don't recall a song I didn't like, which is quite impressive for a double album.
Really enjoyed this, didn't expect to! Some good riffs, Jellybelly being a track that stood out to me! As well as Zero (I think it was called?)
I would have given this a five if it weren't so damn long!
Lots of stuff I like and lots of others.
It's been a good album, lasted too long for my liking but some of the songs were good, others not much, maybe I will listen to sum of it in the future but no all the album.
Better, but soooo long
Booooooo
A lot of great stuff here (first six tracks might have you hovering over the 5 stars - and that doesn't even include the best track of the bunch, "1979"), but there's just SO. MUCH. FILLER! One of the most "double album-y" double albums of all time.
The intro instrumental track, also the title track, is peaceful and sets the tone light. Stretched, almost anguished vocals join heavy riffs as the production is powered by guitar with accompanying drums. Tracks tie “teen angst” to “teen hope” as the Pumpkins paint a picture of what is now and what is to come. 28 tracks spanning over 2 hours in length portray the passion of the craft that embellish the Pumpkins critically acclaimed rapport.
I bought this CD when it came out and I’m not sure i ever listened to every song. There are so many classic but in listening to it through all these years later i really enjoyed the creative variety. Even the songs i didn’t love, i appreciate. A gem.
I'm not sure this needed to be a double album.
- Alt for langt - For generic - Få gode sanger + Et par bangers
Not as cohesive of an album as I would have liked. Many songs felt underwhelming and out of place at times. Siamese Dream feels like more of a complete listening experience.
A high point in 90's rock (and Smashing Pumpkin's career).
rly loving the spotify background graphic with them jumping and falling. relate. they should play this in more dentists office waiting rooms. already had some songs liked from this album but hearing it all the way through is not the way to hear these songs for me.
duhhhhhhh
i mean it's the smashing pumpkins alright... billy corgi... its real long... its got some ballads and bangers... Galapogos...
Um yeah so do you all know this band, The Smashing Pumpkins? They are really underground... yeah... I'm sure you've never heard of them. If I lived in the 90's, absorbed in the thralls of Grunge this would make me go absolute feral. I think I prefer Siamese Dream but they're just about at the same level - middle of the road and not something I would necessarily listen to on a day off. Fortunately for Virgin Record Sales, the grind never stops. This album is so long, a lot of the songs start to meld together when listening. A few standouts other than the obvious are Here Is No Why, Cupid De Locke, In The Arms Of Sleep, Lily (My One And Only) - I am a sucker for love songs, and Farewell and Goodnight. The last one has female vocals on it and I love to hear more than Corgan being sad. I enjoy Billy Corgan's voice, I think he writes emo ass lyrics (seen in every song... my dreams are dead yada yada ok chat gpt... I am kidding some lyrics are good). I was tired of the music by the second disc. It's super long and obviously Corgan is working through stuff. Fun facts: - The Smashing Pumpkins headlined LalaPalooza in 1994. - Prior to Madison Square Garden Shows, keyboardist Melvoin died from a heroin OD and the drummer Chamberlin survived his OD but was FIRED. - Female bassists :) D'Arcy Wretsky played for majority of bands big career and was replaced by Hole Bassist Auf der Maur
#137. Most people: the world is round Weirdos: the world is flat Billy Corgan: the world is a vampire 4/5: excellent *this is the twelfth album I purchased from this list Song added to playlist: 1979 I've created a playlist on Spotify that consists of the best and/or my favorite song from each of the albums in this book. This list can be found here if you are interested: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7MAXDGLWlwLkFLb8veGfkA?si=FqkQQPgZTFWG0jAUJXLFZA&utm_source=copy-link
This is an awful lot of music. Which isn’t to say it’s awful. Lots of it is really cool, and genre-bending. But it’s just like… a lot.
Two... hours? There are a number of good tracks on this, and it has the iconic "Bullet With Butterfly Wings," "1979" "Zero" (my son's favorite track of theirs). But... two hours of listening to Billy Corgan whine is asking a LOT. At least this isn't really a concept album; sure there's a thematic concept, but that's it. "Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage..." It's such a great line, it's undeniable. Still... two hours? That's asking too much of me.
I've listened to Siamese Dream about a thousand times but I don't know if I've ever listened to this album, both sides, all the way through. Side one starts off nicely with the title track, a lovely instrumental, mostly piano piece that flows perfectly into Tonight, Tonight - perhaps their most artful and skillful song with its orchestral backing. And while it abruptly turns into heavy grunge at song three, I don't mind at all because the next few songs - from Jellybelly to Zero to Here Is No Why to Bullet with Butterfly Wings - is just incredible. Hard, gritty guitars, pounding drums, angsty lyrics. Grunge perfection. And there's still 8 songs to go on side one and it just keeps humming along - favorites are An Ode to No One (pulsing), Galapogos (sweeping like Tonight, Tonight), Muzzle (crunchy, a well known single), and Porcelina... (another sweeping tune). But this is a double album, which is ambitious but also dangerous if both sides don't hold up - might've nailed it with the best in just one album. And this album is a bit of that, as the back half of side two lags a bit. But the opening 6 song sequence is almost as good as the opening 6 song sequence on side one, with 1979 and Thirty-Three (softer) alternative classics and Where Boys Fear to Tread, Bodies, and Tales of a Scorched Earth more grungy goodness. Side one is without a doubt a 5. Side two is about a 4, but definitely better than a 3. And I'm rewarding the ambition of a double album with a 5. This is a classic from the brief grunge era.
A masterpiece of 90's sound. Captures the anger, angst and complications of a twenty-something in that decade with walls of lush instrumentation produced by singer Corgan himself. It is a long and ambitious double LP, but unlike some projects, it flows from mood to mood, emotion to emotion, without ever feeling like it overstays its welcome. Furious angry guitars and vocals give way to delicate acoustics and soft melodies by Corgan, Iha & co. Deserves every bit of critical acclaim it has received, and sounds every bit as fresh today as it did nearly 30 years ago.
Why is this such a long fucking album :c Intro track was really good actually love the instrumental Okay the fucking singer sounds like he has half a pussy and a full dick in his mouth I came in here expecting to hate this but I really didn’t mind it, atleast so far I haven’t hated it, the lyrics are kinda stupid but I like the rock grunge feel to it. They tried way to hard to make a rock album that it’s embarrassingly obvious that they had no clue what they were doing None the less… Who ever is singing this shit should kill himself 3.1/5
Best Songs: Tonight Tonight, Zero Listen Again: Probably not
There are a handful of quite good songs on this album, but mixed in with some other stuff that I'm not terribly fond of. This would definitely be an album that, if I were to buy it, would prefer to buy only the songs that I'm actually interested in and skip the rest.
Definite melancholia inducing album. Gave me serious flashbacks to the O.C. but I've no idea if they even used this for any part of the soundtrack.... Some parts had too much screaming for my liking but that's a personal preference. Favs: "Tonight, Tonight", "Thru the Eyes of Ruby", "Stumbleine", "Beautiful", "Lily (My One and Only)",
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage.
Better listened to in segments as it's LONG. Billy's voice is annoying but there's a lot of great songs on this album and they're spaced nicely throughout the tracklist so if you do listen to all in one go, it's never boring.
This album have been describe has "The Wall for generation X", it got a pretty good artwork and the CD have cool design and a booklet with the lyrics of the songs that reminds us of a old story book. The album is goddman long too, i'm never sure about double album to be honnest, any of them, sometimes they are just too long with very random and "useless" songs, even if the album have a concept like this one, or the wall. The album goes from instrumental, to art rock with an orchestra to classic grunge and alt rock, its pretty intersting. Some songs that stand out, among 28 we have Tonight Tonight (with the orhestra is very beautiful) JellyBelly one of the hardest song on the reccord. Zero is also pretty hard and its one of their best known I like the riff in Here Is No Why The others song are not bad, simply not so much impactfull i think, they range from calm and melodic song, to heavy in your face alt rock.
An album ruined with hubris. It's too god damn long
It’s impressive how, for as long as this album is, that it can maintain such a high level of quality across the range of rock from hard (Jellybelly, Bullet With Butterfly Wing), through pop (1979) to the softer side (Stumbleine). I was already listening to the hits off it all the time, but I’m very happy to have been introduced to the rest of it
Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness holds up incredibly well nearly 30(!) years later. It has a massive sound when it wants to be massive, it has a softer and more considered ballad side, it has a momentum about it in the first half, the drumming is excellent, it's very listenable and memorable overall. Negatives are that it's far far too long and that momentum from the first half is clearly lacking in the back half, and I've never really liked Corgan's vocals much, they grate quite considerably as we go along given the length of the album. I'll probably forgive that a bit, it's a high 3 or a low 4. Tonight, Tonight is such a fucking good track though I might just let it sit at a 4 because of that.
An absolute mess of an album, incoherent, way too long, jumps between styles way too quickly, and the guy really struggles to sing (which isn't an issue when he stays in his lane, but he really doesn't). But, it's punctuated by some absolutely great singles - Bullet With Butterfly Wings, 1979, and Tonight, Tonight are really good songs that don't overstay their welcome, unlike the album as a whole. Makes it quite hard to rate, so I'll go (unsurprisingly) down the middle with a 3, the incoherence and the filler balancing out the patchy greatness.
Thought it was alright. Good music, didn’t love the singing, because I’m not a hard rock fan
I can't be objective about this. This is one of those albums from my early teens that burrowed its way inside me and became part of my DNA. I could no sooner give it a fair rating than I could rate myself, or my adolescence, or what it means to grow up. Not every song on this album is a 5/5 -- honestly, not every song on this album is even good. Some of them seem to delight in their own ugliness. But the *variety* of music here; the ridiculous, laughable, incredible scope of it; the giddy soaring highs and the miserable vacant lows - none of the songs sounds remotely the same. I can't not give it a 5! This is less a collection of songs and more of an album of important moments to me. And there are so many of them. The defiant battle cry of "We'll crucify the insincere tonight" from Tonight, Tonight that wouldn't be out of place in an MCR song; the escalating bridge in Here is No Why that begs you to scream along; "Destroy the mind / destroy the body / but you cannot destroy the heart," which should be melodramatic dreck but feels as essential as marching orders; "Rescue me from me," perhaps the most self-aware Billy Corgan has ever been in his life; the snarling, vicious "Love is suicide" refrain in Bodies and the jacknife whiplash of Thirty-Three's sugar-spun "I know I'll make it / Love can last forever," right after it; the, again, very self aware "Suffer my desire" from In the Arms of Sleep; 1979, kicking off the slow march to the end of the album with the kind of sun-soaked, melancholy (ha!) nostalgia for things you may not even have experienced yourself; the almost silly Beautiful and Lily (My One and Only) and what I can only call a group lullaby on the last track. God, it's crazy. I love it so much. Unfortunately, it was also written by Billy Corgan, who by all accounts seems to be one of the most personally unpleasant people on the planet and has the political opinions to match. Maybe that's part of this album's appeal to me - I keep trying to crack the nut of how such a miserable, hateful prick could've made something so perfect. Maybe he poured out his heart and soul into this album and just... left them there. How do shitty people make good art? I don't know. It still doesn't make it less sincere to me. Whoever he is now or before, I believe every word he's saying here. It's part of the infinite fascination with the Infinite Sadness, I guess. Anyway. It's a mess, it's pretentious, it's painfully earnest, it's so fucking good. I totally understand the 1 star reviews. I think you either get it or you don't but I really, really do.
what a weird and cool album! it's perhaps the greatest thing William P. Corgan has ever made, though there's absolutely an air of art-house pretension to the whole thing. i mean it is a 2+ hour-long double album, but i dunno... it just kinda works. it's hard to explain how billy's weird voice, lyrics that could've come from an eighth grader's spiral notebook, and a very rough "concept" album throughline combine to make something far greater than the sum of their parts, but this album is great. the musicianship is rock solid and the songs all feel unique while still contributing toward a cohesive whole. bullet with butterfly wings was definitely the first one i heard (probably in middle school) and i slowly discovered the other singles in the years following. basically the entire first disc is good to great, starting off super strong and punctuated by highlights throughout. the second disc gets a bit lackluster in the middle/towards the end but finishes on a sweet note. it's a great listen overall, and I'll be returning to this one in the future. oh and obligatory mention that billy corgan is like, the worst. not sure how he knocked it out of the park with this one but yeah favorites: mellon collie and the infinite sadness, tonight tonight, jellybelly, zero, bullet with butterfly wings, galapogos, muzzle, thirty-three, 1979, farewell and goodnight
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, well it certainly feels like it'll last forever. Double albums are usually a big ask, a couple of hours is hard to give to something you weren't planning on listening to and the link through on this went to the 92 song dep deluxe edition that runs for nearly 6 hours. FUCK. THAT. I hadn't really heard much outside of the monster singles this thing produced and I was somewhat pleasantly surprised at times, but it was mostly that nostalgic trip back to the mid-90s of my youth, and all I really came away with was that Billy Corgan is a madman when he's inspired, but that mad Billy Corgan could really use an editor.
Moderately interesting, some good tunes.
6.5/10 Really liked a lot of this, Corgan’s voice in particular was amazing, hypnotic, lovely. More variety in genres than expected Some really great tunes But a few major caveats No studio album should be over 2 hours long, a bit of editing could have improved this greatly Case in point: it stayed on concept, but the lullaby final quarter was weird and unsuccessful for me Wasn’t in love with the harder/metal stuff Best: 1979
Fantastic album, lots of different yet consistently good genre crossing music.
Standouts- "Zero," "Tonight, Tonight," "Bullet with Butterfly Wings," "An Ode to No One," "Love," "Bodies," "In The Arms of Sleep," "1979," "Thru the Eyes of Ruby," "X.Y.U.," "We Only Come Out At Night," "Beautiful," "Farewell and Goodnight" Vocals/Lyrics- 5/5 Instrumentals- 5/5 Vibes- 4/5 Overall- 4/5 This album is a weird one to rate. The slower songs are the ones that appeal to me the most, but on the other hand the harder songs are so full of rage and anger that I feel like it's really jarring, going from the soft "1979" to the angsty, rage-filled "Tales of a Scorched Earth" for example really messes with the flow. However, despite that I would consider this album to be a masterpiece. It's a long album, at 2hrs and 5 minutes. It's a great listen all in all. Definitely one of those albums where it may not be for everyone though, but if you're really into that grungey sound or that just rage-filled piss and vinegar type sound then this is for you.
4/5 double album, no bad songs Has some great iconic grunge songs, but gets a little boring at times. Bullet with butterfly wings, 1979, and X.Y.U are maybe some of the best grunge songs i've heard great album
I remember this group being an American ‘institution’ back in the 90s, however they never really had the same effect here in the UK, I guess we were all distracted with Britpop! This is one of my least favourite music genres but I wanted to give it a chance in the spirit of this project. A few of the tracks are pretty good, objectively speaking, but frankly any goodwill I had tracks wise was wiped out by the vocals. Absolutely terrible. I understand his voice is considered an ‘acquired taste’ but I’m afraid for me it’s just bad. An assault to the ears. Also no album has any business being 2 hours long. In order for an album to be 2 stars I have to be willing to at least listen again, but for this I just can’t. So it has to be one star sorry
Better than I remember. I have more appreciation for the band past the hits.
A lot more varied in its sound than I imagined it be. A decent representation of a lot of different styles from the 90s. Great album to showcase this era.
Horrible
Boy starting off with a challenge. Never been a big Pumpkins fan, only song I really knew was 1979. To kick off with a double album from a band I don't care for much was real difficult to stay focused on, but I persevered. Liked it more than I expected to. Where Boys Fear to Tread was good, I also enjoyed the thrashy Tales Of a Scorched Earth, and Thru the Eyes of Ruby. Still not sure if I like Billy's voice at all but his lyrics are good
Super long. But worth it.
2hrs. Tons of bangers, like the other stuff too. Textbook 4
High school flashback album