SMASHING PUMPKINS – Siamese Dream

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10.0

• Bands:
  SMASHING PUMPKINS
• Duration: 01:02:08
• Available from: 11/27/1993
• Label:

• Virgin

In the year of grace 1991 – the year of the grunge explosion with “Nevermind” and “Ten”; queues at the shops for the release of the double “Use Your Illusion” by Guns 'N Roses; of the globalization of Metallica with the “Black Album” and of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers with “Blood Sugar Sex Magic”, just to mention the best known – it is not surprising that “Gish”, debut album for Smashing Punpkins, remained on the margins of the charts, entering the Billboard Top 200 for just one week.
Nonetheless, the primordial union between the grandeur of seventies rock with the post-punk of the eighties and the then nascent alternative / grunge immediately won praise from critics – as well as from the public, to the point that in the months following the band's debut of Chicago would become the most successful independent record until the release of The Offspring's “Smash” three years later – ensuring their move from the independent Caroline Records to parent company Virgin Records.
The expectation resulting from the label of 'new Nirvanas' is, however, the least of Billy Corgan's problems when he enters the studio: drummer Jimmy Chamberlin is now increasingly lost in the tunnel of heroin, while the duo formed by James Iha and D'Arcy (second guitar and bass, even though their parts on the debut album had largely been overwritten by the leader himself) is in full crisis, making the already neurotic and despotic frontman even more unstable.
The obsessive compulsive search for the perfect sound – a torment of the young Billy ever since, ten years earlier, he heard the sound of Tony Iommi's guitar roaring from the radio speakers – becomes the mantra of the autocratic frontman, walled in the studio full time for five months together with producer Butch Vig (the same as “Gish” and “Nevermind”) recording dozens and dozens of overdubs for every single song, while around him the rest of the band is in disarray.
The result of so much effort is something never heard of and at the same time familiar: unlike the rock anti-heroes of the time, from Nirvana to Mudhoney, the Smashing Pumpkins do not hide their adoration for the godfathers of seventies hard rock (Queen, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin), as well as even less cool groups like Rush or Boston; all without forgetting the post punk and shoegaze of My Bloody Valentine. The God of Rock, to quote Jack Black, is the guiding spirit that animates twenty-five-year-old William Patrick Corgan Jr, who grew up in a disadvantaged family and is looking for an escape through music. Ready to go, and the mix of innocent purity and grandiloquent power that will make the Zucche sound immortal in the nineties finds form in “Cherub Rock”: magician's roll, picking with E octaves at the seventh text in the style of Hendrix (the one that will become The “Pumpkin Chord“) in a crescendo swept away by distortions before leaving room for a riff stolen from Rush (“By-Tor and the Snow Dog”); ironically, a song that pays homage to 'dinosaur rock' and polemics with the indie rock scene of the time – not by chance chosen by the author, who proudly declared that 'not having played in a band that performed in front of five people', as the first single – will be danced to exhaustion by Generation X, raised on bread and alternatives.
The beauty of “Siamese Dream” is also in its ability to touch the strings of the soul with a delicacy common to few: Corgan's inner child, which will come out with even more arrogance in the subsequent “Mellon Collie…”, manages to speak of a delicate topic like suicide with a touch of irony in the touching “Today” (“Today is the greatest day I've ever known / can't wait for tomorrow, I might not have that long“), second single which, thanks also to the airplay of the video on MTV, catapulted the band into the stratosphere; similar story for the melodramatic “Disarm”, another unreleased power ballad for the alternative scene of the nineties with those all-lace arrangements that we will find in “Tonight Tonight” – nothing to do with the more sparse intimacy of Eddie Vedder or the Nirvana in Unplugged version – and a chilling lyric (“Cut that little child / Inside of me and such a part of you“) which will cost them a temporary ban from the BBC. The pinnacle in this sense is probably “Mayonaise”, a pastiche written together with James Iha in which the voice seems to make its way through the dozens of guitar overdubs, swaying between the notes in moments of calm pierced by rhythmic flashes.
The caressing softness like a goodnight kiss is a distinctive feature of other songs, from the touching softness of “Spaceboy” (dedicated to his half-brother Jesse, afflicted by Tourette's syndrome) to the minimalist romanticism of “Luna” (introduced by the more light-hearted “Sweet Sweet ”), but the other half of the pumpkin is given by the noisiest component, a meeting point with the alternative scene of the time. The second track “Quiet” – as well as “Geek USA” or “Silverfuck”, both embellished with a dream pop-style bridge – immediately captivates with the impetuosity of the feedback and the tension that shines through from the solos, to the point that it seems almost feeling the guitar strings bleeding, stretched to the limit during bending; Among the layering of Tetris level 29 tracks, the other secret ingredient of the Zucche emerges forcefully, namely Chamberlin's drumming (not by chance the only irreplaceable element of SP, in addition obviously to the moody frontman). With a jazz background, the drummer originally from Illinois manages to express power with a delicate touch, and perfectly complements Corgan's more intricate ideas by composing his parts together with the rhythm guitar, to the point that listening to just the drum tracks is a memorable experience in itself (just listen to “Geek USA,” with its distinctive use of the hi hat).
Another distinctive feature of the Pumpkins is genre fluidity: if “Hummer” – seven minutes (without the shred of a chorus) of calm and storm, in which D'Arcy's bass finally carves out its space between an overlay and the other – is a journey of no return into the disturbed mind of its author, “Soma” (originally called “Coma”) represents the quintessence of its author's dream-like psychedelia, with a dream-like first half, all arpeggios and whispers, which leads to a desperate cry of pain in the solo; two minutes of organized nihilism that delivers Corgan (with a little help from Iha in this case) into the pantheon of alternative guitarists.
The cover also adds a touch of iconicity: they will not be the object of legend like the boy from “Nevermind”, but also the two little girls on the cover – the baby models Ali Laenger and Lysandra Roberts, even if at the time the belief was widespread were truly Siamese twins – they are a memorable fragment with their princess dresses and butterfly wings.
The multi-platinum success will give a big blow to the self-esteem of the man who will soon become one of the most famous bald men in rock, convincing him to give life to what will be “The Wall” of Generation present day; but that, as they say, is another story…