Siamese Dream
| The Smashing Pumpkins
Siamese Dream
Siamese Dream is the second studio album by American alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins, released on July 27, 1993 on Virgin Records. The album fused diverse influences such as shoegazing, dream pop,and heavy metal,and has been described as "closer to progressive rock than to punk or grunge."-Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
Show All-
Sputnik
It's very much a journey through Billy Corgan's personal life, and his songwriting is always sure to reflect this fact beautifully. What we've got here is a mish-mash of alternative rock, progressive rock, grunge, dream pop, and heavy metal sounds coming together cohesively with a few common atmospheres prevalent throughout the entire record. The best word I can use to describe the vibe as a whole is "warm"; this is an experience that's loaded with feelings of summer nostalgia because of its layered and fuzzy guitar sounds and Billy Corgan's sentimental vocals.
-
BBC
There are further highs to be found on Siamese Dream – the soaring-and-screeching Mayonnaise was a big favourite of mine back when, and Rocket and Disarm are memorable singles, the latter a string-laden lament of uncommon intensity (banned from Top of the Pops at the time due to some ambiguous lyrical content). The album earned Grammy and MTV Award nominations, and is frequently listed as one of the best long-players of the 1990s. In truth it’s not as brilliant as it thinks it is, but this is a collection that will always be well received when it pops up on shuffle – albeit primarily because of its still-stunning centrepiece, Today.
-
The Quietus
The first thing you notice about Siamese Dream is how sinister it sounds next to Gish. With the band more or less falling apart at the seams, if grace and goodwill came easy on their debut, on Siamese Dream they had to fight for it. And fight they did. Much more the clenched fist than Gish, their second effort saw an increase in intensity, ballast, grit, ambition and sheer scale. With Corgan losing his mind over the mixing desk, Ida and Wretzky splitting, and Chamberlain's heroin addiction spiralling out of control, rather than admit defeat instead they harnessed the darkness that pervaded the studio. Beginning with a roaring statement of intent in the shape of 'Cherub Rock's intro - the distorted, raging opener followed by the diesel-powered 'Quiet' set the stage for a decidedly monstrous outing; a slacker-gothic cry-from-the-dark which nonetheless, like Gish, was straining for some modicum of beauty.
-
Metal Music Archives
What also really propels Siamese Dream above many of the albums of its day is how it handles its influences. There's a ton of 70s classic rock and dream pop that people can pick out on this record, especially from bands such as Queen and My Bloody Valentine, but once again, it's the blend of the old and the new that makes it all so enthralling. Look at a song like "Soma;" it is, for the most part, a very dreamlike alternative rock ballad whose sprawling motifs quite likely influenced Radiohead's late-90s work. But then it throws a wrench in the works by including an unbelievably gorgeous moment of guitar layering in the middle that recalls Queen guitarist Brian May's operatic harmonies. It doesn't last very long, but it somehow blends perfectly with the band's 90s sound and really makes a lasting impression long after the song is over. This is also reflected in the Mellotron playing in the ballad "Spaceboy," which has a sound similar to 70s progressive rock acts while skillfully retaining the characteristics of its own era, such as the more alternative and melancholic opening guitar lines. However, the beauty of it all is that Siamese Dream sounds like it could have been released today and still be relevant... THAT'S the sign of a truly timeless record. There's nothing here that sounds like a product of its time, despite the contemporary 90s influences and classic 70s/80s influences throughout the experience.
-
Ultimate Guitar
This is most likely their best album; straight out.
-
Drowned In Sound
The songs themselves still sound fantastic. The drum-roll flourish that welcomes us on ‘Cherub Rock’. ‘Today’s signature, unforgettable lead. The heartfelt lyrics of ‘Disarm’ and the haunting mellotron of ‘Spaceboy’. The creamy, layered tone that it feels that you can just sink into. Double-album follow-up Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness is often praised for its imagination and scope, but Siamese Dream is a diverse, complex, more concise album crammed with moments of joy and wonder.
-
NME
The latter half of ‘Siamese Dream’ is a delicious soup of amazing grunge songs, peppered with the odd classic rock flourish. It’s a toughie to choose a standout from – that accolade could well go to the lovelorn ‘Mayonnaise’ – though ‘Geek U.S.A’, managing to combine Slash-style guitar noodling with a soaring, melancholic hook and even an ambient mid-track coda (Corgan was wildly inspired at this point), perhaps deserves the slot.
-
Ear Buddy
There’s not a bad song on here, and there’s plenty enough I loved to give the whole thing a recommendation.
-
Rolling Stone
Surprisingly, the album turned out to be a revelation — a technicolor take on grunge that offered moments of delicacy and even euphoria amid gigantically thick riffs. Siamese Dream cracked the Top 10 in the U.S. and the U.K., earned two Grammy nominations and went on to go four-times-platinum. As Rolling Stone put it at the time, the album confirmed “that Smashing Pumpkins are neither sellouts nor one-offs.” Siamese Dream would subsequently come in at number 362 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.
-
All Music
Some say strife and tension produces the best music, and it certainly helped make Siamese Dream one of the finest alt-rock albums of all time. Instead of following Nirvana's punk rock route, Siamese Dream went in the opposite direction -- guitar solos galore, layered walls of sound courtesy of the album's producers (Butch Vig and Corgan), extended compositions that bordered on prog rock, plus often reflective and heartfelt lyrics. The four tracks that were selected as singles became alternative radio standards -- the anthems "Cherub Rock," "Today," and "Rocket," plus the symphonic ballad "Disarm" -- but as a whole, Siamese Dream proved to be an incredibly consistent album.
-
Pitchfork
In contrast to Gish's steady flow, Siamese Dream crashes out of the gate. "Cherub Rock" remains an absolutely stellar opener with a sense of pure sonic melodrama, thanks to Chamberlin's circus-act drum introduction, a tight clip of guitars quickly matched by equally nimble bass, a volcanic blast of a guitar lead, and then a shift to a woozy, still-building sprawl. And all this before the first verse even starts. Throw in everything that followed-- the overt MBV worship of "Hummer", the country-rock-tinged wanderlust of "Mayonaise", "Soma"'s update of Prince's "The Beautiful Ones" for a new decade, and inevitably the MTV/radio hits "Today", "Disarm", and "Rocket"-- and no matter your take on its mastermind or his divisive whining/sighing vocals, it's an embarrassment of musical riches.
-
Spin
Siamese Dream, coproduced by Butch Vig, takes up and expands nicely where 1991’s impressive Gish left off; it’s got all the feisty, fuzz passion of that record and even more inventiveness. Smashing Pumpkins have an enormous bag of tricks, a lot of them discovered (I’m guessing here) on cannabis-hazy mid-American afternoon where their teenage selves reimagined the music of Deep Puple and Blue Öyster Cult without the preen-rock frills. That moment in the middle of “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” where Buck Dharma’s soaring solo dissolves-resolves back into the song’s Byrd-sinister riff, can open a whole world of possibilities to the intuitive listener, and it’s those possibilities (and many more) that Smashing Pumpkins mean to explore.
-
Slant
On an album like Siamese Dream, where every track feels momentous in hindsight, it can be easy to overlook the truly seminal offerings. Certainly, “Disarm” is a watershed moment for the band, a shattering of the ‘90s-rock mold in both instrumentation and tone; but then, so is “Soma,” a painful, personal tale of separation that finds the group at both their quietest and loudest in a stormy, near-seven-minute guitar epic. “Mayonaise,” perhaps the band’s greatest moment, is both tragic and gorgeous, with its infamously whistling guitars and a pitch-perfect Corgan unloading a lifetime’s worth of raw-nerved pain in one of his most harrowing vocal performances.
-
Sound Lab
Siamese Dream is, in many ways, the Smashing Pumpkin’s finest hour. And while it may not be their biggest ‘selling’ record (the ode-to-artistic-indulgence that is Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness holds that distinction), Siamese Dream is arguably their best; a vividly candid snapshot from a band flirting with self-destruction while at the peak of their powers.
-
COS
Once again guided by learned grunge producer Butch Vig, all members of The Smashing Pumpkins appear on Siamese Dream (Chamberlin, once forced to drum “Cherub Rock” until his hands bled after disappearing during the sessions, even made a physical down payment), but the record itself is mostly a tortured two-way conversation between Vig and Corgan. Seeking both a huge sound and true sonic perfection, Corgan would frequently demand 16-hour days and lay down upwards of 50 guitar tracks per song. When they finished recording, the two brought in My Bloody Valentine collaborator Alan Moulder to engineer the record, reportedly keeping him at it for six weeks until the job was done. In a 2009 forum Q&A, Vig called the record “one of the most difficult albums I ever made.” He also recalled the morning after the record was finished:
-
Classic Rock Review
Siamese Dream earned The Smashing Pumpkins their first Grammy nominations in 1994 and established the band as a top level act in the ever-popular alternative genre which had yet to peak.
-
Rate Your Music
In many ways this is a very embarrassing album, but goddammit that guitar sound. When it's loud and rock-y ("Cherub Rock", "Quiet", "Today", "Rocket", "Silverfuck") it sounds like a swarm of bees on fire against a cyan sky, and when it's soft and mellow (the last third of "Hummer", the first half of "Soma", the gorgeous first minute of "Mayonaise", "Luna") it sounds like rained-out suburban streets on garbage night. Those are images that are worth a hell of a lot more than 'angel wings losing their string' or castrating metal mercies, or whatever the fuck Billy Corgan's whining about.
-
Av Club
Unlike most grunge-era bands, which desperately tried to align themselves with sacrosanct underground figures like Ian MacKaye and Mike Watt in order to appear more punk than they actually were, Smashing Pumpkins dared to sound even grander and more gorgeously melodramatic on “Today” and the epic ballad “Soma.” On “Cherub Rock,” Corgan was even more explicit in his otherness, mocking the judgmental elements at the time that decided “who is righteous, what is bold.” Corgan wasn’t welcomed into that club—but on Siamese Dream, he could pretend he never wanted to be, and sound completely in the right.
-
Drowned In Sound
This isn’t a disappointing listen. The album itself is as glorious as ever, and if you have somehow never heard it before I urge you to check it out at your earliest convenience. However, this particular reissue has little beyond the original work to enamour itself with. I would give the music a ten every time, but this Deluxe Edition only serves to cheapen the legacy of a truly great piece of music history.
-
Metacritic
"Siamese Dream" has to go down as one of the greatest rock albums of all time.
-
Clash
‘Siamese Dream’ was one of the most widely anticipated albums of 1993, and with its opening track ‘Cherub Rock’ Corgan thrust a dig at the indie world, and the media, wailing: “Let me out!” He’s since claimed the song to be his “middle finger to the indie world”.
-
Album Of The Year
I don't think I have the words in me to describe what makes this album so damn perfect or why it's even my favorite album of all time but I suppose I could start by saying just how much of a masterpiece this thing is. Siamese Dream is a record that is very 90's, it reeks of that 90's alt rock sound and that's kind of it's charm. This record feels like a time capsule the songs all have this very nostalgic feel you can pick up on your first listen. Billy's poetic Dylanesque lyrics evoke something so bitter sweet, it's like looking back at hard times whilst having this sort of fondness and appreciation that it all happened. This is feeling is accentuated by the sound and tone of the instruments, somehow The Pumpkins are able to construct atmospheres of emotion and feeling out of extremely dense walls of fuzzed out guitars which sound like the the perfect fusion of Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath. Every track on this thing is soaked in sadness, angst but also the joys of youth. It doesn't come off as whiny or pretentious, it all feels really genuine, Billy wrote and recorded most of this whilst the band was in chaos and he was seriously contemplating suicide. This is a record about broken people made by broken people, it can have you rocking out or crying your eyes out if it wants to. This album is so damn underrated and is an essential listen to any fan of rock, alternative music or even just really good music in general.
-
Punk News
Album highlights include the tracks "Hummer", "Spaceboy", "Silverf*ck" and, for those purists out there, look for the album outtakes such as "Frail and Bedazzled", "Whir", and the cover of the Fleetwood Mac song, "Landslide", which are included on their B-sides and rarities album, Pieces Iscariot.
-
Treblezine
As much as Siamese Dream was the product of chasing an elusive, immaculate pop ideal, it also proved the catalyst for some serious turmoil within the band. A pretty massive chunk of the album was performed by Corgan alone, though every song features Jimmy Chamberlin’s drums (thankfully – they’re some of the best in rock history). At one point, D’arcy Wretzky actually quit the band. James Iha essentially ended his friendship with Corgan, though he stayed in the band. Chamberlin ended up in rehab during the recording sessions, and would disappear for days at a time. It’s the stuff Behind the Music was made for. Despite everything falling apart behind the scenes, however, the record itself is absolutely perfect.
-
Puluche
The sound of Siamese Dream is immense, from its absolutely incendiary opener “Cherub Rock” (my God, dat riff) to its poignant closer “Luna.” Through this sonic vastness, this entire record feels like a musical journey, and it’s all held together by Billy Corgan’s signature anguished vocals. Sometimes it even feels like The Smashing Pumpkins’ entire fiery sound was crafted around his equally blazing voice. Even the cleaner sections of songs like “Hummer” soon unfold into moments of noisy intensity – but it always remains unmistakably melodic. If there’s one thing that The Smashing Pumpkins rarely forgets about, it’s melody, and aside from Corgan’s voice, that’s really what gives them their signature appeal.
-
Type In Stereo
In a vacumm, Siamese Dream is a phenomenal record, regardless of when it was released. It has held up through the test of time because it is a genuinely musically strong album. And yet, it is hard to think of Siamese Dream, as great as it is, being as relevant in today’s mainstream rock climate as it was in its own. I believe that if Siamese Dream had been released last week, that it would still produce some number one hits, but I really can’t see it being as important and influential now as it was then. Of course, this is because we are already in a post-Smashing Pumpkins world, and this raises some serious analytical problems; it brings us to a strange kind of timeline paradox, in which we need to wonder how the Smashing Pumpkins would sound in a world where their contemporaries grew up listening to the albums that they had not yet released.
-
Albumism
Siamese Dream’s temperament, like its recording, is manic. It’s a lonely, busy record. If there ever was an album for a depressive cycle, allowing you to trip and fall into a song only to have its fourth verse wake you from an emotional slumber, it’s here on the nearly nine-minute “Silverfuck.” The drums stir up a slimy amoeba that never stops wiggling. The guitars trickle around each other and Billy’s voice remains itself: raw and worrisome:
-
The Student Playlist
Finally, after four months past the deadline and spending $250,000 over the budget, Siamese Dream was ready to be unleashed upon a bored suburban ‘90s youth in America. Not only did it find its audience, the kids flocked to it: the album has sold over four million copies in The States, six million worldwide and debuted at #10 on the Billboard Top 200.
-
Bored And Dangerous
Apart from Mayonaise, everything on Siamese Dream lives up to my nostalgic memories. The songs I’ve always loved, I still love. The others I haven’t listened to enough make a good argument for being listened to more often, and Disarm is still boring.
-
Chicago Tribune
“Siamese Dream” was loaded with melodies, from “Luna” (both in its gossamer studio version and its even more haunting “apartment demo”) to the scorched overdrive of “Cherub Rock,” Corgan’s raised middle finger to the independent-rock scene that never embraced him. The feeling was mutual. Corgan wrote his share of clunky lyrics (“Life’s a bummer when you’re a hummer”) but they spoke with a directness that Cobain’s more poetically inclined words sometimes lacked. Corgan was a stoop-shouldered suburban misfit from a splintered household, much like many in his audience, and “Siamese Dream” became a soundtrack for a significant portion of his generation.
-
Sonicabuse
Overall this is a well presented and well thought-out set that recaptures the glory of the Pumpkins during their Siamese years and something that fans of the band may well find themselves having to purchase. The album itself is a solid-gold masterpiece which has stood the test of time and the extras well worth the price of admission. It is hard, in this day and age of reissues a-plenty, not to feel conned when yet another classic album is unearthed and repackaged, but when it is done this lavishly and with this much attention to detail there may be some justification after all.
-
EW
The main discs seem a little less brilliant with time; Billy Corgan’s loud-quiet-loud dynamics play like sludgy metal riffs offset by a few clever hooks. But fans will adore the numerous B sides and demos, and the concert DVDs provide a fun, flannelly time capsule.
-
Austin Chronicle
Siamese Dream, a defining album that amplified the emotion ("Disarm"), while maintaining the guitar authority ("Rocket," "Cherub Rock"). Welcome the salad days, before infighting, drugs, and, worse yet, electro-gothic influences sent the Smashing Pumpkins on a slow walk downhill.
-
Stereogum
Siamese Dream was marketed as a grunge record, but it’s emphatically not one. It’s also emphatically not a cynical record. It’s merely a record that wants to be huge, and it succeeds on every level. So maybe it served as a gentle reminder to the idea that a great rock album didn’t have to change the world; it just had to be a great rock album.
-
Atlanta Music Guide
The tone of squealing guitars writhing against the pounding drums brings back memories as either of the remastered discs will do for any longtime fan. The inclusion of an acoustic version of “Spaceboy” and “Disarm,” and the “Broadway Rehearsal Demo” for “Today” with its accented guitar solo makes the Siamese Dream deluxe set extraordinary, while disc two of the Gish Deluxe Set shows off the demos and experimentation Corgan calls the band’s, “first foray into the deep waters of rock and roll.” Fans will hear the early solos standing up for every note to cry out clearly with angst and feeling. A Depeche Mode cover of “Never Let Me Down Again” plays eloquently on disc two of the Siamese Dream Deluxe Edition, which shows the moodier side of Smashing Pumpkins.
-
Apoplife
The albums stood out for the songs, which sounded melancholy and rocked hard. Billy Corgan’s voice was very distinctive as was Jimmy Chamberlin’s insanely inventive and fluid drumming. Chamberlin is one of my favorite drummers of all time.
-
Udiscover
Clocking in at just over an hour, Siamese Dream remains a highly satisfying, multi-faceted opus which effortlessly defies the ravages of time. Rolling Stone’s insightful review noted that the record was “closer to progressive rock than to punk and grunge”, and its adventurous, 13-track menu took in everything from the Verve-esque existentialism of the seven-minute ‘Hummer’ to the multi-layered jazz-grunge hybrid ‘Soma’ and the sweeping, string-enhanced ballad ‘Spaceboy’.
-
Rock
Siamese Dream is the second album by the American alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins, released on July 27, 1993 on Virgin Records. The album fused diverse influences such as shoegazing, dream pop, heavy metal, and progressive rock.
-
Music OMH
Siamese Dream is also a far more evenly distributed album than its predecessor, sounding in and of itself like a greatest hits compilation, each tune bursting with angst and anger, hooks and melody. Corgan is said to have made Chamberlin play the drum part on Cherub Rock until his hands bled, and he certainly took great lengths to alienate the rest of his band. Siamese Dream is very clearly an album born of great pain and anguish, and the result is nearly sublime in its emotional reach.
-
Last Fm
Siamese Dream is the second studio album by the American alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins, released on July 27, 1993 on Virgin Records. The album fused diverse influences such as shoegazing, dream pop, classic heavy metal, and progressive rock.
-
Paste
But the standout package here is unsurprisingly Siamese Dream, which is filled with an abundance of demos, alternate b-sides and acoustic versions of songs. One needs to look no further than Corgan’s newfound onstage confidence in the “Live at the Metro, 1993” DVD included in the box to see that the Smashing Pumpkins have gone from a band with great ideas to a band with great songs. Instead of just screeching howls and ultra-loud guitars, Corgan’s return to the Metro shortly after the release of Siamese Dream is filled with statements. He’s got “Spaceboy,” which he emotionally dedicates to his brother who was “born ‘not right;’” “Disarm,” which is huge among teens who are realizing that they might have had some a messed up childhood as well; and the anarchic audience-riler “Silverfuck,” which Corgan warns the audience that they won’t want to listen to recorded music after it hits their ears.
-
Turntable
The myths abound around Siamese Dream. The Smashing Pumpkins' 1993 sophomore release cemented the band's reputation as one of the standouts of the alternative rock era.
-
Wikiwand
Siamese Dream is the second studio album by American alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins, released on July 27, 1993 on Virgin Records. The album fused diverse influences such as shoegazing, dream pop, and heavy metal, and has been described as "closer to progressive rock than to punk or grunge."
-
Music Direct
Originally released in 1993, Siamese Dream is the breakthrough second album from the Smashing Pumpkins and one of the finest to ever come out of the alt-rock movement. Co-produced with Butch Vig and instrumentally recorded almost entirely by bandleader Billy Corgan himself, the guitar-heavy affair generated no less than four hit singles in "Cherub Rock," "Today," "Disarm" and "Rocket."
-
Sp Freaks
Siamese Dream is as powerful now as it was in 1993 with no band since then able to replicate the wall of guitar sound that Corgan and producer Butch Vig pulled together. While playing the remastered version of the album what’s now most striking (when compared to albums such as Zeitgeist) is how Corgan was able to incorporate so many hooks into an album that had guitars coming at you from every conceivable angle. Who had time for melody? Well, Corgan did, and if you strip away the volume of guitars what you have are tiny pop gems that are almost nursery rhymes in their primal form – but reworked to set a landscape of sound that is still unmatched. Recent day impersonators (the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Amusement Parks on Fire) bleed out Siamese Dream in every track but don’t even scratch the surface of songs that leak melody like ‘Mayonaise’, ‘Hummer’ and ‘Luna’.
-
Norman Records
This record doesn't need a big review. As long as you can stand Billy Corgan's voice, then every fan of loud guitar music should own it. It's the Smashing Pumpkins best and one of the finest the whole Grunge/Alternative scene produced. But if you don't like that voice then you probably won't make it through one listen.
-
Modern Drummer
By 1993’s Siamese Dream, the Chicago quartet was a confident, brazen crew, with Chamberlin’s frenetic drumming on scorchers like “Geek USA” and “Silverf**k” leading the charge.
-
Tvtropes
Siamese Dream is the second studio album by The Smashing Pumpkins, released on July 27, 1993. The follow-up to Gish, this was the album that broke them into the mainstream as a rock band, selling over 4 million copies and receiving positive reviews (which have only grown more positive as time has passed).
-
Barnes and Noble
Siamese Dream, were wrought with friction -- Corgan eventually played almost all the instruments himself (except for percussion). Some say strife and tension produces the best music, and it certainly helped make Siamese Dream one of the finest alt-rock albums of all time.
-
Pop Matters
Siamese Dream is slightly louder and a tad sharper, with the only striking change being the removal of a barely-audible snippet of a televangelist sermonizing from the end of “Soma”) and served with a second CD of bonus tracks, a DVD containing a period performance from Chicago’s Metro venue, liner notes with track-by-track pontificating by the Corgster himself, and a heaping pile of striking postcards. The remastering jobs may be flimsy justification for repackaging old records, but it’s evident from an examination of the contents that equal amounts of loving care went into crafting what now sits on the store shelves.
-
Spectrum
With Corgan at the helm, the bonus material is absolutely stacked. While there is the expected supplemental affair like Siamese Dream’s highly bootlegged import-only bonus track “Pissant,” the demos, alternate takes, alternate mixes and even instrumental tracks give a look into the sonic depth of both albums that fans have never really had access too. Corgan knows his audience well, and his selections for these second discs fulfill many curiosities and serve as invaluable time capsules for the beginning of one of the most beloved bands of the ’90s.
-
Google Play
Siamese Dream is the second studio album by American rock band The Smashing Pumpkins, released on July 27, 1993 on Virgin Records. The album fused diverse influences such as shoegazing, dream pop, heavy metal and progressive rock.
-
Head Fi
Louder than the original but with SD that's a good thing compared to some other re-issues. Sounds great.
-
Rotten Radish
There’s elements of grunge, alternative rock, Corgan’s vocals set the album apart from any Loveless tribute album as well, and turn it into quite the record.
-
Nz Herald
The roll-out of grunge-era reissues continues with Smashing Pumpkins' debut and their classic sophomore album the latest to resurface. While on Gish the Chicago band led by Billy Corgan were yet to reach their pinnacle - which would come two years later on Siamese Dream - there is a devilish cocky rock swagger to tracks like I Am One and Bury Me that still holds up 20 years on.
-
The Northern Echo
Remastered and put together in an imaginative and informative package, plenty of work has gone into the release to ensure that fans are getting real value for money. There is a plethora of unreleased or alternative versions of songs and accompanying DVDs. It’s not all great, it must be said, but as a comprehensive library of all things Pumpkin it makes for interesting listening.
-
Riff
This album is a seamless lava flow of burning, churning, yearning melodic guitar pouring itself relentlessly over a beautiful sun-dappled landscape, igniting into beauty everything it touches, whilst Corgan's delicate voice weaves the frayed edges of your psyche deeper and deeper into the music.
-
Hotpress
And while at times the album frustratingly strives to emulate the Ghost of Grunge Past (namely Nirvana's Nevermind), Siamese Dream proves that there is, indeed, life after death.
-
Seattle Pi
Gish was initially released in 1991 and Siamese Dream in 1993, qualifying them as "golden oldies" at this point. In fact, the dwindling audience for Smashing Pumpkins makes these reissues mainly nostalgia for 30-somethings. That's not to say they aren't still solid rock records, I'm just not sure how many new fans they'll gain (which, of course, is beside the point of whether these are worthwhile reissues).
-
Genius
On July 27, 1993, the Smashing Pumpkins dropped a quadruple Platinum bomb on the industry. The band suddenly took over the airwaves, selling over six million copies. The album is widely regarded by many critics as one of the greatest albums of all time.
-
Junk Food For Thought
Siamese Dream is the better purchase of the two from top to bottom. For one, it's a better album, for two the remastering brings out far more nuances, and finally, the bonus disc is a treasure trove of unreleased songs and works-in-progress versions that would radically change before they saw the light of day. Today sounds huge when it kicks in. The original album had a compressed, brittle, digital filtered sound to it, which I just chalked up to it being the way that the album sounded. Here, there is breath, warmth, and light. Hummer and Rocket made me misty eyed, as they sounded so much more beautiful than even the original versions that I fell in love with many moons ago.
Rate This Album and Leave Your Comments