•
Rating:
THE REVIEW
I liked her quite a bit.
I didn't know her well, we only exchanged a few words, but she still didn't keep "noticing" me. Then, during a cigarette break, I heard her enthusiastically talking with her friend about the latest album just released by the Smashing Pumpkins (MCIS). A good reason to start a conversation. That same afternoon, I went to buy it without even knowing who they were or what kind of music they made. AHHHIIIIAA!!!! 35,000 lire (or maybe even a bit more!) damn it's a double album, even.
The album cover is evocative and bewitching, and I can't figure out what type of music it is. I go home, put it on, and the slow piano notes of the song that gives the album its name start... but what is this moaning??! Then come the strings of "Tonight, Tonight": a sigh of relief. By the third track, new upheaval with the angry guitars of "Jellibelly" which then makes way for the edgy "Zero". I listen to it all the way through, with the changes in rhythm and genre that pervade the entire album, moving from the heavy rock of "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" to the mellow "To forgive", from the acid ballad "Love" to the calm notes of "Cupid de locke" and "Take me down". I get up from the couch and put on the blue CD with the sad and teary face drawn on it, "Twilight to starlight", and the songs flow by smoothly like oil: the enchanting and stunning "33", the fantastic rhythm and timbre in "1979", the angry "Tales of a scorched earth" and "X. Y. U.", to then close the album with much quieter and dreamy tracks, almost as if to imply that it is now deep night.
Buying the CD didn't help in the "just cause" (also because I later saw her several times with someone else), but throughout the summer that CD was almost permanently lodged in both the PHILIPS player at my house and in a myriad of other players of people I know and to whom I lent it. An immense record (along with "Siamese Dream"), sweet and bitter at the same time, which, though long, leaves no doubts about the work of Corgan & Pumpkins, and in my opinion remains one of the most beautiful of the "nineties".
The Pumpkins may be liked or disliked, but surely their music is a very particular fruit, difficult to replicate by other bands and, in my opinion, original and much less commercial than many other contemporary groups.
Loading comments slowly
Summary by Bot
The reviewer recounts a personal journey into discovering Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness after overhearing a conversation. They praise the album's diverse sound, from mellow ballads to heavy rock, and highlight its lasting impact and originality. The album remains one of the standout records of the 90s with a unique musical identity.Tracklist Lyrics Videos
The Smashing Pumpkins
American alternative rock band formed in Chicago and led by Billy Corgan, famed for 1990s albums such as Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.50 Reviews
Other reviews
By serestoppone
Their music is like a person you know, who whispers to you, gently speaking to your heart.
An album that if listened to, felt, and experienced helps connect ourselves with the darker sides of our ego.
By AR (Anonima Recensori)
With this second album, there’s no need to skip for good music, because it’s very rare to find an unpleasant track.
I don’t consider it, like many do, a masterpiece, but certainly the best in the discography of the Chicago band.
By blu
This album is something beyond music, something precious that Billy wanted to gift to the world.
It is the sum of everything this immense soul had inside, and he managed to miraculously bring it out in these two hours of sublime beauty.
By NouQuito
This album demonstrated that grunge had evolved into something monstrous: a gaudy AOR for the pimple-ridden MTV generation and the wanking journalists who followed the phenomenon.
The second CD... is truly terrible, containing a series of crappy ballads with grotesque arrangements that transport us into a dimension of sterile and self-indulgent progressive.
By Apple_of_sodomY
The Smashing Pumpkins play 'metal', 'punk', 'alternative' and other such labels, but their music is truly poetry.
This album remains unique and unrepeatable, for what it has given me sentimentally all this time.
