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Originally Posted by noisereductions
The Smashing Pumpkins
Siamese Dream
1993, If I were to make a list of the albums that meaningfully soundtracked my high school list, Siamese Dream would be pretty close to the top. From the opening circus drumrolls this album just doesn't let go. "Cherub Rock" is not just a great opener, it's an iconic track in the band's career. It's a missive with its skittering guitar and bass parts, showboat drums, over-the-top solos and "let.... Let me out"s. Where SP mostly stayed in shoegaze territory on Gish, this album catapulted the band into stadium spotlights. That lead on "Rocket" is larger than life. "Mayonnaise" is nearly transcendent. "Quiet" is fucking loud. There's some throwbacks to Gish, namely in Soma or maybe slightly in "Today" with its depressingly happy lyrics. There's also some quieter moments like the stark "Disarm" or the majestic "Spaceboy" which I prefer mostly because I've just heard the former a bit too much over the years. Siamese Dream is one of those innocuous albums where it may be easy to forget just how good it really is until you put it on and remind yourself from start to finish. |
Dude, who in our age group didn't spend their teen years blasting this thing? I mean, I was truly on the fence with SP by the time I started high school, but I still played this pretty regularly. "Luna" and "Mayonaise" both did something weird to me back then. I still think this is an overrated album historically, but it was definitely a thing for people who came of age in the '90s.
One thing though — I've always thought of Gish as more Jane's Addiction-esque and sort of art-hard-rocky than shoegazey. A lot of the sounds on Siamese Dream seem more steeped in Shoegaze sounds to me. The entire thing kinda sounds like it was mastered to drown itself out, except for the less feedbacky songs like "Disarm."
Speaking of that song, it's effective dynamically, but MAN is that shit pretentious. Even when I was a pubescent little ball of feels, I had to roll my eyes at some of those unrepentant conceits. "I used to beee a little boy!" Yeah, me too. Don't hear me fucking off about it, do you Billy-bob? "The killer in meeee is the killer in you!" Wow. You're taking
something very seriously indeed (with church bells!) only I have no fucking idea what that thing is.
It's the definition of "lugubrious," set to music, that song.
I think there's an interesting 1993-ness to many albums of the albums from this period. I'd want to listen to "Heart-Shaped Box" as kind of a colon-cleanse after hearing "Disarm." I wish I would eat "Dsarm's" cancer when it turns black.
Throw Vs. in there and you have a weird trifecta of '93 alt-rock. Three different worlds, entirely, represented by three very different albums that tend to be lumped together pretty regularly when discussing music from that era. In Utero is really the album for me, as there's nothing about it that I have to tolerate to get through, but I think a lot of people would stand by Siamese Dream OR Vs. as the defining rock album of '93.