30 years ago this album changed rock music forever

Simon Kelly

And it sounds just a fresh as the day it was released.

If the phrase “pressure makes diamonds” is ever to be believed in a metaphorical sense, there is no better example than the Smashing Pumpkin’s sophomore outing, ‘Siamese Dream‘.

The early 90s was a transformative time for rock music. Nirvana’s emergence with the genre-altering ‘Nevermind’ had sent sonic waves throughout the industry that was still being felt years after its release, while the grunge scene was approaching its peak.

Into the massive wake left by Kurt Cobain and co. stepped up-and-comers Smashing Pumpkins, who, with just one album behind them (put together by ‘Nevermind’ producer Butch Vig), were already being dubbed the next Nirvana. The pressure was intense.

While it could have been easy to get swallowed up by the sea of forgotten grunge records at the time, what the band managed to do instead was remarkable. They took the genre and elevated it to something else – a more introspective and cerebral force, all the while backing it up with fuzzy riffs, energetic drums and stand-out vocals.

Now, 30 years later, Siamese Dream is still a triumph – an album which launched the band into stardom and beyond. But to look back in retrospect makes it even more impressive, as the album that launched them into a career as one of the most recognisable rock bands in modern history very nearly killed them.

The pressure to live up to Nirvana was almost too much

As it turns out, at the time of recording the album, every member of the band was going through a major catastrophe.

Drummer Jimmy Chamberlin was addicted to heroin and struggling to get clean, guitarist James Iha and bassist D’arcy Wretzky had recently broken up, and frontman Billy Corgan was depressed and fighting writer’s block.

Their ongoing troubles at the time makes it even more incredible that they were able to produce such an incredible feat of music against the odds.

Going in off the back of a heavy few years touring their debut album ‘Gish’, the band started recording Siamese Dream in Georgia, away from their hometown in order to keep Chamberlain away from the temptation of drugs (something which absolutely didn’t work according to producer Vig).

The beginning of the album is no better introduction to the band, with the energetic build up of rolling drums on ‘Cherub Rock’ overlayed by fuzzed-up guitars and Corgan’s trademark nasally vocals, which flit between whispers and strained roars.

Corgan’s perfectionism nearly led to the band’s demise

Interestingly, it’s the complexity of the songs on the album that links back to one of the band’s biggest altercations – the fact that Corgan himself recorded most of the guitar and bass tracks because he felt he was the only one who could understand the way he wanted them to sound.

While it was eventually smoothed over with Iha and Wretzky, Corgan later told Rolling Stone of his regret, “Musicianship and technical vision are fine and good, but at some point you cross a line. No matter how good an album you’ve got, you’ve cut away the gut of your band.”

Butch Vig also recalled the frontman’s perfectionist nature in the studio, saying it “almost killed me”.

Also featuring on the record is arguably the band’s most recognisable hit, ‘Today’. The song is a prime example of Pumpkin’s ability to balance tenderness with their heavy sound so well, how they can control the chaos.

That controlled chaos is probably best described visually in the below video of the Pumpkins performing their bombastic track ‘Geek USA’ on a tiny stage, packed out by 50 people in clown suits.

After ‘Siamese Dream’, the band became a household name, even making an appearance on The Simpsons (arguably one of the greatest feats a band could achieve in the 90s) after the release of their third album ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’.

From there the Pumpkins had firmly established themselves as one of alternative rock’s most influential bands. Despite multiple changes of the guard, Corgan has kept the band going in some shape or form since their inception (bar a four year break-up period in which he formed new band Zwan alongside Chamberlain).

While there doesn’t look to be any reunion with Wretzky in the pipeline (her and Corgan are not on great terms), Chamberlain and Iha are once again back in the line-up alongside Corgan. The band released their twelfth studio album, ‘Atum’, a triple-sided record containing some 33 songs, this year.

No matter how many albums the band release in their lifetime, however, ‘Siamese Dream’ will remain their most important and timeless. 30 years on it sounds as fresh as the day it was released.