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Dude_man79@reddit

I want thirty-three played at my wedding. I even learned how to play it so i can play it at friend's weddings, which hasn't happened yet.

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I'm a much bigger NIN fan and I'll still put this at #2 behind Mellon Collie.

IMHO Mellon Collie was better than it's predecessor where as The Downward Spiral is superior to The Fragile.

Smashing Pumpkins where a bit more mainstream and accessable than NIN. I think that tilts the impact that Mellon Collie had to be more significant.

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pcells@reddit

Nope. Siamese dream is by far the best pumpkins album. Respectfully. But no.

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Diligent_Bath_9283@reddit

With you man.

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rawboudin@reddit

I could listen to MCAIS with my parents even. It was just, I don't know, very melancholic (lol), like those times were. I often think back as to how much the music we listened too was sang by deeply unhappy people. There are songs on this album that were both very hard and soft and sad.

Anyway, I didn't think we could drivel on at my age lol.

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adiosmith@reddit

The Fragile is #1 for me

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Message_10@reddit

Same. It's funny--the older I get, the more I like NIN and whatever it is that Rezor is doing. He's a tremendous talent.

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chrisacip@reddit

Join us on r/nin :)

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Message_10@reddit

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Mtndrums@reddit

Trent's talked about his writer's block with lyrics while working on the album. That's why TDS is still a superior album.

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PyramidicContainment@reddit

I spent a long time collecting all the halos back in the 90's/00's, so I say this with all due respect - Trent has never been a great lyricist.

New-Bowler-8915@reddit

Wu Tang is for the children though. This one not so much.

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Da_Dush_818@reddit

That and All Eyez On Me.

Hard pass on Smashing Pumpkins over Pac

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RadDad166@reddit

Yep. It will stand up to anything in the 90s.

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NachoNachoDan@reddit

I'm with you OP. Iconic album and really a nod back to the kinds of concept double LPs that bands like Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin put out in the 70's and 80's.

Lots of commenters taking about other double albums but those are all doubleheader releases not whole cohesive concept albums.

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CptnMayo@reddit

See, this is my favorite album, absolutely my quintessential inspiration for my style.

I didn't understand the concept, especially when I was 15. I still honestly think it's quite vague.

But the talent, the tone, the lyrics, the guitar, it's perfect. Nothing in this world is perfect. This is perfect.

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Gina_the_Alien@reddit

Fun fact: The Smashing Pumpkins wanted Jellybelly to be the lead signal from MCIS but the record company nixed it.

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CptnMayo@reddit

Oh I had completely forgotten about that. How many singles came off of that album?

Zero BWBW 33 1979 Tonight, tonight

Sadly there's like a whole other generation-on-generation layer of double nostalgia when you see some like 23 year old listening to that today. Like "bruh, I wish I was there when this track dropped".

In college I got four of my friends with cars to BLAST Zaireeka in an empty level of a parking garage.

pantstoaknifefight2@reddit

Hey SP collector -- I have a YouTube music subscription and can't find some of their albums (or Zwan). Any idea why they don't have all their albums online?

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theMethod@reddit

Gish through Machina I are streaming through all the major services, including the deluxe remasters of the first 4 studio albums and 2 b-side collections. Oceania through Aghori Mhori Mei are also on those services.

Machina II has been available for free download on archive.org for a long time and there are fan remasters on YouTube as well.

Zeitgeist, American Gothic, and Machina II are the official releases missing from the major streams, as well as Zwan and TheFutureEmbrace. Hoping to see Zeitgeist, Zwan, and TFE coming soon.

Both of Billy’s recent solo efforts are also streaming - Ogilala and Cotillions.

I’m not subscribed to YouTube Music, but would assume they mirror Spotify and Apple Music. Sorry if there are gaps, but you should be able to find most stuff!

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pantstoaknifefight2@reddit

Thanks so much!

Yeah, it's Zeitgeist and some sort of Kaleidoscooic Teardrop that I downloaded as an MP3 sometime in 2010 or so that I can't find. Heard about the Machina 2 but couldn't find any never heard of The Future Embrace.

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NachoNachoDan@reddit

Nice! I didn’t see them until the final tour before the first breakup in 2000. Jimmy chamberlain had just come back to the band.

Where’d you see them?

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AliveInTheFuture@reddit

1996, Seattle. Kenny Aronoff on drums while Chamberlain was in rehab. Pretty good show, but honestly, Billy’s voice isn’t great live and there’s a lot of layered guitar in the studio mix, which often doesn’t translate well to live performance. Still, loved it.

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NachoNachoDan@reddit

That's a good observation. I saw Billy with Zwan in the early 2000s and felt like a lot of his sound was missing. He is a studio genius though

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UbermachoGuy@reddit

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Medical_Slide9245@reddit

Outcast's The Love Below & Speakerboxxx is one of the best double albums. Two very different albums.

Melancholy and the infinite sadness cd was the key cd for my kickass car stereo. I could never remember if it was the blue or red CD. I guarantee the fuckers that stole it never figured that out.

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LedRaptor@reddit

I think OP is me. I was nostalgically listening to songs from this album a few days ago.

And yes, thru the eyes of ruby is my favorite. I love how it comes right after tales of a scorched earth, which is super heavy.

The art work and music videos for this album were really cool too. I don’t have the original CD case anymore but I do have the discs in a CD book.

zero, jelly belly, bullet with butterfly wings, muzzle, where boys fear to tread, 1979, tonight tonight…..there are so many good songs on this album.

kitterkatty@reddit

Oh there definitely were, just like the 90s. :) Scene and kpop and goth. The directioners vs army. G note. The rise of genders and furries.

I think when you're younger you see the differences more clearly. I'm younger (lurking here because I love the Pumpkins) and was a teen in 2008.. it was the cusp of the smartphone era where the rich kids had the new iPhone but the rest of us were still on flip phones haha. And that changes everything, we still needed to look up (or print off!) a map before we headed out, a camera was a separate device you carried, we were still renting movies, you get the picture. Back then it was still possible to "unplug".

Politics felt different, it was still sharply divided but wasn't the shitshow fueled by social media it is now. Culture has shifted too.. back then it was acceptable and normal to be wildly homophobic and transphobic, not so much with today's youth. As a queer person, that's been one of the starkest changes to me.

So not gen z, but closer to a zillenial and looking back at 2008 it's both nostalgia and a sense of being glad we've moved on from that era

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karma_made_me_do_eet@reddit

When it was released people born in 1979 were mostly 16 years old.. hit different for me because it was the first time I can remember a band kind of giving a nod to us future xennials.

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ionizing@reddit

Stahp. I'm already too old why would you do this to me

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ComicOzzy@reddit

Pretty sure I just came down with rheumatoid arthritis. Oh well. Time to play Porcelina on repeat until I die.

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chubs66@reddit

No! It can't be!

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UbermachoGuy@reddit

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What a cool video. The record shop owner talking at the end too. Man…

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DreadSocialistOrwell@reddit

It was hugely marketed.

The tie-in with Terminator 2 was a major kick-off for the album.

Then, Don't Cry, Estranged and November Rain (which, tbf, was a pretty great video) were also huge hits that MTV caned for months.

Now, I'm always reminded of this interaction whenever I see this album mentioned:

https://youtu.be/eGA2NNAFM3M?si=p0pqzy-z1ht0gL9B

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MillerLitesaber@reddit

“Because it’s your FAVORITE!!” always gets me

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Radrezzz@reddit

That’s funny because it reminds me more of this: https://youtu.be/azhgpelu0vY

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webslingrrr@reddit

As far as rock goes, I'd agree. MCIS is 9x platinum and is beloved by both Gen X and Millennials, making it the ideal candidate to represent rock double albums for Xennials.

Tupac's All Eyez On Me as well. That double CD brings me riiiight back.

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MuttDawg509@reddit

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I'd much prefer SP over GnR but the older kids played Use your illusion relentlessly

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aweraw@reddit

Yeah, it's unfortunate what a douche Billy Corgan chose to become

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Madrizzle1@reddit

I think The Fragile has it beat.

It was killer though.

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HipHopGrandpa@reddit

I owned both back in the day but couldn’t remember a single track name from The Fragile to save my life. Can recall probably 10 from the S.P.

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TRDF3RG@reddit

Siamese Dream and Gish are better than both.

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Antnee83@reddit

This was what I came to say.

I literally stood in the foyer listening to the entire song on my headphones. I knew right then and there that this was going to be a huge hit for GnR.

If you bought them on vinyl, they were 2 double albums, so 4 albums all told.

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bootyhole-romancer@reddit

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WilliamMcCarty@reddit

CTRL + F: "Use Your Illusion"

...there go my people.

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dystopika@reddit

High-five. GNR were the first band I really got into.

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WilliamMcCarty@reddit

That album was one of the all time greats.

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Acceptable-Moose-989@reddit

eew.

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larryb78@reddit

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I lost my virginity to rape to this album back when it was new. It was female on male rape. I said no and stop multiple times but she just kept going. It ended up having a huge impact on my life. I just layed there and let it happen at some point... she clearly wasn't going to stop. She rode me for the whole hour and twenty minutes until the CD player stopped, then went some more. She thought it was funny that she went through both albums. I didn't cum. My first time having sex I went over an hour and twenty minutes and didn't even finish. Better than lasting 20 seconds their first time like most guys though right?

Even before he "went insane," he was always a garbage human being. Speaking of which, Garbage opened for them at that tour and THEY were great and Shirley Manson was super appreciative to the crowd.

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RecipeFunny2154@reddit

I dunno, things change. That was admittedly a long time ago.

I saw them a couple times recently and it seems like he's finally mellowed out. They sounded great, he joked with the audience, the other members were clearly having a great time. One of the amps blew out and they rolled with it.

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Gizank@reddit

I saw them touring for Siamese Dream. I really liked that album and Gish. Their live show was awful. His voice is like having pieces of my skull removed without anesthesia.

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StyxCoverBnd@reddit

Billy Corgan insulted the audience throughout it

I grew up in the Chicago area and I remember hearing that right when this album came out Smashing Pumpkins played at (I think the House of Blues) and Corgan announced that they were only playing songs from this album and to not scream for older songs because they weren't going to play them and it pissed a ton of people off.

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BostonBlackCat@reddit

Honestly after that prolonged bad jam session nonsense, I would have been happy with them only playing songs on that album, just as long as they were actual songs.

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TinaHitTheBreaks@reddit

I’m reading elsewhere he went full QAnon

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Procrasturbating@reddit

He has a reputation as being a difficult person. I don’t want to be any meaner than that about it, but the guitar subs will be happy to fill you in at great length.

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bootyhole-romancer@reddit

guitar subs

My thoughts exactly as soon as I saw this post

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schwing710@reddit

He’s mellowed out quite a bit in recent years and takes himself much less seriously, ever since getting married and having children. It’s refreshing to see him be openly self-deprecating now.

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denim_skirt@reddit

"Difficult" is so generous of you haha

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Username_NullValue@reddit

He’s very full of himself, and he’s a perfectionist, but I’d say that’s also very typical of great artists. It’s an unfortunate side effect that ultimately tears apart the greatest bands.

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postinganxiety@reddit

DreadSocialistOrwell@reddit

Yeah, I left their concert early too. I just wasn't feeling it.

But at least it started off interesting. They opened with Tonight, Tonight and during the song someone threw a bottle of beer at D'arcy toward the end of the song and Corgin had a couple of people thrown out very publicly.

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little_bird_vagabond@reddit

The infinite sadness tour was my first concert, Garbage opened. Was absolutely amazing.

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batsofburden@reddit

Me too, even though I was pretty far in the back it was still amazing.

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little_bird_vagabond@reddit

Same!!

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wierdomc@reddit

GNR use your illusion 1 and 2 RHCP Stadium Arcadium

Both are ahead of pumpkins for me. Don’t get me wrong it’s a great album and I’ve owned it for 20+ yrs but these are a lil better

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popculturenrd@reddit

Stadium Arcadium is still one of my all-time favorites.

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Hanifsefu@reddit

Honestly it's all about what set the mood and basically determined what would make it on the radio. GnR did that for a decade. Stadium Arcadium did it again for the 00s.

Rock radio was defined by what sounded good next to GnR and in the 00s rock radio was defined by what sounded good next to the Chili Peppers. Stadium Arcadium really sealed the deal for the 00s because it was a lot more mainstream rock friendly.

Smashing Pumpkins are good but a lot of their airtime came from the fact that they matched up well with the genre definers of their time.

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CastleBeoWulf@reddit

I love this double album. Because of this album, I discovered siamese dreams. I also loved the box album.

I love MCIS, and I own the expensive ass vinyl box, but I agree. There's alot of filler in that album.

I'm definitely in the minority but I actually think their best and most polished album is Machina.

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Easy_Speech_6099@reddit

I agree. Siamese Dream was their best. I even like Gish better than Mellon Collie.

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Orinocobro@reddit

This is my opinion of double albums on the whole. Edit, don't waste my time.
Honestly, I've never quite understood the adulation some folks have for Smashing Pumpkins. They're good, but I know people with SP tattoos who talk about them like Corgan is a visionary or something.

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My 17 year old just started discovering the deep cuts on this album :)

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animesuxdix@reddit

The singles on this album were great but the a lot of the other songs on this record were ten times better than the singles. JellyBelly, an ode to no one, porcelina, where boys fear to tread, thru the eyes of Ruby, XYU. First CD I went to the store to buy.

Wu-Tang Forever would like a word

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AddendumMundane6634@reddit

I See your melancholy and the infinite sadness.... and raise you Life After Death.

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the_ending81@reddit

Good one. Not my fav tho. Use your Illusion was prob my all time fav but Life After Death and The Fragile were all really good too

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drive_in_fool@reddit

The World is a Vampire!

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Particular_Metal_@reddit

Oh snap I remember putting this in the first time. Good old Sony boombox that thing was my pride and joy back in the day

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marvin_nash9@reddit

It was a good record but the beginning of the end for SP.

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ellabfine@reddit

LOVED this album. This tour was my first concert. I still have my concert tee. It was fantastic. My favorite song? Thirty-three. Just thinking about that song takes me back to 1997.

I just couldn't do it. But I recognize the ubiquity of this album in the 90's.

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Redditsaves2020@reddit

Don't forget: The End Is The Beginning Is The End, from the "Batman & Robin" (1997) movie.

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amayain@reddit

I always lumped that it more with the Adore era than the MCIS era though. Along with Eye.

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torino_nera@reddit

Yea if it's post-Jimmy then it doesn't belong in the Mellon Collie era

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mechapoitier@reddit

It’s a shame most of the radio stuff was among the worst songs in the album. I have no idea why “Tonight Tonight” got pushed as hard as it did, and 1979 was just so formulaic.

Music had never made me feel that way before, and I would sit by the radio and wait for it to come on so I could tape it off of Z100.

Within that short time of the single coming out and waiting until Christmas (I couldn’t afford to buy it), I listened to that tape so many damn times.

At one point, I accidentally hit the record button on my Walkman while mowing the lawn, ruining part of the recording, but I listened just the same.

When I finally listened to that double album, I had never felt so seen and heard with my feelings. These new teenage feelings finally had a soundtrack.

Jimmy, their drummer, inspired me to play the drums. Billy inspired me to write poetry. The music videos made me want to get into film.

Today, I’m a motion picture cameraman. Drumming gave me the rhythm (timing) I needed to operate, especially when I started making music videos. The poetic interpretation I need when reading scripts helps me with work, and I’m still a drummer.

Crayola_ROX@reddit

all I listened too in the 90s was hip-hop, you couldn't pay me to listen to rock. Come the 2000's and I started to appreciate all the stuff I missed in the 90's

2024 and you couldn't pay me to listen to (modern) rap lol

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Fun-Jellyfish-61@reddit

Don't miss the boat on Run The Jewels.

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Crayola_ROX@reddit

I dug Killer Mikes first two albums before I fell out of love with hip-hop. I haven’t kept up with him regrettably.

RtJ I’ll listen to time to time thanks to the algorithm on google play music

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Puzzlehead-Dish@reddit

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MaxPowerrr85@reddit

I could have written this exact comment from start to finish lol. Once I could separate music from my identity I allowed myself to listen to other stuff

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OpenEyz2016@reddit

Same!!!

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AccurateAd5298@reddit

+1 2Pac

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Whatfforreal@reddit

This is the first thing that came to mind.

Kick in the door, wave the 44…

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bottledsoi@reddit

I think we both know the demographic of this sub.

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Speak for yourself. Daydream Nation and Dirty were double LPs. Fuck Billy Corgan, guy's always been a piece of shit.

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circ-u-la-ted@reddit

I mean those albums are both amazing but I don't think double LPs count for this one. Dirty, at least, was released on a single cassette tape. And xennials weren't really of a discerning age for the release of DN.

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Coyote_Roadrunna@reddit (OP)

Big Sonic Youth fan myself (love Sister) and agree Billy is a known control freak. But no denying MCIS made a huge impression on my 15 year old self at the time. And Jimmy Chamberlain is an undeniably professional drummer.

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Yeti3030@reddit

I had the double TAPE of this when I was like 12. It is my favorite album to this day and I’ve enjoyed it many many times since the first day I listened to it.

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sypie1@reddit

Dawn to dusk, song 3. Yes please. Listened to this on my MD player a lot when delivering newspapers. As it was by bike I was done very fast with this kind of music in my ears.

I agree. Fantastic fucking record. Better than The Wall.

My first concert too! Great album

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realife428@reddit

This was the first gig I ever went to. The MC+IS tour.

I loved this album and I still do.

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agoldprospector@reddit

Loved Siamese Dream, but this one passed me by. '94 was when punk kicked into high gear and it had energy and optimism that made music like the Pumkins feel grating and whiney to me by the time this album came out the next year.

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Acceptable-Moose-989@reddit

'94 was when punk kicked into high gear

you can't be serious with this statement.

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agoldprospector@reddit

I'm serious. Punk had varying degrees of popularity in the 70's and 80's. But the revival in the 90's drove it much deeper into the mainstream.

1994 saw the release of Green Day - Dookie, Offspring - Smash, Rancid - Let's Go. All albums that had songs that got serious playtime on MTV and radio. Before that, hearing punk was rare for me in mainstream outlets and mostly limited to stuff like Ramones or The Clash, which were at that point long past their prime. This is part of what started displacing grunge and alternative in general. This lead to the growing popularity of stuff like NOFX and Bad Religion. Punk in Drublic came out in 1994 too, arguable NOFX's best album. Blink 182 came out of this era, but developed a bit later, but Chesire Cat was still released in 1995. This was punk at it's peak popularity since the early days, Dookie and Smash both outsold London Calling IIRC.

And then punk started getting displaced by horrible nu metal and emo by the early 2000's. 1994 was where it really started growing though, and a lot of bands from that era had their best releases in 94-96 IMO.

Yes. My friend bought it but I didn’t like him so I told him it was mid.

I’m grown up now so I can gladly say the album was fantastic and I no longer have friends I don’t like.

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kl2342@reddit

Dusk at Cubist Castle would like a word

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Wu-Tang Forver was also an iconic double album imo.

I bought both of those albums at the same Bionic Records...RIP

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FreshNegotiation188@reddit

define "our generation"?

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Adept_Monitor@reddit

Amen!

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GodlessGOD@reddit

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I always related deeply to “Muzzle”. Which is funny as a teenager. Now laughable as an adult because my life has been extraordinary: blessed and cursed and won.

I also love Porcelina and not enough people give if affection because of the intro.

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turkeyfourtwozero@reddit

1st CD i owned! got it for xmas along with one of those stereos with detachable speakers 🤘

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Away-Quantity928@reddit

Still slaps.

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rebeccathegoat@reddit

My sister was/is the hugest Smashing Pumpkins fan, so I grew up listening to all of these songs through my bedroom wall.

Part of it was I just didn't have enough money to buy CDs and radio in my area sucked. So when I liked something it would take me forever to figure out the name etc. By the time I would figure out they were not really popular or not actually from the 90's.

When MP3s finally became a thing I just forgot most of the 90's stuff.

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lycoloco@reddit

I've got a signed copy (liner notes) from when Smashing Pumpkins was touring one album release. Definitely an iconic double cd set.

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0phobia@reddit

GNR: Was I just a fucking joke to you?

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montriond@reddit

2pac all eyes on me has got to be up there as the no 1 double CD for hiphop at least..

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Wrong_Course_8516@reddit

can someone put the album i dont feel like decoding this potato post

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Well, for me that would be Slayer's "Decade of Aggression Live"

I got Mellon Collie (dumb name) on cassette when the new Walmart opened in town. It had been mis-tagged so I got it for the price of an older single-cassette album, about $7 if I remember correctly. I loved it.

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Paradise_Child@reddit

Recently got this at a yard sale for only 25 cents. Along with Blues Traveler’s “Four” and Coolio’s “It Takes a Thief.” Good album.

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LeonardSchmaltzstein@reddit

WuTang forever was rhe best double album. MATIS has 4 good songs

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RecipeFunny2154@reddit

I'm a big NIN fan, but I feel like The Fragile has a lot more filler than this album does.

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Wpgjetsfan19@reddit

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Wrong. This one

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systemfrown@reddit

The Substance double album came out in the late 80's, but the Smashing Pumpkins enjoyed more mainstream success. Personally I'd rate Mellon Collie somewhere outside of the top five double albums I own, but to be fair most of the ones I prefer more were from the 80's or even 70's.

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I remember this album so much. My father always complained that they brought out a double album at what he thought was still early in the pumpkins career.

I never had the album growing up. My brother did I actually didn’t give the full album a listen to until a few years ago. Listening to the whole thing you can feel the whole music style slowly change by the end and could tell they had some meaning behind it like trying to show us a bigger picture of something. I just can’t place my finger on what it was. But it was a fun ride regardless.

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URfwend@reddit

Rancid let's go or lcd Soundsystem self title.

Ugk underground kings mid 2000s

Moby the B sides

All eyez on me

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1_art_please@reddit

Muzzle.

My favourite is still Siamese Dream and I have a SP vinyl collection that is mainly from the Singles soundtrack through to Pisces Iscariot. I had vinyls from the MCIS era but they were never worth much :P

Klutzy-Delivery-5792@reddit

Did you rush to buy The Wall when it first came out? How many Clash shows did you attend between 1977 to 1983?

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HeathenDreadnok@reddit

btw do me a favor and hang yourself you fucking cunt

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HeathenDreadnok@reddit

lol does it matter? I still liked those albums better and they all meant far more to me, as well as being far more artistically pleasing. No way in hell I would pay for the Smashing pumpkins.

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Ryuujin_13@reddit

My wife is a die-hard SP fan. 'Beautiful' was the song she walked down the aisle to at our wedding.

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atari2600forever@reddit

This sub seems to really love this album, I personally feel that there's one album of good music with a lot of filler. I remember being disappointed by this when I bought it as I was a huge Smashing Pumpkins fan.

I think Wu-Tang probably has the number #1 double album, lots of hits and those guys are still everywhere (RIP ODB).

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BostonBlackCat@reddit

One of my favorite albums growing up, but the Smashing Pumpkin's tour I saw for that album was hands down the worst concert I have ever seen. Billy Corgan insulted the audience throughout it, then for over half an hour they just were doing a random musical interlude that was what you'd expect at a jam band concert, but way more boring. A bunch of people walked out, and then Billy announce that it had been a "test" to see who their real fans were.

Like how much of a narcissistic asshole do you have to be by intentionally playing bad music to fans who paid to see you as some sort of loyalty test? If he'd had more charisma, Corgan absolutely would have started a personality cult a la Jared Leto.

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