15 years later, Siamese Dream continues to stand alone as an authentic vision of the idealized dream of rock & roll.
It seems a rarer offering these days for the Billboard music charts to dump a top-ten album in your lap that not only transcends the demands of stylized trends, but, also immortalizes itself through its own ethereal conception and tooth- and-nail execution. And with the ominous presence of homogenous, manufactured rock bands, it is imperative that in our darkest moments of music industry cynicism, we reconnect with the utopian ideals of such albums as Smashing Pumpkin's 1993 album, Siamese Dream, to remind ourselves that there is always a splendid evocation of originality churning and tickling just beneath the underbelly of the music world.
The 1993 release of Smashing Pumpkin’s, Siamese Dream, spawned a mass phenomena of tongue-biting in the mad world of media critics by defying its own expectations and leaving music journalist frantically scrambling to commit the Chicago band's sound to a specific genre, while desperately trying to quantify its relevance to the thunderous Grunge movement currently defining alternative music. The remarkable thing about Siamese Dream, is that the album, created with pure grit, blood and emotional combustion, still cannot be classified or shoved onto the shelves with its vaguely similar sounding 90’s comrades. This album stands alone as an homage to originality and innocent rebellion; a romantic vision of the possibilities of rock & roll.
With its quixotic lyrics, vertiginous melodies and elegant layers of fervent and swooning atmospheric guitar and drum chants, Siamese Dream, is to be revered, 15 years later, for its authenticity beyond anything else. And yes, the bandmates suffered in sea of profound dysfunction during its recording, but as the heroic Winston Churchill maxim encourages: When you are going through hell, keep going. And thanks to (or despite of) Billy Corgan's borderline psychotic perfectionism compounded by label executive pressure, the result of that trip to hell and back, captained by the sensibilities of producer Butch Vig, is a musical masterpiece.
(originally written 5/2008)