Listed below are the best albums of the 1990s as calculated from their overall rankings in over 59,000 greatest album charts. (Chart last updated: 5 hours ago).
This chart is currently filtered to only show albums from The Smashing Pumpkins. (Remove this filter)
"This album is tremendous. One of the best of the 90s for sure. Standout tracks to me are Mayonaise, Today, and Hummer. blackflag29, great comment. I love the Mayonaise comparison to Loveless."Reply
"mellon collie is huge and is often knocked for being too bloated. Many critics say, if it was trimmed to a single album, it'd be even better than siamese dream. Even if it were bloated, that statement itself says that mellon collie based on some of its parts is better than siamese dream, and i'd ...""mellon collie is huge and is often knocked for being too bloated. Many critics say, if it was trimmed to a single album, it'd be even better than siamese dream. Even if it were bloated, that statement itself says that mellon collie based on some of its parts is better than siamese dream, and i'd agree. Where siamese dream is great because of great songs and the freshness of the pumpkin sound, mellon collie is even better because it has more great songs and perfects the pumpkin sound. They rock harder here than on SD -- check out "zero" or "an ode to no one" or "where boys fear to tread" or "x.y.u.". (These songs rocked harder than most of roblee's metal/rock.) They're more beautiful than on SD. They've written just as catchy pop songs as SD -- mellon collie even topped "today" with "1979". They capture frustration and pain and love perfectly.
Since this is one of my favorite albums of all-time, i'll give a track-by-track review.
DAWN TO DUSK [disc 1]
MCATIS: Pleasant intro track.
Tonight, Tonight: Sweeping and epic. Lovely and delicate. "Time is never time at all / you can never ever leave / without leaving a piece of you". I'm a fan of even-better-than-the-rest-of-the-song endings and this song has it in its particular grand summation. Believe in me...tonight.
Jellybelly: Situated between two radio releases, this song holds its own between the epic and the fiery self-deprecation. It's a little overreaching with its lyrical emptiness stating "living makes me sick", but the rocking riffwork and vocal delivery makes up for the little lyrical inadequacy here. I like this wordplay: "give in to your forevers / and live for always".
Zero: The shrieking "YOU!" ending "jellybelly" leads into this song which i basically have memorized. Interesting metaphors/analogies in here, like "i'm the face in your dreams of glass" and "my reflection / dirty mirror / is no connection to myself" and "emptiness is loneliness, and loneliness is cleanliness and cleanliness is godliness, and god is empty just like me ". And this song has a mad rush of terror at the end punctuated by loneliness.
Here is no Why: The loneliness continues here as billy sings about "the lonely towers of long mistakes /to forgotten faces and faded loves ". Nice song to bridge the power of "zero" and "bullet".
Bullet with Butterfly Wings: Interesting metaphor. Song starts out "the world is a vampire" and is about "betrayed desired" culminating in a chorus that says "despite all my rage, i'm am still just a rat in a cage". (Take "rat in a cage", remove almost all the inside letters, and you end up with "rage". Was this intended?)
To Forgive: This song is a beautiful comedown from "bullet" starting "ten times removed / i forget about where it all began / bastard son of a bastard son of / a wild eyed child of the sun ". About "holding back the fool again" where "i forget to forget nothing is important".
An Ode To No One: I think the "i'd never be the shine in your spit" lyric sums this song up. It's grating, pissed off and in your face. And it rocks. "This message is for anyone who dares to hear a fool". "Destroy the mind / destroy the body / but you cannot destroy the heart". A lot of fun lyrics. This song shreds at the end screaming "I DON'T NEED YOUR LOVE TO DISCONNECT!".
Love: Another great comedown with the foreboding synths of "love" about "my mistakes of cowardace". It sounds offhanded and simple, but the lyric of "love, it's who you know" is generally appropriate. The guitar licks sound synth-lick too. It's like he's saying love has an artificial quality.
cupid de locke: This song sounds sweet but is full of mischief and unfulfilled desires. "Your world be shattered with nary a note / Of one cupids arrow under your coat " ending in what sounds like a first-person insight upon the world of love: "And in the land of star crossed lovers / And barren hearted wanderers / Forever lost in forsaken missives and Satan's pull / We seek the unseekable and we speak the unspeakable / Our hopes dead gathering dust to dust / In faith, in compassion, and in love".
galapagos: "Aint it funny how we pretend we're still a child". Soft-sung at first, this one gracefully builds into a confessional where billy pleads "rescue me from me and all that i believe". It's a song questioning whether to love at all basically saying to believe in love is to be as innocent and naive as a child regarding all the (negative) possibilities of love. In the 3 song suite about love, this concluding number is the most beautiful and endearing.
muzzle: Another song with a Tnotch ending with some revealing lines like "my life has been extraordinary / blessed and cursed and won / time heals but i'm forever broken " where "the world so hard to understand / is the world your can't live without / and i knew the silence of the world ". Love unrequited.
take me down: James Iha sings this one where "all i see is you". It's a nice little number by itself and doesn't seem out of place on the album, but IMO unnecessary in the grand scheme of the album. There's enough of a comedown in "muzzle" to seque well into the first track of the next disc.
TWILIGHT TO STARLIGHT [disc 2]
where boys fear to tread: this slow-build shredder kicks off the "twilight to starlight" second disc. It's an ominous beginning musically detailing the "king of horseflies, dark prince of death" telling of the remnants of a love lost with "A veiled promise to never die / On dead highways".
bodies: "bodies" ups the ante of devastation, both lyrically and with the guitar, stating plainly "love is suicide". Those who perish to love?: "The empty bodies stand at rest / Casualties of their own flesh / Afflicted by their dispossession". You can feel the pain when he screams "no bodies!". "love is suicide" indeed.
thirty-three: The above shreadfest couplet slips into 3 more georgeous songs anticing us back to the arms of love. "33" starts "speak to me in a language i can hear / humor me before i have to go". He's forgiving everyone accepting love's end yet still in denial, self-deprecating in honesty professing "tomorrow's just an excuse away". Beautiful anguish captured in this beautiful lyric "I know I'll make it, love can last forever / Graceful swans of never topple to the Earth". Another tune that can tear me up.
in the arms of sleep: love is a dream. this song continues the sentiments of "33", shuffling along slowly through the residual pain. "peace will not come to this lonely heart" ending wonderfully/tragically "suffer my desire".
1979: You've heard this song. It's a trip along memory lane across a simpler time of youthful fancy. This may be the dream alluded to in the previous song. Upbeat and catchy (it's fun when the drum (machine?) kicks in), a more foot-tapping version of "today". a lot of fun lyrics in here. "on a live wire right up off the street / you and i should meet" for "Justine never knew the rules, / Hung down with the freaks and the ghouls". But no matter what happens regarding the blues or one's destiny "we don't know / Just where our bones will rest / To dust I guess / Forgotten and absorbed to the earth below". Love this song. Upbeat and yet somewhat despondant.
tales of a scorched earth: you can instantly tell this song's gonna kick your ass, with the train wreck of guitar and billy's distorted screams of "farewell goodnight last one out turn out the lights" proclaiming an answer to his torturous question "why do the same old things keep on happening? / because beyond my hopes there are no feelings ". And just when you think the song is losing momentum it kicks your ass again 2/3 of the way. The line "i lie just to be real, and i'd die just to feel" is a little overdramatic, but affective in the context of this slayer.
thru the eyes of ruby: an eerie calm awaits on the other side of "scorched earth". it's the surreal aftermath speaking in tongues like "wrap me in always and drag me in with maybes" and "i believe in never, i believe in all the way" but "belief is just some faith / and faith can't help you to escape". Guitars rise throughout the song following in the momentum of "scorched earth". then it trails off into pretty dreamland as an intro to...
stumbleine: this is the breather between rockers singing "Boredoms in the bathroom shaking out the loose teeth" where, if you were at their concert performing the whole album straight-through, this is where you'd exit for a quick bathroom break. Not saying it's not a good song though. Some more interesting lyrics like "Mommy's in the manger with the little kids / She's got her reasons, got my forgets / Of tears and idle threats / Misplaced". While the album as a whole doesn't really tell a cohesive story, each song seems to tell its own unique story, as "stumbleine" is an example of.
x.y.u.: you know your arse is in trouble again! love this song. always wish i could've seen this done live. This is a masochistic billy singing "i said, i wanna fill you up, i wanna break you, i wanna give you up " and "i couldn't feel her, and it was just a game, / cause i was lonely and she was crazy ". There are some silly lyrics, but they drown under the ferocity. There's a mild break before it ends staring into the eyes of a jackyl frantically singing "now we begin descent, to where we've never been / there is no going back, this wasn't meant to last / this is a hell on earth, we are meant to serve ". This is the last rocker on the album ending the rockfest superbly.
we only come out at night: Vampiric tale drumbeat pulsating with angelic harp. Cool song. Great contrast to "x.y.u.". Another example of great sequencing on this album (for the most part). Billy tries to comfort: "once again, you'll pretend to know that / There's an end, that there's an end to this begin / It will help you sleep at night".
beautiful: Pretty song. One of the few songs that actually sounds like a love song and not a facade for lovelorn torment. There's an appreciation for (a) love, as familiar as a comfy bedtime pillow. "i'll be under your stars forever ". (Beware, the beauty might be a facade hiding a stalker song!)
lily (my one and only): Pretty song. Another ode to love. This song reminds me of the someone i met in 1996.
by starlight: At this point, i'm on the ballad breaking point. Good song questioning love again. This would make a nice album closer into the deep, dark night. "dead eyes, are you just like me?"
farewell and goodnight: Pleasant goodnight featuing iha & d'arcy singing us out as well, but either this or "by starlight" could've been left off to ease the long nighttime passing."[+]Reply
"I admit that nostalgia is probably why I like this album so much. But listening to it again reminds me of just how great it sounds. The production is incredible - the pianos echo so hauntingly. The angst is still here, but it's contained into a more melancholic sound (funny how Mellon Collie was ...""I admit that nostalgia is probably why I like this album so much. But listening to it again reminds me of just how great it sounds. The production is incredible - the pianos echo so hauntingly. The angst is still here, but it's contained into a more melancholic sound (funny how Mellon Collie was a more angry album). Crestfallen and Blank Page are two of the bands best songs. A very underappreciated album that shows how great a songwriter Corgan used to be."[+]Reply
"Great sound, almost combines Guns N Roses style hair metal with Cocteau Twins style dream pop. All tracks are good to great ("Rhinoceros", maybe the best ever Pumpkins song?) with maybe the exception of "Suffer". Overall a must-own for Pumpkins fans."Reply
"an absolutely breathtaking collection of b-sides. God only knows why they didnt release this is an actual full-length album as the majority of the music on this record is just as good if not better than any classic pumpkins a-sides. The opener "soothe" is possibly the most beautiful piece of musi...""an absolutely breathtaking collection of b-sides. God only knows why they didnt release this is an actual full-length album as the majority of the music on this record is just as good if not better than any classic pumpkins a-sides. The opener "soothe" is possibly the most beautiful piece of music Corgan and co. have ever put down on paper. Never has the lead singer's (arguably) nasally voice come off as being so soft and pure, its 3 minutes of absolute bliss. Then you have your freak-rock moments such as "frailed and bedazzled" and "blew away"- which ultimately draw inspiration from Country music but could still make you mellow-the-fuck-out on any god-given day. The harder pieces such as "Pissant" and "Hello Kitty Kat" openly display the sheer magnitude of Corgan's inspiration from Black Sabbath, Depeche Mode etc. Then comes what is arguably the greatest cover of all time which needs no introduction. Other than this the clear standout for me personally is the 10 minute psychedelic epic "Starla", which stands head-and-shoulders above the other 13 tracks in terms of sheer quality, length (duh), ingenuity and utter freakout-brilliance. Never has blowing smoke to a b-side collection made you so content with life. Give this collection a try."[+]Reply
paladisiac | Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +11 votes (11 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
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babyBlueSedan | Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +5 votes (5 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
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poppmusic | Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +4 votes (4 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
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