The Smashing Pumpkins - mellon collie and the infinite sadness liner notes

'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness'는 스매싱 펌킨스가 음악적 균형을 찾았던 시기였으며, 그로 인해 그들의 최고의 성공을 거둔 앨범이다
Corgan은 플러드와의 협업을 통해 밴드의 개별성을 살리며 더욱 몰입할 수 있는 작업 환경을 만들었다고 회상한다
이 앨범은 'Bullet with Butterfly Wings', '1979', 'Tonight, Tonight'와 같은 히트곡들을 낳으며, 비평가와 팬들 모두에게 사랑받았다

It was the best of times that came before the worst of times.
Considering all of the tension preceding it — and all of the tragedy and turmoil that would follow — Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was, perhaps surprisingly, a memorably happy and successful recording experience for The Smashing Pumpkins. "This was the best time in the band by far," Corgan says today of the Mellon Collie sessions with a mixture of pride and sadness in his voice. "I think that's one of the great tragedies in our story, that when we finally did find the right balance internally we enjoyed our greater success. What’s sad about that is we were never able to recapture that again."
On numerous levels both literal and figurative, the double CD Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was a very big success. "At the time, I went around saying I was inspired by Pink Floyd's The Wall to try to create that kind of big, ambitious thing. And, of course, jerks in the media still take me to task for saying that. For the record, from my point of view, I wasn't trying to say that I had written my Wall. Obviously our album didn’t have that same kind of narrative. What I meant was that we were trying to reach for something expansive like Pink Floyd achieved with The Wall — as opposed to making a double album like The White Album by the Beatles — which was basically a wider collection of great songs by a group. Yes, those are crazy groups to ever compare yourself to but as they say, you have to aim high. So I looked towards something like The Wall as a kind of goal. Clearly, The Wall is the superior album by far but looking now, I feel like we did pretty good."
When it comes to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, "good" is a rather large understatement. Few double servings in rock history have ever gone down quite so well. "Making a double album was my idea and I was dead set on it," Corgan recalls. "Virgin tried to talk me out of it, but when they realized that I couldn't be swayed, they tried to convince us to take the Guns N' Roses' strategy and release it as two different CD's. I refused and dug my heels in, and eventually, they agreed. Of course I was thinking of classic double albums like The Wall or The White Album, but it was only years later I counted the number of songs and realized that we'd basically made a double CD which was actually more like making a triple album. It would fit on two CDs, but it was three albums of vinyl. So it ended up being something even more demanding than a double album, and even more ridiculous." As nervy an undertaking as it may have been, the record shows that Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness — nicely divided onto two CDs, "Dawn To Dusk" and then "Twilight to Starlight" — now seems far more sublime than ridiculous.
This also marked a significant fork in the Pumpkins' road.
"What strikes me now about Mellon Collie is that we were coming off of making Siamese Dream with Butch Vig — which was a very idealized statement," Corgan says. "Siamese Dream was very successful and very much at the forefront of how records are made now with a strong perfectionist streak. Yet, coming off of that success, we went completely in the opposite direction working with Flood and Alan Moulder. We headed into a much darker, funkier and more visceral terrain. Revisiting Mellon Collie for this edition, that's what struck me — that we made this kind of dramatic "about face" at a time when most people would have made an even more expensive idealized statement. We went deep and we went for something expansive sounding — not just expensive sounding."
The decision to work with the respected British producer and audio engineer Flood, aka Mark Ellis, and his longtime collaborator Alan Moulder, was a significant one for The Pumpkins. The group had admired Flood’s work with artists from U2 to Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode. "I loved Butch Vig very much then, and I still do," Corgan explains. "The decision to switch things up was based on the sense that there was some whole other thing that could be gotten to by us, but that a more radical approach was going to be necessary to get to it. We knew we wanted to continue our evolving consciousness, but we were not quite sure how to do it."
That hunch proved to be a good one.
"Flood’s great skill — beyond being incredibly sonically gifted — is that he seems to speak the language of the songwriter," says Corgan. "He articulates back to the songwriter what the songwriter is trying to do. In many ways, he sees more potential in your songs than you do. A perfect example of that on Mellon Collie is the song "By Starlight." There's a version of us in rehearsal with these sorts of Nick Mason-like slow fills and strings that sounded like something off a Dan Fogelberg album. Flood fucking HATED it. He said, ’What's with all the Seventies crap? This is a much darker song. Let me show you what you mean.' So then we ended up cutting this very stark track that worked much better."
Working first in a rehearsal space, then recording overdubs at the Chicago Recording Company, before finishing up at The Village Recorder in Los Angeles, Flood and Moulder helped create a dramatically different creative atmosphere for The Smashing Pumpkins. Flood and Moulder wanted a sound that was truer to the band's live dynamic and at the same time an experience that was more inclusive for the other three members: James Iha, D’arcy and Jimmy Chamberlin. As Corgan recalls, "What Flood did really brilliantly, along with Alan, was that he addressed the real disappointment James and D'arcy felt over not playing on Siamese Dream. Flood really brought them into the process and said, 'Here's how you can participate and I will give you a really fair opportunity. But I'm also going to be the first person to let you know if you're not getting the job done.' And they went 'Great.' Flood definitely engaged James and D'arcy more at the demo and the arrangement stage, so even at the end of the day, if he stepped in and said, T think Billy should do this part,' they felt like they had more of a stake in how it all went down. Butch was all about getting the best recording. Flood made the process more inclusive. Both ways, the results were excellent."
For Corgan, "Flood somehow gets in there and captures an essence and exploits it, without taking the edges of it. That's what is unique about him and may be why U2 was drawn to him. Alan Moulder is Flood's best friend and there's an interesting dynamic there. Flood's sort of the Alpha Dog, but then he'll defer to Alan. Alan is one of those people who doesn't say a lot but when he says something it carries a lot of weight. Alan brought a lot of sonic clarity to the album, and he would often be working with James and D'arcy while I was in the workshop with Flood cooking something up. That allowed me to have all the oxygen I needed too. And as usual, Jimmy was drumming brilliantly all over everything."
Released on October 24, 1995, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness would debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart and yield major hits like "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" - the band's unlikely first Top 40 hit - and the exquisite "1979" and epic "Tonight, Tonight" as well as a thoroughly inspired series of videos. The album would also earn a Grammy as well as seven nominations. Of "Tonight, Tonight," Corgan says, "Of all the songs with The Smashing Pumpkins that one seems to have that level of just getting better with age. Every time we play it live it's one of the highlights of the night. And it's funny because in doing the reissues, listening to the demos, it reminds me what I was thinking at the time. I thought it was a pretty good song, but I didn't necessarily think it was exponentially better than anything else. That's just one of those songs that really connects with people — the chords, the message, everything. And somehow the song continues to hold that power."
Corgan recalls that "1979" — the band's biggest hit single ever — was more of a struggle, albeit one with a happy ending. "We had the track and we all thought it was a good song, but every time we tried to play it as a band, it sounded like The Rolling Stones — and not in a good way," Corgan says with a laugh. "It came out too bluesy. We were running out of time and packing up for L.A. Finally, Flood said, 'What's going on with this song? Tomorrow is D-day, we either finish this song or it's off the record.' So I went home that night, finished all the lyrics, did a demo that sounds remarkably like the final record. I came in the next day with the demo, and Flood said, T love it. Now make it happen.' We went in the room and cut it in one day. There are all sorts of weird influences on that track: there's a little Can, obviously some Europop, New Order, there's even something Sonic Youth-y in the riff. And Flood added that percolating Tangerine Dream thing in the back too. There's all sorts of weird little pieces of influence that somehow come together and create one of those beautiful synchronicities where everything lined up perfectly."