Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan Reflects on ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’

2012-12-26

Story by Cat Badra

Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan says ‘Mellon Collie’ was a ‘combination of nihilism, sentimentality and epic hope’

Alternative rock favorites the Smashing Pumpkins re-released special editions editions of their 1995 album, “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,” earlier this month, and the process couldn’t help but make frontman Billy Corgan reflect on the legacy of the collection. Looking back on the creative process behind “Mellon Collie” — which boasts Pumpkins hits such as “Tonight, Tonight,” “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” and “Zero” — frontman Billy Corgan says the album, in a sense, captured “the spirit of the times.”

“Mellon Collie is weird in that it’s a combination of nihilism, sentimentality and epic hope,” Corgan told Rolling Stone in a recent interview. “That was where the generation was at that moment.”

Corgan also says the release was a fitting final opus for the group’s original lineup. “It really was the last time the four of us worked together in earnest,” he said. “And maybe I picked up on that; maybe I sensed that and maybe that had something to do with the sort of the desperation and the approach to try and get as much as possible out of it.”

“Mellon Collie” is available in a variety of special edition packages, including a standard option, a few deluxe digital versions and a vinyl set. All editions offer a remastered version of the original album, while the deluxe versions add in 64 never-before-released or alternate versions of songs recorded during the “Mellon Collie” era. For more information on all the special edition packages, head to the Pumpkins’ official website.




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