25 Years Ago Today The Smashing Pumpkins Dropped "Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness"

U Discover Music - To celebrate the 25th anniversary of their critically-acclaimed 1995 album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Smashing Pumpkins are holding a live virtual Q&A moderated by Daniel P Carter, along with Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin to discuss the classic album.

The Q&A celebration comes with the announcement of the band’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness world arena tour as well as a 33-track sequel concept album to Mellon Collie and MACHINA, completing the trilogy. Both the tour and album are expected to arrive in 2021. More information on both is forthcoming, but fans can register for the Q&A here.

The band also recently teamed up with skatewear company HUF, to launch a capsule collection to commemorate the album.

The anniversary celebration comes just a month before the release of CYR, Smashing Pumpkins’ eleventh studio album, out November 27. The double album was produced by Corgan and features original members Chamberlin, James Iha, and guitarist Jeff Schroeder. Its 20-tracks include fan favorites “The Colour of Love” and “Confessions of a Dopamine Addict,” among others.

To accompany the album, the band has been releasing a 5-part animated series created and written by the group’s founder. Each episode is set to the soundtrack of songs from the album and is available exclusively on the band’s official YouTube channel.

Nostalgia man.

How this album came out 25 years ago is beyond me. 

Billy Corgan is a strange dude, but there's no denying what a major influence and incredible run The Smashing Pumpkins had on music in the 1990's.

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and featured the incredible and all time singles “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” 

“1979,” 

“Tonight, Tonight,”

“Zero,” 

“Muzzle” 

and “Thirty-Three.” 

The album was produced by the great Alan Moulder, and sold over nine million copies. It was nominated for seven Grammy awards and the videos that accompanied the singles were nominated for nine MTV Video Music Awards. People forget how big a deal music videos were in the 90s. And Smashing Pumpkins had the game on lock when it came to them.

“Mellon Collie’s remarkable breadth is the best indication of Corgan’s ability to let loose. You could pick five songs at random and still end up with a diverse batch of singles that would make a case for Smashing Pumpkins being the most stylistically malleable multi-platinum act of the 90s,” Pitchfork said of the album upon its 2012 re-issue.

People also forget what a huge deal double CD albums were in the 90s. The ability to choose between disc 1 or disc 2 was a gamechanger for car rides or sitting in basements. Debates over which disc was better was a common thing - (All Eyez on Me, Life After Death, Mellon Collie, Speakerboxxx/Love Below… etc.) So the Pumpkins dropping all of this golden music on a double album just made it that much sweeter.

Happy 25th anniversary