Siamese Dream

 Rhythm, pomp and beauty beyond compare. Spring is coming, my dears. Spring is already here, and just the right dose of love lyrics and slight melancholy is the perfect companion for these days, when the sun wakes up in us and we gravitate toward our mystical centers…There are few albums you’d grab without a second thought and take with you five minutes before an emergency evacuation of your apartment. One of those you’d take to a desert island is undoubtedly Siamese Dream, with which the Chicago poets of pain, love and loneliness, Smashing Pumpkins, fused past and present into one and indelibly added another classic, a monument of its time, to the already rich and fertile nineties.

The debut Gish opened up a whole palette of possibilities for them, a range of directions to take their expression in, which had been marked by a warm reception right from the very start of their musical journey. “Most promising young hopefuls” and similar flattering labels did nothing but pile a huge burden onto the shoulders of a young band, which for that very reason was on the verge of falling apart right at the start. A creative crisis that plunged the mastermind, visionary, lyricist and above all fragile artist Billy Corgan into deep depression, the decadent death wish drummer Jimi Chamberlain was edging toward with narcotics, and the collapsed relationship between bassist D’Arcy and guitarist James Iha were a pretty lousy send-off on the road to the studio, where they had to pull off a little miracle, a work of art that could stand up to Nirvana’s Nevermind and Seattle’s Soundgarden and their Superunknown. Friction, endless bickering, and then Corgan recorded pretty much every instrument on the record himself. A tyrannical act or a necessity? They say that conflict and friction, within normal limits of course, contribute to the creation of the best music. Siamese Dream could back that up, too, proudly wearing the title of one of the best alternative rock albums of all time.

Instead of following the trendy guidelines staked out by Nirvana and adopting the recipe of punk musical logic, which had proven to be a winning combination, Smashing Pumpkins took a completely different road of their own on Siamese Dream. Epic guitar solos, layered and pompous production building a mighty wall of sound… The bricks were supplied by the band, or rather Billy, but it was Corgan and production genius Butch Vig (also the drummer in Garbage, by the way) who turned them into a solid whole. The compositions flirt with progressive rock, and on top of the musical stucco work, the added value comes from deep, thoughtful lyrics into which Billy poured all his heart, all his creative energy, down to the last atom. The journey through a world of adoration, loving, occasional suffering and the sweetness of pain begins with ‘Cherub Rock’, which ignites passion from the very first bars, along with a craving for an eternal dose of whatever makes us feel alive. They remind us where the heart is, in case we happened to forget about it. After a drum intro, the guitar gradually weaves in with an explosive, swaying riff, coexisting naturally with Corgan’s decidedly untypical-for-a-man vocal. Emotion and a sense of aesthetics carry the song at an undiminished tempo across the solo to an obscure chorus and a surrender to the veiled slogans in the lyrics. The voice is the component that adds shades. Corgan is a medium who can occasionally peer into your hearts. Into the hearts of you who feel. Corgan paints with whispers and wailing and fragile melodies, which nonetheless easily stand up to the heavy, massive contrast of distorted guitars. The pastels flow effortlessly into the next song. ‘Quiet’ picks up where ‘Cherub Rock’ left off; images string together at a wild rhythm and a tempo of slight madness, of melancholy that is anything but apathetic. The pulse of the record runs on uninterrupted until the album’s first hit, the song ‘Today’, an ode to the moment and to the eroticism of existing here and now, beating directly and full. The music sounds pompous and majestic. Production-wise, the guitars keep stacking into new layers that still sound coherent, connected and natural. ‘Hummer’ adds to the gem a sensual string of renunciation and sincere love, an oriental phrase softened by dreamy slides along the guitar neck, and the beauty is made even more beautiful by the warm jazzy drums and warm bass. The meditation carries us over six and a half minutes, and then the Smashings, in their own way, shower us with new riffs you’d think they had worn out long ago, mixed into an elixir of eternal beauty that makes them sweet and alluring again and again. ‘Rocket’ is a statement of love and slight stonedness, or at least of being hit by Cupid’s arrows. ‘Disarm’ is an acoustic tribute to times gone by, to growing up and to decisions that can’t be mourned forever, and at the same time a promise of the future. A dim sun rises above the mist, rousing us from narcoleptic dreaminess. ‘Soma’ touches without hesitation. Sadness can be felt here as something tangible, like cold drops of dew in the desert of eternal loneliness, a safe haven for a feeling of bitter pain known only to oneself, which we occasionally enjoy in an almost sugary way. The images set in the temple of the sonic, icons of pain, tears and regret, are arranged here so that you end up completely captivated. The dreaminess is interrupted by ‘Geek USA’, which energetically smashes the melancholy and introduces a new message. The message that it’s possible to survive and keep kicking to the very end. Optimism? Disappointments must be suppressed or at least stashed in a drawer for times when we’ve forgotten what it felt like to feel. ‘Mayonaise’ brings the listener back into the sweet rhythm of somewhat calmer contemplation and feeling. No need to go tilting at windmills like Don Quixote. A state of sweetness is followed by a string of pain, a state of lucid sobriety by dreamlike images that soak the heart with secrets to the brim. The head is not the guide. The main guide and control room when listening to Smashing Pumpkins is the heart. Next comes the invitation to feel and to take. To taste a whole person and to drain the cups of life together. ‘Spaceboy’ teaches what is left when love isn’t mutual and only one gives, while the other falls emptied out, yet still surrenders to it to the end. No reservations, no second thoughts. ‘Silverfuck’ An explosion of energy and raw toughness. Between Eros and Thanatos we’ve once again got a temporary winner, one who chooses life over death. Rebellion and wild passion. Resignation and sinking into old feelings of sweet pain come around every so often, though. The demons creep in. Still destructive, even though they’ve put on crystal masks with a smile. And then the grand finale follows. For me the most beautiful image from the dream- ‘Luna‘ as a message of eternal love. Like the touch of morning rays. Like a warm promise of the morning after a cold evening. Dreamy, rapt and hypnotic.

Siamese Dream is definitely a tightly connected, compact record that carries you from start to finish. The track order works. The production is just right to fill out the spectrum between the highs and the lows. The sound is juicy and dense. Like blood from a heart ventricle. This is Smashing Pumpkins in their purest, best form, no doubt about it. The distillate of love and pain is inseparable. The two are like conjoined twins. The best description of Siamese Dream lies in the very allegory of love as dreaming for two. On their own, a person is incomplete. On their own, they die and wither away as a feeling being. We can only fill in the pages together, when others touch us and occasionally wound us in the heart, so that with our heart’s blood we can write on secret parchments: “Yes, I loved. I love. And I will love.” That is the foundation of life. That is the elemental fire that feeds the heart. Sometimes it burns it, but time heals wounds, doesn’t it?