• 20th Anniversary: Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

    There’s a moment on the song ‘1979’ when, after a subdued but ethereal sounding intro, the thumping drums of Jimmy Chamberlain burst in, augmenting the subtle electronic percussion that has hitherto anchored the track. On the one level, it’s just a simple trick of song arrangement, building up an expectation and then subverting it, but on another it’s pure magic, like when Dorothy wakes up in Oz and the world has gone from black & white to colour. There’s no reason why Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness should work. It’s a double album that came in an era when…