1993 was a puzzling time for me as I struggled to keep up with the musical acts making names for themselves. You see, I was 26 and had just returned to the States from a two-year stay in Kenya, oblivious to the shift in direction grunge was causing. I worked as a volunteer teacher where my experience had left me feeling strangely misanthropic with the world and exceedingly anxious about my future. You would think that I'd be an ideal disciple for the brooding music that was gaining in popularity. But I couldn’t help but feel that the new breed of rockers popping up on alternative radio (a commercial format new in itself as it was previously confined to the college underground) were not people who addressed my concerns. They were my age, or in some cases, younger than me, and I’d be damned if I was going to listen to some pecker-snot speak for my generation.

Gradually, I learned to accept this music’s anointed leader, Kurt Cobain, as my Lord and Saviour. But I never formed any attachment to Billy Corgan or his band, Smashing Pumpkins. Where Cobain’s persona seemed sincere, Corgan's appeared like an act, a public poseur who would change faces in order to sell more records. (And catching him sipping tea with Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford on their morning talk show was, to me, the most blatant example that Corgan didn’t walk it like he talked it.) Nowadays when I listen to Siamese Dream, it sounds like a period piece, something that belongs in a time capsule along with The Breeders’ Last Splash and Urge Overkill’s Saturation as albums that have exceeded their expiration dates.

Siamese Dream opens loud and strong with the crunchy riffs of “Cherub Rock,” a critique of the music industry, though it does sound like Corgan tries to have it both ways when he sings:

Who wants honey
As long as there is some money
Who wants that honey
Let me out

Considering that the Pumpkins left the independent scene to ink a big deal with Virgin Records, and that the group’s aim all along was to go for the gold at any cost, the sentiment seems a bit hypocritical.

From there the album moseys along between whiny rockers (“Geek U.S.A.,” “Silverfuck”), moody rockers (“Soma,” “Mayonaise”), and a pair of singles: the catchy “Today” (I do like Corgan’s falsetto toward the end of the song), and “Disarm,” an attempt at introspection, I suppose, what with its acoustic guitar and string section. But when Corgan sings lines like “the killer in me is the killer in you” he loses me in whatever he is trying to say.

As the story goes, Corgan was suffering from acute depression when he wrote the songs for Siamese Dream. If Corgan was going through a lot of pain, I'm glad he was able to find an outlet for it. But far from making any kind of emotional breakthrough, he sounds to me like a kid throwing a temper tantrum. Hey, I know what it’s like to be depressed and I realize that it is very good therapy to let your emotions out, but that doesn’t mean the result is a fine work of art.

What saves the album from being a pretentious waste of time is the music. It is played mostly by drummer Jimmy Chamberlain and by Corgan, who overdubbed much of the guitar and bass work while regular guitarist James Ida and bassist D’Arcy Wretzky took some time off from the group. The result is that the album sounds more like an intricately designed ensemble with no established soloist in the bunch and, aided by Butch Vig’s glossy production, this helps to buoy many of the songs, making them palatable despite Corgan’s bellyaching. Take, for example, the juxtaposition of soft-loud-soft on songs like “Hummer” and “Rocket.” The undertow of bass, the layers of guitars, and the thumping drums catch this listener’s attention far more than Corgan’s “I ain’t free” (“Hummer”) and “I shall be free” (“Rocket”) musings.

Perhaps because the end is in sight, I find that Siamese Dream closes with its best set of songs, from the David Bowie tribute “Spaceboy” to the short, succinct “Sweet Sweet” to the love song “Luna.” When Corgan doesn’t try so hard, the lyrics and melodies flow together almost effortlessly.

That the album doesn’t have enough of these moments but was a massive success anyway tells me that Siamese Dream arrived at just the right time, when the alternative music scene was starving for guitar-heavy angst and red-hot Vig’s production proved to be a seal of endorsement. When the chapter is written about the 1990s and its influence on the next generation of musicians, I predict that future critics will view this album as overhyped and Corgan’s role as an important voice in rock as overstated.

Recommended: No