On July 27, 1993, The Smashing Pumpkins' "Siamese Dream" album was released.
It was an album whose birth was not easy for the band, an album that almost ended their short career, an album that during its creation Billy Corgan thought to end his life.
In 1991 "The Smashing Pumpkins" released their excellent debut album "Gish". The album was a huge success in its own right, however, a few months later, when Nirvana's album "Nevermind" was released, the band received another boost when some made the required comparison and even called it "Next Nirvana". The producer of "Gish" and "Nevermind" was the super producer Butch Vig, and it was only requested that the band continue to work with him on the next album.
In light of the success of their debut album, the band was signed to "Caroline Records", a company owned by "Virgin Records". Instead of putting confidence in the band's leader and lead writer - Billy Corgan, the move put pressure on him to produce an album that would be even better than its predecessor. Corgan also struggled at the time with obesity and depression and in addition to all the troubles experienced a difficult writing barrier.
But that's not the end, because drummer Jimmy Chamberlin was at that time under severe heroin addiction, there was one case where he disappeared from the studio for a few days and his worried friends did not know where he was. In addition, guitarist James Iha and bassist D'arcy Wretzky just ended a romantic relationship, which also affected their concentration and performance during the recordings.
Above all these problems hovered the perfectionist character of Billy Corgan who did not compromise on the outcome and how this album should sound. He spent hours in the studio, sometimes 16 hours straight, and sometimes he even slept there, to repeatedly record the sections that he was not happy with the way they sounded. Producer Butch Vig said he sometimes worked with Corgan on a 45-second segment for a full two days to reach the level of perfection that Corgan sought. Corgan was not content with recording his own musical and vocal pieces and he also recorded the bass and lead guitar roles himself, believing that his friends' performances were not good enough.
And if all this is not enough, then the record company that heard about the problems decided to come and visit the recording studio to take a closer look at the recording process.
Corgan confessed years later that the pressures he experienced were so severe for him that he considered ending his life and even planned the drastic move carefully.
Despite all the difficulties and against all odds, Corgan and his friends managed to finish the recording four months later, with only a "small" deviation of a quarter of a million dollars from the set budget.
It is the album that has finally established the band's name, as one of the most prominent in the alternative scene, thanks in part to the four singles released from it: "Cherub Rock", "Today", "Disarm", and "Rocket".
This is one of the great albums released in the 90s which also got into the list of the 500 greatest albums of all time by "Rolling Stone" magazine. Lately, the album was ranked by the same magazine at number 12 on the list of grunge albums.
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