Mellon Collie and the Fixed Narrative (disc one)

As previously established, I find it useful to relate my comprehensive knowledge of the Smashing Pumpkins to other areas.  One way it's been helpful is in understanding the plight of famous people whose lives become the subject of a fixed narrative.  What's a "fixed narrative"?  Well...it will probably be easiest to understand if I use an example.

So, the Smashing Pumpkins formed in Chicago in 1988.  The band's primary songwriter and frontman, Billy Corgan, was 21 years old when the band formed.  At first they played moody new-wavey songs and used a drum machine.  After bringing on drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, the band started to explore a rock-oriented sound.  For two years they played out, sold self-released tapes to fans at their shows, and built up a following in Chicago.  The band made artistic progress, becoming more confident and hitting on a psychedelia-meets-Sabbath sound for their first record, Gish, in 1991.  Lyrically, Gish was opaque; the words were arty enough to play against the music, but it might not be inaccurate to suggest that the 24-year-old Corgan was more in hiding than in the open.

In the two years after the release of Gish, independent rock became all the rage.  Feeling pressure to come up with a hit album, Corgan faced writer's block and was driven to a moment of crisis.  He cut through it by opening up lyrically, calling in part on childhood memories as inspiration.  The direct, heart-on-sleeve songs that comprise 1993's Siamese Dream were fruits of that labor.  Siamese Dream sold millions of copies, resulting in the first prolonged period of media exposure for the band and a measure of stardom for the now 26-year-old Corgan. 

Not by coincidence, it is at this moment that the journalistic narrative of the Smashing Pumpkins was fixed.  This narrative comprises many elements, but the relevant element to this short story is that involving Corgan as a songwriter.  Most journalists, including music reviewers, don't do a lot of deep research (if they did, they would write books instead of articles).  Many publications and reviewers had their first exposure to Corgan and the Pumpkins when they were called upon to review a compact disc marked "Siamese Dream" that had arrived in the mail; ever thereafter when encountering the Pumpkins, these journalists would refer back to that first review and those first impressions.  These reviewers noted that the songs on Siamese Dream were heartfelt; for the first entry in Corgan's permanent record, then, it was duly inscribed that he writes songs about what he feels in his heart.  Recall that many songs on Siamese Dream evinced emotions related to childhood and that the album was arguably Corgan's first extended effort at writing open and direct lyrics; reviewers writing the book on Corgan put down that what he has to say is not particularly sophisticated and that his writing often borders on sophomoric.

In our next installment ("disc two"), we will see what happens when the 28-year-old Corgan purposefully sets out to write a concept album about being a teenager.  Whither the narrative?