Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

Everything about this album is an attempt to be bigger and better. You have to respect the Pumpkins for trying to top themselves when they had already churned out an all-time classic.

I was completely blown away by Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness in 1995. These two discs are filled with every possible type of music Smashing Pumpkins are capable of making. I tend to prefer the softer side of Smashing Pumpkins (really, their ballads tend to be amazing) and there's plenty of it on these two discs. If you're more a fan of the harder-rocking Pumpkins sound, there's plenty of that as well. As I continue to listen to this double disc set over the years, I am constantly impressed by the scope of it all. Smashing Pumpkins were trying to make the next Quadrophenia or The Wall when everybody else was trying to make the next Nevermind. You have to give them major points just for vision alone if not for the overall high quality of music on these two discs.