Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

I bought this album because I heard "Today" at a party. It was one of those high school parties that could've been the big scene in the teen movie where everyone has their cathartic moment, the guy and the girl finally get together, and the jerk gets his/her comeuppance. Everyone in my school was there, and every clique was represented. Anyway, at one point, two guys put "Today" on and started doing this weird trance-like kneeling headbang to it.

For the first year that I owned this album, "Today" was the only song I listened to. For some reason I thought it was the only worthwhile song on the album. One day while working in the high school auditorium and sorting through a stack of cassette tapes, I came across a tape that one of the jocks recorded for his girlfriend (it was sort of a letter on tape. He would talk aimlessly for a while, and then play a song, and then talk aimlessly for another while. I have no idea how this tape came to be in the audio booth) and "Mayonnaise" was one of the songs he put on the tape. After owning Siamese Dream for over a year, I still hadn't heard that song. I was blown away and went straight home to listen to Siamese Dream  from top to bottom. I was ashamed when I found out how much I'd been missing with this album. It's one of the greatest rock albums ever made. It has some absolutely brutal hard rock, but also features some great anthems and some spaced-out melancholy ballads. This album put Smashing Pumpkins right up there with Nirvana and Pearl Jam as the best and most important bands of the decade.