“Pumpkins Album Is No ‘Mellon’: Early Sales Are Smashing In a Post-Concert Rush”
Chicago Sun-Times
October ??, 1995
By Chicago Sun-Times staff writer Jae-Ha Kim
Less than an hour after the world got its first live taste of the Smashing Pumpkins’ new album, hundreds of fans in the Chicago area were lining up to buy it.
“I’m here because this is the biggest thing to happen to Chicago music in a long time,” said Teresa Loren, 22, who was outside Tower Records on North Clark Street late on a blustery Monday night to be among the first people to buy the Pumpkins’ “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.”
The Northwest Sider had just left the Chicago band’s concert at the Riviera Theatre where, in a show broadcast on radio stations around the world, it debuted its double album.
“Mellon Collie” officially went on sale Tuesday and most stores waited until daylight to begin sales. But, as often happens with hotly awaited albums, two Tower Records shops - North Clark in Chicago and Schaumburg - stayed open until 1 a.m. Tuesday.
By then, Clark Street Tower had sold 500 copies of “Mellon Collie” while the Schaumburg Tower sold 250 CDs and cassettes.
And by early afternoon, area record stores reported sales of five (at Wax Trax at 1659 N. Damen) to 150 (plus the 500 from Monday at Tower on North Clark).
Camelot Music in northwest suburban Mount Prospect and Musicland at Water Tower each sold 20 copies of the CD on Tuesday. Sales figures for such stores as Target and Wal-Mart weren’t available.
The Pumpkins have kept the album more affordable than some doubles at a list price of $24.98 on CD and $19.98 on cassette.
But lest Pumpkins fans get too smug about their band’s renown amid all the hoopla, one record store reported Tuesday that, no, it hadn’t sold a single copy of the new “Smashing Comptons.”