MELLON COLLIE AND THE INFINITE SADNESS
"Rolling Stone" Review
The title reads like something cribbed from an old T. Rex album, but the music sprawled across Mellon Collie- the two hours and 28 songs of it- is more like some career-suicide hybrid of Todd Rundgren's futurist-pop mischief on Something/Anything? and Husker Du's Generation Angst opera, Zen Arcade, Singer/songwriter, guitarist and co-producer Billy Corgan wears his torment on his sleeve like a red, heavy-bleeding badge of courage.
Yet the deliberate misspelling of melancholy is a dead giveaway that even someone as utterly confused about emotional attachment - and detachment - as Corgan can find succor in a good tune, a monster riff and the kind of languid, rapturous guitarscape that gives self-pity a good name.
Getting through Mellon Collie in one sitting is hard work; by subtitling each disk in this two-CD set (Dawn to Dusk and Twilight to Starlight), Corgan leaves a misleading hint about narrative flow. Just dip into Mellon Collie at leisure - the razor-guitar cut of "Jellybelly" and "Fuck You (An Ode to No One)"; the swelling strings of "Tonight, Tonight; the black hole of bitterness in "To Forgive" (all just on the first disk)- and it will slowly but surely get under your skin.