Siamese Dream CD case on a desk, next to a Tux penguin plush and a portable CD player with the red disc showing through the lid

uname -a

Siamese Dream is a 1993 album by the American alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins.

The 90s hold a good chunk of the excellent albums I’ve had the chance to discover, and Siamese Dream is definitely one of them. The Smashing Pumpkins themselves released two of their best works during that decade (this one and also Mellon Collie).

As for the album itself, right from the first track, Cherub Rock, you can already hear heavy layers of distortion and loose, almost melted-sounding riffs. That mood repeats through pretty much every track, with the exception of the more ballad-like ones, such as Disarm, Sweet Sweet and Spaceboy.

Mayonaise is, without a doubt, my favourite track on the record and by the band. Maybe the most shoegaze track they ever released, even though they never labelled themselves or stuck to a single genre. The album closes with Luna, a slightly less chaotic track, with lyrics leaning more into romance bordering on devotion.

Overall, it’s an easily relatable album. It deals with rejection and heartbreak, a theme a lot of mainstream 90s bands also explored, each in their own way.

ls -la (tracklist)

Open Siamese Dream CD case: the red disc and the sepia booklet art of a child standing on a crescent moon

  1. Cherub Rock
  2. Quiet
  3. Today
  4. Hummer
  5. Rocket
  6. Disarm
  7. Soma
  8. Geek U.S.A.
  9. Mayonaise
  10. Spaceboy
  11. Silverfuck
  12. Sweet Sweet
  13. Luna

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Siamese Dream booklet page with handwritten Mayonaise lyrics around an old portrait of two people

  • Hummer
  • Mayonaise
  • Luna

--version

Release: Siamese Dream (1993)
Build:   Legacy
Grade:   4/5