“Silverfuck” by Smashing Pumpkins which clocks in at 8:43.

They say conflict and tension yield beauty and artistic breakthroughs. Witness the tired cliché of the “tortured” or “suffering” artist or, when there are multiple cooks in the kitchen, the time-honored soundbite somewhere along the lines of “we were either going to make our masterpiece or break up in the process!”

This last utterance was more or less the statement once made by Billy Corgan when discussing Siamese Dream (or as allmusic remembered it - Corgan growled at the time that if the album didn’t achieve breakthrough success, he would end the band). But really, how would he have known about any tension or strife that was in the band during these sessions? He was a man possessed, completely preoccupied with systematically recording and re-recording every part of every song by himself while the others were pretty much barricaded outside the studio. So as D’Arcy and James Iha struggled to heal the open wound of their failed relationship and Jimmy Chamberlain became increasingly caught up in intravenous drug use, Corgan merrily plowed along with comrade-in-overdubbery Butch Vig in building the biggest wall of sound this side of Phil Spector. I mean, he probably would not have even heard the approaching sirens (think Billy circa the “Today” video all alone with huge headphones on, oblivious to the world) had Chamberlain nodded off mid-fix in the studio bathroom and D’Arcy found him on the floor before placing a frantic call to the paramedics.

Just for fun, can’t you picture the scene if Iha had actually approached Corgan to make him aware of the strife that was engulfing the band? I imagine him in the control room sheepishly confiding to Corgan about the depths of his heartbreak while Billy nods on in feigned interest, one hand behind his back scanning the mixing board for the magic button that could delete Iha’s latest take.

It’s not like I’m complaining about the results. Corgan’s bullish megalomania may have eventually done the original incarnation of the Pumpkins in, but Siamese Dream absolutely exploded with brilliance and vitality under his iron rule. As it turns out, I probably had it all wrong. The ruined intra-band love affair and burgeoning dope addiction were no doubt footnotes to the larger source of conflict simmering over during these sessions, this of course being Corgan’s own standing as an absolute control freak. But again, it was this particular affliction and conflict that also yielded the biggest rewards. Siamese Dream was a focused statement, an unrepentant assault of 1,000 guitars with 100,000 guitar effects that demanded to be listened to repeatedly and LOUDLY.

So to summarize thus far, drama and strife encountered in the creation of music is fine (and even encouraged). However, drama and strife encountered in the pursuit of consuming music? Well, that seems unacceptable, and it saddens me to report that in my own attempts at revisiting the wonders of Siamese Dream this past weekend, I would also come to know strife well.

It being a holiday weekend, I found myself back home, catching some sun, ingesting impossible quantities of food, and listening to FM terrestrial radio as I tend to do when cruising the mean streets of Cape Cod. My weakness: classic rock radio. Play me “Radar Love”, “White Wedding”, and “Life’s Been Good” back to back to back and bookend it with some bullshit idle chatter and blaringly obnoxious furniture and buffet ads and I’m the happiest person on the road. Up the ante and run some sort of “End of Summer A-Z Song” promo on your station? Now you have my undying loyalty. Such was the case this past weekend, each trip in the car on successive days unearthing more and more gems as the alphabetical playlist progressed. On the first day, I sped along to Aerosmith’s “Angel” followed by Jimi Hendrix’s “Angel”. On the second, a dream playlist of “Changes, “Cheap Sunglasses”, “Cherub Rock”, and Warrant’s “Cherry Pie”. Amazing (no wait, “Amazing” was the first day come to think of it).

What caught my ears during this second string of hits was the breadth of power and awesomeness emanating from the car’s tinny speakers as “Cherub Rock” dominated the airwaves. I felt weakened, nostalgic; I may have swerved slightly off the road. And then, as the song crescendoed into Corgan’s delightfully squealing solo, the song cut out in order for the station to deliver a mandatory test of the Emergency Broadcast System. Stupid FM radio and your imagined catastrophes. “Cherry Pie” only slightly cheered me up; I needed more Siamese Dream.

Flush with desire, I headed to my favorite record store chain from my youth…

(A quick aside, I should point out to lifelong city slickers that us suburbanites didn’t have a cache of sneeringly cool independent record stores at our disposal; the appearance of Newbury Comics around the time of my tenth birthday was thus nothing short of a godsend)

Mercifully, I found a brand new gatefold double LP copy of Siamese Dream awaiting me. Triumph, right? A blissful end to my Pumpkins craving? You might think, but perhaps I should have paid closer attention to the lyrics of “Silverfuck” and anticipated the additional disappointments foreshadowed within….

I’ve failed your summer ways,
And I feel no pain

My “summer ways” at this point involved hightailing it back to Brooklyn and cozying up with Siamese Dream, playing it so unspeakably loud that I might hear Iha ordering takeout in the background as Corgan laid down another guitar track. The first record did the trick; I experienced about 20 minutes or so of magic. And then as I put on the second LP and braced myself for the unspeakable awesomeness of the latter half of the album, I realized something: both albums were the same.

The boobs at Virgin records had stuffed my gorgeous gatefold packaging with duplicates of the first LP. Some paint-huffing stockboy could have been playing Frisbee with the second LP as the crushing realization settled in for all I know. The point is, I don’t know, I don’t care. All I know is that I have half of Siamese Dream in front of me right now, and it’s the wrong half.

You’ve failed my summer ways, Virgin Records. Your record-stuffing automatons are fueled by incinerated compact discs and care not for quality control. If Billy Corgan were working the assembly line, this never would have happened. Shit, he would have run the entire thing himself….

Buy Siamese Dream (the digital version, lest you get silverfucked out of the 2nd LP) HERE

*front thumbnail and top photo taken by me as proof of my injustice

EAR FARM’s 8+ is a weekly feature that showcases songs longer than 8 minutes. Click HERE to see the songs recently featured in EF’s 8+.