10 Best Alternative Albums Of The 1990's

Even though many of the bands in the alternative scene were coming from the West Coast, the Smashing Pumpkins arose from middle America with their own distinct vision. After the band had built a following with their debut Gish, frontman Billy Corgan began to feel immense pressure to create an even better follow-up. In a bit of dick move, Corgan was so obsessed with perfection that he ended up playing most of the guitar and bass on the record himself.

As the Pumpkins entered the studio with producer Butch Vig, the results were some of the most bombastic alt-rock ever conceived. In contrast to the introspective grunge songs, the arrangements behind the tracks on Siamese Dream have a certain size to them, as if they were written to be performed in stadiums. Ironically enough, these songs sound confident as a classic-rock album while still keeping the depressive tone of alt-rock like the restlessness of "Cherub Rock" and the suicidal overtones of "Disarm" and "Today."

Siamese Dream was the one record that took the power of grunge and blew it up to mammoth proportions. While the band would get much more cinematic in scope later, Siamese Dream is their most concentrated form of grandeur.