For this week’s song, I thought I would highlight a great song that truly is 90′s music at its finest. Although The Smashing Pumpkins were an alternative rock radio staple in the mid ’90s, they only reached #1 once on Billboard’s Modern and Mainstream rock charts. They did so in 1996 with “1979″ off of their third studio album, a 2 disc release, entitled Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Released in late 1995,Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, sold over nine million copies and to date is The Smashing Pumpkins most successful album in terms of sales.

This album is basically stacked with good songs and scored 6 Top 10 singles on the Modern Rock Charts which included, “Bullet with Butterfly Wings“, “Muzzle“, “Zero“, “Thirty-Three“, and one of my personal favorites “Tonight, Tonight“. The album sparked their first of nine Grammy nominations and their first win for “Best Hard Rock Performance” for their single “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”.

With all of the great songs on this album, “1979″ out shines them all. “Tonight, Tonight” may have the better music video, and “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” may be more disturbing, but 1979 encapsulates everything that was great about 90s music: mainly teenage angst, solid drums, words that you cannot understand, and most importantly a creepy bald Billy Corgan. The song is just simply phenomenal. While most of you already know this, I thought I would give it the time and recognition it deserves.

The music video is centered around general teenage mischief and good times. There are instances of crowd surfing, teepeeing, night swimming with your clothes on, bowling at your local gas station with glass bottles and my personal favorite, rolling down a hill in a huge tractor tire, which kicks off the video. You can watch it below.

I will leave you with some food for thought:

“We feel the pull in the land of a thousand guilts
And poured cement, lamented and assured
To the lights and towns below
Faster than the speed of sound
Faster than we thought we’d go
Beneath the sound of hope”

That’s it for now. Hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane.