Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 890 - UNBOXING: Smashing Pumpkins - "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" Box Set and Review

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 890 - UNBOXING: Smashing Pumpkins - "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" Box Set and Review · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  What's up everybody, it's your boy Kefi at ghostcodeman.com and
• 0:05
  I am back with another unboxing. We have the tremendous Smashing
• 0:09
  Pumpkins Melancholy in the Infinite Sadness 30th
• 0:12
  Anniversary 6LP box set. This was gratefully sent to us
• 0:24
  by Universal Music. This is to celebrate the big
• 0:27
  30th anniversary of one of the most defining albums of the
• 0:31
  1990s. Smashing Pumpkins had a
• 0:33
  tremendous year. They've been on the road
• 0:34
  touring. They also released a deluxe
• 0:37
  version of their very underrated Mackinac record.
• 0:40
  They had a collab with Air One for a goth smoothie, as well as
• 0:46
  a chocolate tear set from Chicago, the band's hometown.
• 0:51
  I'm really grateful to bring this to you today.
• 0:53
  You can read our review of the set at ghostcodeman.com.
• 0:57
  I'll link everything in the description, but I'm really
• 0:59
  stoked to unbox the set and talk about this album.
• 1:02
  By the Time Melancholy and the Infinite Sand.
• 1:04
  This came out October 23rd, 1995.
• 1:07
  You can make a case certainly that the best of the big four of
• 1:11
  the Seattle grunge movement had already released their best
• 1:14
  album. Stone Temple Pilots had put out
• 1:17
  their debut in their sequel that were amazing and most of the
• 1:20
  bands of that era from grunge, metal and alternative rock kind
• 1:25
  of already seen their heyday. This is right before new metal
• 1:29
  broke out big with Corn, who was kind of unknown in the first
• 1:33
  year their album was out. Their debut So Melancholy comes
• 1:36
  along as easily the most ambitious album in a long time.
• 1:40
  Billy Corgan often cites The Beatles, White album as well as
• 1:43
  Pink Floyd. The Wall is his two poles of
• 1:46
  inspiration to do this grandiose album.
• 1:49
  He composed a lot of the strings you hear on the album.
• 1:52
  He did all the arranging. The band also Co wrote and and
• 1:56
  turned in some excellent performances.
• 1:58
  But really this is Billy's masterwork album.
• 2:01
  I think begrudgingly, he was both thrilled and disappointed
• 2:05
  that it was so latched onto by that generation.
• 2:09
  And he jokes often in his interviews that like, you know,
• 2:11
  nobody asked him to write another Tonight Tonight.
• 2:14
  You know, they all wanted another bullet with Butterfly
• 2:16
  Wings, which was the big single from the album.
• 2:19
  It also debuted at #1 this album and is their only Smashing
• 2:22
  pumpkins #1 album so far today in their career.
• 2:26
  But a tremendous album. I remember loving this a lot
• 2:28
  when I first got it. Got the two CD version of this
• 2:32
  back in the day. Listen to it tons.
• 2:34
  You couldn't get away from their singles.
• 2:36
  Their videos were beautiful and imaginative and they really were
• 2:40
  reaching for something that your Pearl Jams and you know, your
• 2:44
  Nirvanas had not done before. They really were going for
• 2:48
  something grandiose and you know, tats off to them for going
• 2:51
  for it. Really going for it in terms of
• 2:53
  songwriting, master craftsmanship and this entire
• 2:57
  elemental package that came with melancholy.
• 2:59
  A story conceived by Billy, a concept album, 2 albums that are
• 3:04
  sort of an A and ABA light and a dark that represent opposite,
• 3:08
  you know, a yin and a Yang of each other.
• 3:10
  The really beautiful listening experience when it got
• 3:13
  announced, especially with all the activity Pumpkins has had
• 3:15
  the Ghost Cult reported on in 2025, I really was excited to
• 3:20
  see what they would do because Universal, their label, I get
• 3:23
  I'm on record of giving a lot of grief to some of the majors, but
• 3:26
  I will say that Universal, which is the largest record label in
• 3:28
  the world, when it comes to their reissues, they do a
• 3:31
  wonderful job. I actually have a handful of
• 3:34
  reissues this year that I just bought as a fan for myself from
• 3:37
  the label. So whenever they put something
• 3:40
  out, it's always very high quality and meant for people who
• 3:43
  love the band and the products, who love records and record
• 3:47
  sets. And really, this brings me back
• 3:50
  to kind of the majesty and the magic of some of the best box
• 3:53
  sets I ever owned as ACD and tape collector, like Bonfire by
• 3:57
  ACDC, the Led Zeppelin Collective box set in 1991, Eric
• 4:03
  Clapton's big box set. Obviously Aerosmith and
• 4:05
  Metallica Bingen Purge also had tremendous box sets back in the
• 4:08
  day. So it's very fitting that the
• 4:11
  pumpkins who want to be in in line with those Great American
• 4:13
  bands and and a couple of not American bands, they, you know,
• 4:18
  they would turn something out like this in collaboration with
• 4:21
  Universal. OK, enough hot air.
• 4:23
  Let's look at the set and 1st I'll detail what the set comes
• 4:26
  with melancholy and the infinite sand.
• 4:28
  This 30th Anniversary Super Deluxe Limited edition box set
• 4:31
  comes with six 180 gram LP's, over 80 minutes of unreleased
• 4:36
  1996 tour audio, a hardbound art and lyric book, all new liner
• 4:42
  notes by Billy Corgan, custom tarot card set that's supposed
• 4:46
  to represent the the story of the album, 7 frameable
• 4:49
  lithographs, a velvet slip case and a cloth carrying bag.
• 4:54
  So this is really amazing. This came in a ginormous box.
• 4:57
  It's actually pretty weighty. I'm going to show you the pieces
• 5:00
  of it now. It's been sitting here in all
• 5:02
  our videos for a while, sitting on the bed behind me in all the
• 5:06
  shots, unboxed and just kind of waiting to get torn into and
• 5:10
  still have the hype sticker. I'm not sure I'll put it in
• 5:12
  somewhere inside the case because we don't have the mylar
• 5:15
  for the top. It did come placed in this
• 5:18
  beautiful and canvas bag. As you can see with the
• 5:22
  melancholy very high quality and sturdy and sorry.
• 5:26
  And this back cover pumpkins logo beautiful from the era.
• 5:31
  So this is really nice. I'll leave the stuff here and
• 5:34
  then we have this bag boy, the sticky boy.
• 5:38
  This thing is impressive. It's beautiful.
• 5:40
  This is one of the best looking box sets I've ever seen, to be
• 5:43
  honest with you, not just because it's here in front of
• 5:45
  me, but because it is really amazing.
• 5:48
  I've already unboxed it and went through it myself, but now I'm
• 5:50
  going to do it with you on camera.
• 5:51
  So here's the box set in the slip case.
• 5:53
  It is extremely sturdy. It looks beautiful for your
• 5:56
  shelves. The first piece of the box set,
• 5:59
  not counting the LP's. This is the tarot card set.
• 6:04
  This is gorgeous. Oh my goodness, this thing is
• 6:07
  just beautiful. Look at the spine and the
• 6:09
  craftsmanship and the print on here, all with graphics from the
• 6:12
  Melancholy album. Just absolutely beautiful with
• 6:15
  all these kind of symbols and iconography.
• 6:20
  Almost looks like a a flash book in a tattoo parlor, which makes
• 6:25
  a lot of sense. Here's a little carrying case.
• 6:27
  Again, looks like the top of the bag here next to me.
• 6:32
  And then there's the sets of the cards.
• 6:35
  Just take some of these out to look at.
• 6:37
  These are gorgeous. They looks like 2 sets of them.
• 6:41
  Oh, this is a little. Oh, I see what this is.
• 6:43
  This is the Major Arcana manual. So this is an actual manual to
• 6:49
  all the runes and the tarot cards of the book.
• 6:54
  And then I believe the second set here is the cards.
• 6:58
  Just take care to keep this as intact as possible.
• 7:03
  I've already taken out and spun the main LP's for the record and
• 7:08
  the cursory listen through of the other material.
• 7:11
  This is also out on A4 CD set and of course is down for
• 7:15
  streaming. Trying to open it carefully
• 7:17
  because it is very dinky, but look at this.
• 7:21
  Oh my goodness. See, maybe I will get a friend
• 7:26
  of mine to do a reading. Here is the tarot card set.
• 7:30
  While these are magnificent, let's just take a quick look at
• 7:33
  them. They are numbered in an order.
• 7:35
  We'll just take a quick flip through them.
• 7:39
  These are gorgeous. This is just absolutely stunning
• 7:41
  work. Beautiful artwork.
• 7:43
  A lot of these are remind me of their images from the album
• 7:49
  artwork as well as some of the music videos, and I even think
• 7:53
  some of the tour shirts had some of this imagery on it.
• 7:57
  Certainly the SP Scripty logo, which I think is Billy's
• 8:00
  handwriting. These are pretty amazing.
• 8:05
  Two kitties dancing and another Kitty, a psychotic Kitty which
• 8:12
  looks like he has a bone or a knife in his hand.
• 8:15
  I'm not. I'm totally sure there's a lion
• 8:21
  hot air balloon. This is very reminiscent of Pink
• 8:23
  Floyd's stuffed Gerald scarves animation from the wall, which
• 8:27
  again, Billy's inspiration. So these are lovely and again,
• 8:31
  just wonderfully made. So that's just the tarot cards
• 8:35
  and the book that is the guide book to the arcana of the tarot
• 8:38
  cards and this whole package. Incredible.
• 8:42
  Now let's see here is the I believe this is the book comes
• 8:46
  in this little slip case almost looks like an LP gift sleeve.
• 8:52
  Some of you may be getting LP gift sleeves for me for your
• 8:55
  birthday or the holiday soon. These are the lithographs and
• 8:58
  they are beautiful. Wow, this is amazing.
• 9:01
  Fresh smell of printing paper. I used to work in a print shop
• 9:07
  and for a marketing company that owned a printing press company,
• 9:09
  so it's kind of cool. Yeah.
• 9:11
  These are a lot of the photos from the album, as well as some
• 9:15
  of the video stills. These are all on the those.
• 9:17
  Here's Billy with the Zero shirt on.
• 9:22
  Here's Darcy. He's sad rock'n'roll casualty,
• 9:26
  but at the time a great bass player, Jimmy Chamberlain.
• 9:31
  This is these are all from the music videos, right?
• 9:34
  Probably the Zero video, which is pretty incredible.
• 9:37
  James Ziha also love a Perfect Circle.
• 9:41
  This is from the Dayton and Faris video for tonight.
• 9:44
  Tonight people will remember that issue.
• 9:47
  Here's the other issue, The Cranky Man in the Moon, which
• 9:51
  was based off an original silent film that everybody knows from
• 9:54
  American Film, and of course the a litho of the melancholy album.
• 10:03
  This is incredible. Again, I could see your fans
• 10:08
  getting these framed professionally, and if you were
• 10:11
  a super fan having these around your home, maybe in your
• 10:14
  listening room, your jam room, these are beautiful and suited
• 10:19
  for framing. And again, I've really rarely
• 10:22
  seen anything this beautifully done before.
• 10:25
  And we haven't got to the record yet.
• 10:27
  Let's see here is I believe this.
• 10:29
  Next thing is the melancholy. Let's see the 123456 albums and
• 10:37
  then I'll do the book last. Nice.
• 10:39
  Each one of these is in a brand new, beautifully printed matte,
• 10:45
  this gorgeous print of these albums.
• 10:48
  So let's see. There's no information on the
• 10:51
  sleeve. So side A, side B, side D, side
• 10:54
  E, side F OK, so the album itself proper, which I listened
• 10:59
  to almost all of and it honestly sounds fantastic, like a
• 11:03
  tremendous remaster. I don't think it was remixed.
• 11:06
  This is one of the best sounding albums of its error.
• 11:09
  I believe it was produced by Alan Mulder and Flood.
• 11:12
  You know, their work is, you know, numerous credits, Hall of
• 11:16
  Fame type records. You know, Flood has worked with
• 11:19
  everybody, Ellen Mulder has worked with everyone and Billy
• 11:21
  also Co produced the album. So let's just look at a few of
• 11:24
  these and I had taken out these first few to listen to them.
• 11:28
  So it's the whole album on six sides, which it needs six sides
• 11:32
  to be properly done. And each LP for the album does
• 11:39
  have a paper sleeve that it could go in.
• 11:43
  Everybody knows my stance on that.
• 11:44
  Your albums should be protected in an inner mylar.
• 11:47
  And for your single LP's and outer mylar, I probably will put
• 11:51
  each one of these in an outer sleeve just to protect it
• 11:53
  because it's matte and it's not that finished.
• 11:57
  So I could see your manicures or your rings scratching this if
• 12:01
  you're not careful. And these are all on 180g black
• 12:04
  vinyl technically under the Virgin label at Universal now
• 12:08
  owns. But Virgin was the label that
• 12:11
  pays me or Virgin was the label that pays Smashing Pumpkins.
• 12:14
  But a beautiful press. I mean, if you take a look at
• 12:16
  this is immaculately made, you sometimes get records.
• 12:20
  And again, a lot of these represses I'm leery of as much
• 12:22
  as I'm the collector of these. We have a link the ghost cult
• 12:25
  reissues of the year. No doubt this will be at the top
• 12:28
  of that list or near it. But you know, there are just
• 12:31
  some three issues I get that I don't love.
• 12:34
  I'm sorry. I bought and a lot of them are
• 12:36
  done they're done with care and they're beautifully made.
• 12:39
  So this is incredible. Like I said, I like this design
• 12:43
  on this inner sleeve work here, but I don't necessarily need the
• 12:48
  inner sleeve work. I'll show you a few more of
• 12:49
  these. I'll try to not hit the
• 12:50
  microphone with my LP's see so these are these are incredible.
• 12:57
  I'll definitely unbox this guy here and look at one more
• 13:00
  because I listened to these first few and then so each one
• 13:05
  of them is color-coded. That's neat.
• 13:06
  There's an orange one and again, this second side B side C&D,
• 13:14
  excuse me, that's A&B. And then again, here's another
• 13:19
  180 grand black vinyl. Feels nice and weighty,
• 13:23
  beautiful little nut like little notes on the label, all coming
• 13:28
  from the album artwork. Iconic.
• 13:30
  You know, it was a beautifully made record in the first place.
• 13:34
  Here is side E inside F front cover, bunnies playing baseball,
• 13:42
  and the back cover with all the arcana again explained in the
• 13:46
  tarot cards book and the tarot cards.
• 13:48
  All of these things are repeated again and again.
• 13:51
  Billy came up with this entire language basically to describe
• 13:54
  this album and tell the story in a more meaningful way.
• 13:58
  It's pretty incredible. And here is side G&H ending with
• 14:02
  Farewell and good night. To list the track listing in the
• 14:06
  article, you can read, but we don't have to go through the
• 14:10
  track by track today. We know this records an all time
• 14:12
  classic. It's a banger.
• 14:14
  It's an all time great album. So let's see now we have live
• 14:19
  Infinite Sadness Tour 1996. This has never been released, so
• 14:24
  this is unreleased live concerts from the tour supporting this
• 14:28
  personally track selected from a variety of cities.
• 14:32
  Personally selected by Billy and this is side A and side B here
• 14:37
  and a pretty great couple of tracks here.
• 14:40
  Geek USAYXU Cupid to lock here is no Y Bullet with butterfly
• 14:46
  wings. Galapagos bodies where boys
• 14:49
  tread to where boys fear to tread again.
• 14:53
  These also have their own distinctive inner sleeve.
• 14:56
  Again, beautiful, beautiful print on there that matches the
• 15:00
  outer sleeve really well. Like I said, I'm going to put
• 15:03
  all these in outer sleeves and a gorgeous ornamento.
• 15:09
  They're a beautiful marriage of vinyl and graphics on this
• 15:15
  label. Honestly, I almost love a
• 15:19
  beautiful label much more than even a sleeve sometimes.
• 15:22
  I know that sounds crazy but as a little kid that I used to
• 15:25
  Daydream and look at fate folds of records like Kiss, Alive 2
• 15:28
  and yes, Tales of Topographic Oceans and Pink Floyd the wall.
• 15:33
  I used to just be dazzled by these and this is live.
• 15:36
  Infinite sand is 2 additional disc, two side A and BA second
• 15:41
  part of this concert. 0 muzzle Porcelina of the vast beautiful
• 15:47
  rocket. Porcelina of the vast oceans,
• 15:50
  beautiful rocket. The first disc was LA and San
• 15:55
  Diego. This is Detroit and Cleveland,
• 15:58
  Midwest Siva, an ode to no one from Cleveland and through the
• 16:03
  eyes of Ruby by Starlight in Philadelphia.
• 16:06
  Where were you in 1996? Were you alive?
• 16:09
  Were you a big Pumpkins fan back then?
• 16:11
  Drop a comment. And then finally, this behemoth.
• 16:14
  Finally, this is the liner notes.
• 16:15
  This is in this incredible hardbound book.
• 16:18
  You could either keep this all together in the set or you could
• 16:21
  display these. All these pieces could be
• 16:23
  throughout your home or in a very nice cabinet.
• 16:26
  And this is a handbound book with gold leaf print.
• 16:30
  This isn't like exquisite. All personally overseen by Billy
• 16:35
  and the collaborators at Virgin slash Universal.
• 16:38
  So I'm just going to take a look and open this.
• 16:40
  This is just insane. And he wrote this giant essay
• 16:43
  about the album. And this is gorgeous.
• 16:45
  This is printed on photo paper. So this is glossy photo paper, a
• 16:49
  photo, you know, with little. There's cool little the pages in
• 16:54
  this. I took a brief look at this
• 16:55
  offline. There's the pages and is not
• 16:57
  only beautifully written by Billy with his recollections of
• 17:00
  things, there's concert photos. This is just fantastic.
• 17:05
  I've rarely seen anything this good.
• 17:07
  Maybe the Bowie set from a while back was this magnificent.
• 17:13
  I also have the Jinx Dawson box set that was put out by Prophecy
• 17:16
  Productions of their classic albums and that was kind of this
• 17:19
  detail level. Not as popular as this mansion
• 17:21
  Pumpkins, but Coven, a band I love.
• 17:23
  So yeah, this is phenomenal. Again, played beautifully on my
• 17:27
  turntable. And you know, I can't say enough
• 17:30
  great things about this album was just unbelievable when it
• 17:33
  came out. It was heavy metal, it was rock
• 17:36
  opera. It was classic rock.
• 17:38
  It still had it had ballads. It had sort of this running
• 17:43
  sorrow through it and and some when it needed to rage out like
• 17:47
  0 and bullet with butterfly wings, it raged.
• 17:50
  And and then there's 1979 and tonight tonight, which are just,
• 17:54
  you know, beautiful, heartbreaking songs like some of
• 17:56
  the best alternative rock music ever made.
• 17:59
  And I think this is the record that sets mansion pumpkins apart
• 18:02
  from the grunge and the Chicago scene they came from and most
• 18:07
  other alternative rock bands. It really was not anything like
• 18:10
  this that you can definitely say, not just because of Billy's
• 18:12
  voice, but the nobody really sounds like the Pumpkins.
• 18:15
  And the Pumpkins when they first started sounded like sort of an
• 18:18
  amalgam of influences. But this is really Pumpkins
• 18:21
  music. This is their music now.
• 18:23
  You know, Siamese Dream is great and I loved it, but this is a
• 18:25
  step above a lot of music of this era.
• 18:29
  Drop a comment and tell me what's your favorite song on
• 18:31
  Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness is.
• 18:33
  Shout out to Universal Music and their PR team for sending this
• 18:37
  over to me. And again, this is one of the
• 18:39
  nicest things I've ever received as a music journalist.
• 18:42
  I did already love the record. I knew this thing was going to
• 18:45
  be epic, but I didn't know how epic until I unboxed it and
• 18:48
  looked at all, you know, just kind of took it all in and it
• 18:51
  takes you breath away. It's really beautifully made and
• 18:54
  I really appreciate the care and the love that Billy has for this
• 18:57
  music. I'm sure like most artists,
• 19:00
  there's a complicated relationship with your most
• 19:02
  popular work. But I think, again, this is, you
• 19:05
  know, a love letter to his music, to his fans.
• 19:09
  If you're a die hard Pumpkins fan, you need this thing.
• 19:12
  It's definitely not sold out. You definitely can get it.
• 19:15
  You can definitely get. There's also a reissue of the
• 19:17
  album, which happened a while back.
• 19:19
  There is the four CD version if you can't afford the $329 plus
• 19:24
  price point. But I think for the money, this
• 19:26
  is well above. This is like 6-7 hundred dollars
• 19:31
  worth of a package when you factor in the completely
• 19:34
  remastered album, beautiful packaging, unreleased live
• 19:38
  tracks that people have never heard before on vinyl.
• 19:41
  I know that's a big draw for a lot of die hard fans.
• 19:43
  And honestly, if you're a fan of just any music from the 90s, if
• 19:46
  you're a Gen. X kid, this is probably
• 19:48
  something you need to get a hold of.
• 19:50
  So if this is in your price range and you can afford this,
• 19:53
  absolutely a buy. And definitely, like I said,
• 19:56
  going to factor into my top reissues list of the year.
• 19:59
  We can link that video in the description.
• 20:01
  Below, thanks again for watching.
• 20:03
  I'm Kefi from ghostcalledmang.com.
• 20:04
  Keep it here for interviews, product reviews, vinyl unboxing
• 20:08
  and much more. We'll see you soon.
• 20:10
  Peace.