The Smashing Pumpkins debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness on the chart dated November 11, 1995. Their third studio album delivered 28 songs across two CDs, giving the band its first U.S. chart-topping album with a project that made room for far more than its singles.
Billboard reported first-week sales of 246,500, making it only the third double-length album to enter at No. 1 since the chart adopted SoundScan data in May 1991. Its $22.98 CD price was lower than the usual price for a double set, the magazine noted. The opening established an audience for the whole package, while lead single “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” gave listeners an immediate point of entry into its heavier side.
Billy Corgan had wanted that extra space. In a December 1995 interview with Guitar World, he explained that the band had nearly accumulated enough material to make Siamese Dream a double album. For its successor, the larger format offered somewhere to put different kinds of writing. The two CDs were organized as Dawn to Dusk and Twilight to Starlight, framing a sequence that could accommodate “To Forgive,” “Jellybelly” and “1979” without demanding that they work the same way.
Corgan produced the album with Flood and Alan Moulder, and Flood wanted the recordings to capture more of the band’s concert energy. Recalling the sessions in a 2025 Guitar World interview, Corgan described bringing a full PA into the Pumpkinland rehearsal space and having the musicians play at concert volume. The purpose was to push drummer Jimmy Chamberlin into the kind of performance he gave onstage. Corgan identified “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” as a track whose drums came from Chamberlin playing with the band that way.
That approach left plenty of room for detailed guitar work, but piling on parts wasn’t an automatic requirement. In the 1995 conversation, guitarist James Iha pointed to “To Forgive,” which used one live electric-guitar take. “Jellybelly” called for the opposite treatment: Corgan recalled Flood encouraging the densely layered guitars the band already knew how to build. Iha’s contributions also extended beyond playing. He wrote “Take Me Down,” which closes the first CD, and received additional production and mixing credits on that song and the album’s closing track, “Farewell and Goodnight.”
“1979” required another solution. Corgan recalled in 2025 that the song had been identified as a possible single early on, but its full-band arrangement wasn’t working. With the sessions nearing their deadline, he made an acoustic demo at home and returned with a version Flood wanted to pursue. A drum-machine pattern and sampled sections of Chamberlin’s playing became part of the finished recording. “We were just trying to find a version that sounded good to us,” Corgan said.
The album’s commercial breakthrough was followed by seven Grammy nominations in 1997. “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” won Best Hard Rock Performance, giving The Smashing Pumpkins their first Grammy.
