The Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream is hailed as one of the greatest rock albums of the 90’s – but making it nearly drove Billy Corgan crazy.
He once said the pressure of recording for a major label led to depression and writer’s block: “It destroyed my health, you know, it destroyed my relationships, I went out of my mind.”
“What affected [Siamese Dream] was [the feeling that] you’d better sell a lot of records,” Billy Corgan explained to Uncut in 2014. “Because you were facing a world with ‘indie’ bands selling 10 million copies. If you didn’t approximate those numbers, you were facing oblivion. I’ve never felt pressure like that in my life.”
Corgan was also overworking himself – working on the album seven days a week for 15 hours a day alongside producer Butch Vig.
In the end, all that effort paid off – Siamese Dream sold 4 million copies and catapulted the band to the top of the 90’s alt-rock scene.