Thread: Favorite Albums
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Old 2011.04.11, 09:02 PM   #37
Tokyo Jihad
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#16: The Aeroplane Flies High

Cheating? The last time I compiled a list like, this I included the Smashing Pumpkins single box set. Though I don’t believe I shared the list with anyone, I felt so saucy to include it. And why not? In this day and age everyone just lumps the five discs that make up The Aeroplane Flies High as a single album in their mp3 player. Back when I was first spending time with the collection, I burned it all onto a 2 disc set. Who didn’t? I’m further backed up by the set charting at #42 on the Billboard album list and it being the spiritual successor to the band’s previous B-side collection, Pisces Iscariot. As far as I’m concerned, it’s an album, if an unorthodox one.

Billy Corgan is a quantitative guy. Reportedly, he often cites how many copies his records have sold, how much money they’ve generated. He likes metrics. After breaking through with Siamese Dream, never the meek Billy Corgan wanted to secure his rock star status. He told the rock world he wasn’t just going to follow up with another good record – he had TWO good records worth of material to release. Not just that, but then supplement that with a companion piece consisting of 22 remaining songs that didn’t make the 28 track album. He pushed out an amazing amount of songs in a relatively short time. This time, the metric used was sheer quantity of content. That is what you call confidence.

The real statement in Aeroplane is made with “Pastichio Medley” a twenty-three minute pastiche consisting of seventy-three riffs, song fragments, and snippets of EVEN MORE material from this period. It doesn’t matter that the medley is basically unlistenable; he needed to show how many more he could have made in addition to the fifty produced! Where anyone else would be pleased as punch to have the success his band had with “Today,” Billy Corgan was on a mission for more. More was more.

While Aeroplane doesn’t have typical construction, it uses its format well. Each disc captures a different mode of the band: down-trodden pop, hard rock, acoustic folk, and sentimental notes. Listening to the discs sequentially feels like everything is built up to that final disc. While it uses media very differently, the overall composition feels very deliberate and traditional.

I hold much adoration for Aeroplane. It captures America’s biggest band at the time, arguably, at the top of the world and giving their best swing. The inspiration I find in Aeroplane is that it shows what someone can achieve with complete confidence and just a bit of a chip on one’s shoulder. I think we can all relate to the situation. You do something well and garner praise for it. You gain some self-esteem (and maybe get a bit punch drunk) and then find you top yourself. You’re on a roll! Every one of us can think of a time like that in our lives and marvel, wondering what was in the water then. Aeroplane is a memento of that time. Like Jordan coming back to the NBA to win a three-peat after already achieving three-peat. He had to show the world, not just that he could, but that he was going to. Bill Corgan shared a similar mindset. Clearly there was something in the water of Chicago during the 90’s.
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