Thirty-Three

The re-release of The Aeroplane Flies High has led me to revisit Mellon Collie era tracks to see if they hold up after nearly 20 years. While Siamese Dream remains an unimpeachable combination of butt rock and shoegaze (before Corgan’s ambition outstripped his songwriting), I’ve winnowed the double album follow up down to a single track, the final single “Thirty Three”. While “1979” remains the apex of his talent, it got so much radio play in the mid-90s that it’s been flattened into more of a nostalgia piece than a song (a song about nostalgia becoming nostalgic? Damn you, Corgan!). The same goes for “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”, which I once heard playing simultaneously on Dayton, OH’s two modern rock stations.

“Thirty Three” was released as a single thirteen (!) months after the album, and the exhaustion shows in the music video. The band had been on the road constantly, lost their touring keyboardist to a heroin overdose, and kicked out their drummer. Chamberlin doesn’t appear in the video or the song itself, which uses the original demo’s drum machine. A band that were never good friends to begin with are putting on a show to wring out more money from a behemoth of a record that was a success despite clinging to a framework that went out of style in the early ‘80s.

Fashion photographer (and Corgan's girlfriend at the time) Yelena Yemchuck directed a literal interpretation of the lyrics in a series of short vignettes that range from interesting-on-paper to bizarre kabuki theater. It probably seemed the height of art on MTV in ’96, but it’s so ham fisted and NINETIES that the only saving grace is Corgan himself doesn’t seem to be taking it very seriously. Perhaps it’s his closeness to the director, but while D’arcy & James Iha sit stone-faced in a tableau, his eyes follow the camera as he lets a smirk slip out.

Corgan’s made no secret of his love of the classic rock album myth, and that comes around as the video closes with a recreation of the Mellon Collie album art with the woman looking at the camera & winking (groan!). It’s cheesy as hell but having been the perfect age when it came out, I can’t help but finding the finality of it oddly affecting. While the album has no storyline or concept (besides “I’m angry and no one understands me”) the sheer length made it into a journey, and the final video had its own kind of closure, even if I can only cringe at the memory.