Siamese Dream - Music

Music

The album boasts relatively high production values and ornate arrangements compared to other early-1990s alternative albums. Vig said, "Billy wanted to make a record that people would put on and say, 'What the fuck was that?' We wanted to have things going on in the left ear and right ear all the time". One of Corgan's main goals was to create a sense of sonic depth, but, as Corgan said, "without necessarily using delays or reverbs—to use tonalities instead." For the album, the guitars were layered multiple times. Corgan has stated that "Soma" alone contains up to 40 overdubbed guitar parts. Vig stated that as many as 100 guitar parts were compressed into a single song. Rolling Stone noted that the album was "closer to progressive rock than to punk or grunge."

The subjects of Corgan's lyrics on Siamese Dream varied. Corgan noted that most of his lyrics for the album were about his girlfriend and future wife Chris Fabian, with whom he had briefly broken up at the time he wrote the songs. Corgan occasionally wrote about other subjects. In "Cherub Rock", the album's opening track, Corgan attacked the American music industry, and "Today" is about a day that he was experiencing depression and suicidal thoughts. "Spaceboy" was written as a tribute to his autistic half-brother, Jesse.