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"1979" is an alternative rock song written by Billy Corgan from the The Smashing Pumpkins and was the second single from their 1995 third album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The song was nominated for the Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, and won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Alternative Video. The song is the highest-charting single of the band's career. The band took a rather uncharacteristic approach to the song, featuring for the first time loops and samples, with Corgan calling it "not the typical Pumpkins song."[1] Despite the song's unconventional style, it was popular with critics and fans, becoming a "somewhat surprising hit."[2] It proved so popular that it later spawned a second single, "The 1979 Mixes", featuring remixes of the song. The 1979 single would later be part of the box set The Aeroplane Flies High, and the song would appear on the greatest hits album Rotten Apples.
HistoryAccording to statements in interviews, Billy Corgan worked nonstop after the Siamese Dream tour and wrote about 56 songs for Mellon Collie,[4] the last of these to be written being "1979". As the Mellon Collie sessions came to their conclusion, "1979" was just a couple of chord changes and a snippet of a melody without words. When the time came for choosing the songs to go on the album, Flood, the producer, said "1979" was "not good enough" and wanted to drop the song from the record. This, however, inspired Corgan to finish it in four hours and prove Flood wrong. The next day Flood heard "1979" once and decided immediately to put the song on the album.[1] The controversial Milwaukee band The Frogs claimed that the main guitar riff from "1979" was plagiarized from the riff in their song "Pleasure".[5] Frogs vocalist Jimmy Flemion said that he gave Billy Corgan a demo containing "Pleasure" in 1993. However, Flemion and his brother Dennis are in fact good friends with Corgan, and Dennis was actually the touring keyboarding for the Pumpkins during the 1996-1997 tour, following the heroin overdose by Jonathan Melvoin.[6] "1979" is one of the most frequently performed songs by the Pumpkins, having been performed at most of the Pumpkins' concerts from 1996 to their very last show.[7]
Music videoThe music video for "1979" was directed by the team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who had previously directed other music videos for the Smashing Pumpkins including "Rocket", and "Tonight, Tonight". This team would also eventually direct the music videos for "The End is the Beginning is the End", and "Perfect". The music video stars actors Larry Capelli and Giuseppe Andrews, the latter of who would reappear in the music video for "Perfect". The video follows a day in the life of disaffected teenagers living in suburbia. It is based on Corgan's idealized version of teenagehood, while also trying to capture the feeling of being bored as a teenager. Originally, Corgan wanted a scene of violence, in which the the convenience store seen at the end of the video was trashed by the teenagers. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris however convinced him to go for something more tame. The band members also had bit parts in the video; James Iha is a convenience store clerk, D'arcy Wretzky is an irate neighbour and Jimmy Chamberlin a policeman. Band manager "Gooch" plays Jimmy's partner.[8] Originally, the band approached another director, possibly Spike Jonze,[1] to film the video for "1979". His idea was that all the band members were residents in an alien hotel and they were all going to have especially made alien-elephant masks. This video would have cost over a million dollars.[8] The "1979" video was highly acclaimed. It won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Alternative Video in 1996. It was one of Canadian cable television music channel MuchMusic's Countdown number-one videos of 1996. Billy Corgan also viewed it as the Pumpkins' best video,[8] calling it "the closest we've ever come to realizing everything we wanted."[1] Track listingSingle track listing
Image:The Smashing Pumpkins 1979 Mixes.jpg The 1979 Mixes 1979 Mixes single track listing
Tracks 1, 2 and 4 by Roli Mosimann. Track 3 by Moby. The Aeroplane Flies High single track listing
Charts"1979" was the Smashing Pumpkins' highest-charting single, reaching number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. Notably "1979" peaked at number 54 on the U.S. Hot Digital Songs in 2005, nine years after first being released.
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