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1979 (song)

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"1979" is an alternative rock song written by Billy Corgan from The Smashing Pumpkins and was the second single from their third album, 1995's 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, and one of their most well-known songs. According to Corgan, the song is about making the transition from youth to adulthood.

The band took a rather uncharacteristic approach to the song, featuring rare use of loops and samples (previously used to a lesser extent on album tracks such as "Hummer", but never before on a single), with Corgan calling it "not the typical Pumpkins song." Despite the song's unconventional style, it was popular with critics and fans, becoming a "somewhat surprising hit. 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. "1979" was the first Smashing Pumpkins single with obvious electronic influences. The electronic elements of "1979" were explored more in depth in soundtrack songs "The End Is the Beginning Is the End" and "Eye," and continued in select tracks on the follow-up to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Adore. As James Iha said in 1996, "The future is in electronic music. It really seems boring just to play rock music.

History

According to statements in interviews, Billy Corgan worked nonstop after the Siamese Dream tour and wrote about 56 songs for Mellon Collie, 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. Corgan himself considers "1979" the most personally important song on Mellon Collie. Controversial Milwaukee band The Frogs have noted at their shows and on their website that the main guitar riff from "1979" was influenced by the riff in their song "Pleasure". Frogs guitarist Jimmy Flemion gave Billy Corgan a demo containing "Pleasure" in 1993. 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. "1979" is one of the most frequently performed songs by the Pumpkins, having been performed at most of the Pumpkins' concerts since 1995. Although it did not feature in the soundtrack, "1979" would later appear in the 2006 film Clerks 2, becoming one of the first Smashing Pumpkins songs to later be licensed for commercial use. However, the band had recorded songs specifically for soundtracks in the past, specifically "The End Is the Beginning Is the End" for Batman & Robin and "Eye" for Lost Highway.

Music video

The music video for "1979" was directed by the team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who had previously directed the music video for "Rocket." This team would also eventually direct the music videos for "Tonight, Tonight," "The End is the Beginning is the End," and "Perfect". The video stars Larry Capelli and Giuseppe Andrews, the latter of whom reappeared in the 'sequel' to the "1979" video, "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; 1979 being the year of birth for a 17 year old in 1996. Originally, Corgan wanted a scene of violence, in which 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.

Upon finishing the video shoot, the band flew to New York to perform. However, all tapes of the footage were accidentally left sitting on top of a car and lost as the driver departed. This meant that the group had to fly back and reshoot the entire video again. A scene in "Perfect" may be a reference to this incident in which one of the actors leaves an audio cassette tape on top of his car and forgets to take it down as he drives away, resulting in the tape getting run over. Originally, the band approached another director, possibly Spike Jonze, 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. 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, calling it "the closest we've ever come to realizing everything we wanted."

Track listing

  • 1979 Mixes single track listing
  • 1979 (Vocal Mix)
  • 1979 (Instrumental Mix)
  • 1979 (Moby Mix)
  • 1979 (Cement Mix)

Tracks 1, 2 and 4 are by Roli Mosimann. Track 3 is by Moby, who remixed the song pro bono.

  • The Aeroplane Flies High single track listing
  • "1979" (Corgan) - 4:28
  • "Ugly" (Corgan) - 2:52
  • "The Boy" (Iha) - 3:04
  • "Cherry" (Corgan) - 4:02
  • "Believe" (Iha) - 3:15
  • "Set the Ray to Jerry" (Corgan) - 4:10

Charts

"1979" was the Smashing Pumpkins' highest-charting single, reaching number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 on the Modern Rock Tracks and on the Mainstream Rock Tracks. Notably "1979" peaked at number 54 on the U.S. Hot Digital Songs in 2005, nine years after first being released.
Chart Peak
position
US Modern Rock Tracks 1
US Mainstream Rock Tracks 1
US Top 40 Mainstream 10
US Billboard Hot 100 12
UK Singles Chart 16
Australian Singles Chart 16
US Hot Dance Music/Club Play 17
US Adult Top 40 30
US Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales 47
US Hot Digital Songs 54

Cover Versions

U-Melt has covered this song on numerous occasions.

Toronto band Jacksoul recorded the song for their 2006 cover album My Soul.

Matchbox Twenty lead singer and solo artist Rob Thomas recorded a cover, exclusively available on iTunes.

Samples

References



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Last updated on Tuesday March 04, 2008 at 21:45:14 PST (GMT -0800)
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