The Smashing Pumpkins came out of Chicago in 1988 at a moment when alternative rock still meant something regional and specific — Billy Corgan, guitarist James Iha, bassist D'arcy Wretzky, and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin built a sound that had grunge's volume but none of its flannel-and-shrug affect; there were layered guitars, orchestral ambition, and a frontman who clearly wanted the band to matter on a bigger scale than the scene it came from.
It worked. Siamese Dream (1993) turned 'Today' and 'Disarm' into radio staples and made the Pumpkins a genuine commercial force, and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness two years later is the record most people point to as the moment they became inseparable from the decade's rock canon — a sprawling double album that somehow didn't collapse under its own size. The band has sold more than 30 million records since, and even the less-remembered albums, Adore and Machina, still charted in the Billboard top three.
They broke up in 2000. Corgan kept working — a short-lived band called Zwan, a solo record, even a book of poetry — before bringing the Pumpkins back in 2007, and the lineup since then has never quite settled: original members have cycled in and out around Corgan, who remains the one constant holding the name together.