It features a wide array of musical styles, including art rock, grunge, alternative pop, and heavy metal.

[2] Propelled by its lead single "Bullet with Butterfly Wings", the album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 246,500 units.

[5] Recording sessions saw a wealth of productivity: dozens of fully completed songs were cut from the album and resurfaced on later releases.

[7] After the 13-month tour in support of the Smashing Pumpkins' second album Siamese Dream (1993), Billy Corgan immediately began writing songs for the band's next record.

[13] The band decided against working with Butch Vig, who had produced the group's previous albums, and selected Flood and Alan Moulder as coproducers.

Although originally designed to create a rough draft for the record, the rehearsal-space sessions yielded much of the new album's rhythm-section parts.

"[10] Corgan sought to eliminate the tension, long hours, and emotional strain that permeated the Siamese Dream recording sessions, about which he said, "[T]o me, the biggest offender was the insidious amounts of time that everyone spends waiting for guitar parts to be overdubbed.

[21] The songs on Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness are intended to work together conceptually, with the two halves of the album representing day and night.

[23] Corgan aimed the album's message at people between 14 and 24 years of age, hoping "to sum up all the things I felt as a youth but was never able to voice articulately.

"[11] The artwork and visual design were conceived by Wisconsin-based illustrator and collage artist John Craig, who had spent most of his career taking editorial commissions for magazines.

Craig made other illustrations that appear throughout the album's packaging—animals smoking pipes, celestial bodies with faces, wayward children walking eerie dreamscapes—all with a vaguely antique quality.

The night before, the band played a release-party show at the Riviera Theater in Chicago and took part in a live FM broadcast across the United States.

The following week, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, an unusual feat for a double-disc album that cost more than US$20.

The vinyl edition has two additional tracks ("Tonite Reprise" and "Infinite Sadness") that are not included in CD and cassette releases.

Farley wrote, "One gets the feeling that the band [...] charged ahead on gut instincts; the sheer scope of the album (28 songs) didn't allow for second-guessing or contrivance.

[46] Entertainment Weekly gave the album an A rating; reviewer David Browne praised the group's ambition and wrote, "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is more than just the work of a tortured, finicky pop obsessive.

"[16] IGN gave the album a score of 9.5 out of 10 and said, "As the band's magnum opus it single-handedly changed the face of Alternative Rock.

"[47] The Music Box gave it all five stars and said, "Indeed, for all its melodramatic self-indulgence, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is one of the best double albums of new material to be released by anyone in a long time.

Reviewer Jim DeRogatis praised the album as "one of the rare epic rock releases whose bulk is justified in the grooves".

The writer stated that the album's main flaw was Corgan's lyrics, describing the songwriter as "wallowing in his own misery and grousing about everyone and everything not meeting his expectations."

DeRogatis contended that while Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness "may even match The Wall in its sonic accomplishments", Corgan's lyrics lacked in comparison.

"[49] In his Consumer Guide, Village Voice critic Robert Christgau picked "1979" as a "choice cut", indicating "a good song on an album that isn't worth your time or money".

While Corgan considered issuing "Jellybelly" as the album's first single, he told Chart it was passed over in favor of "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" because "'Bullet's one of those songs where, you know, it's easy to sing along to and [he affects a drawl] ya gotta sell them records.

The band won a single award, for Best Hard Rock Performance with Vocal for "Bullet with Butterfly Wings"; it was the group's first.

[55] Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness also ranked at number 14 on the 1995 Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics' poll, and 487 on Rolling Stone's 2003 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

The bonus content and special features were curated from the band's archives by Corgan and were remastered from the original master tapes by Bob Ludwig.

The vinyl release also features two bonus songs ("Tonite Reprise" and "Infinite Sadness"), and a completely rearranged track order.