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The guitars that Billy Corgan heard in his head were the farthest thing from cool in 1993.

Layering guitar tracks to make your clean melodies sound several hundred feet tall was standard practice throughout the ‘80s, from the switchblade-sharp sound of Guns N’ Roses’ “Appetite for Destruction” to the lab-engineered colossus of Def Leppard’s “Hysteria.” Nirvana and their moldy, Cascadian ilk had brushed aside those last vestiges of rock excess in the early ‘90s, bringing out a sludge-y, slouching take on left-of-center pop-rock. Slash’s soaring solos were instantly old hat the first time Kurt Cobain’s played his half-lidded Boston riff on “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

But Corgan, the Smashing Pumpkins frontman and mastermind, had never been cool. He wasn’t about to start trend-chasing now. That out-of-step and out-of-time desire to shred is all over 1993’s “Siamese Dream.” Where other bands were paring everything back, the Pumpkins imagined their guitar parts as overwhelming cataclysms. The intro of track 1, side 1 (the single “Cherub Rock”) is a monster of fuzz and distortion rising up from the depths of the ocean. It sounds like an accidentally awakened kaiju readying itself to level a city long before Corgan first screams “let me out!”

The musical monster attacks continue throughout “Dream,” getting larger and more complex in a manner guaranteed to please even the dourest “Neon Genesis Evangelion” fanboy. The jubilation of the freewheeling solos on songs like “Quiet” and “Geek USA” is tempered by Corgan’s decidedly nerdy vocals. He sounds nasally, sick and incomprehensibly huge, like an archangel retching through a revelation. I don’t need to tell you that it absolutely whips.

The Pumpkins staying true to their outdated ideas of what it means to be a rock band resonated. “Dream” sold over six million copies, turning the shoe-gazing dweebs i into honest-to-goodness rockstars through sheer force. It didn’t last.

Several decades on, Corgan might be better known as an impossibly dour grump than a rock and roll genius. The Pumpkins have about as many contentious breakups as they have classic albums. But there are still lessons to be gleaned from his stubborn decision to keep plugging away at his own idea of popular music. It’s fine to keep pushing for what you know is good and right, even if it has fallen out of fashion.

Just look at the recent wave of Bernie Sanders-supported successes. The Democratic Party has spent the last decade slinking away from Medicare for All and small-d, small-s democratic socialism. It’s gone weak-kneed on its defense of LGBTQ rights and labor. But candidates pushing for universal healthcare and refusing to give an inch on trans rights have outperformed expectations, thanks to groundswells of support from people who never stopped thinking the New Deal was cool.

James Talarico in Texas, Graham Platner in Maine and Sam Forstag in Montana won their primaries by being unashamed of their commitment to people-first causes. Belief is infectious, whether in prog-rock or progressivism. The Democratic establishment shouldn’t shrug that idea off.

What do you think? Do we deserve more candidates who are willing to stick to their guns? Is flexibility the Democrats winningest or losingest quality? Sound off in the comments.

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