It seems a bit weird, but I got Mellon Collie for Christmas 1998 after getting into the band in my early teens after the release of Adore. 

Of course, I knew some of the tracks that had been released as singles, but Mellon Collie was the first album I really did a deep dive into as my musical tastes were forming.

Christmas dinner at my family home has never experienced another soundtrack quite like 98 again! Our family tradition is to get albums for Christmas and we would load them into our 6 CD autochanger stereo (A real relic of the past now) and that would be the musical accompaniment to our food.

The first couple of tracks seemed to be well accepted by my family, but when “Jellybelly” came on unfortunately we moved on to my sister’s album of choice.

MCIS has become one of my favourite albums and has had a huge influence on me as I started writing and playing music. Most bands would probably consider either disc as the pinnacle of their creative output, but The Smashing Pumpkins aren’t most bands.

I’ll leave here the cover version my band did of “Bodies”; my favourite track on the album, with Porcelina a close second.

Thank you, SP. I am sure I am just one of a countless amount of music fans that have been shaped by your amazing work!