Tape Deck at the Lake

Jason Gibson Sherman, TX, US

One day I heard Zero on the radio. I was hooked. I was at the lake trying to hook up with this girl. She had no interest so, pouting I went and sat in my car and jammed MCIS . I was blown away. 

Porcelina

Habib Baudry Donzère, FR

Une claque sonore , un son unique et prenant, les 2 cd l’on accompagné et font voyager sur plusieurs sentiments, porcelina , très grand…bravo le groupe

Soundtrack to life.

Warren Livingston Lansing, MI, US

For a period of a few years  entering adulthood I had experienced the bitter sting of isolation to the lift of infatuation and falling in love to the freefall of its eventual heartbreak and a bitter close to me death. This album got me through many tear filled frustrating days and nights. 

When I only came out at night

Harry Heath Stockholm, SE

I went through a rough patch at uni, falling out of rhythm with the world and sleeping all day. I used to wander the empty streets and parks at night with headphones on playing Mellon Collie. Though things were bad, it was immensely peaceful and empowering.  Now I only feel great nostalgia for those times where I only came out at night.

Disappearing CD

Bradley Hill Brisbane, Queensland, AU

There was this girl I really liked and I use to play MCIS to her at her house and in her car while we drove around aimlessly. One day her CD played destroyed the first CD of the album and a few weeks latter she bought me a new one and went for a drive in her car listing to it. That’s when I knew she was the one for me, all I really needed. Married now for nearly 9 years

Always There

Barry CARSHALTON, GB

I vividly remember buying MCIS on the day it came out. I didn’t recognise at the time how important it would be. It started out as the sound track of focus for my school exams. It became the soundtrack of getting ready to go out at University. It became the soundtrack of failure when I couldn’t get a job. It became the soundtrack of success when that job came along. Now im old it is the soundtrack of working late. The moment everyone else leaves and I’m left on my own to create things, I immediately hit play. It soothes the angry itch at the back of my head that wonders why I’m still in the office at 8 o’clock at night and helps me to go to the creative place inside my mind that gets the job done. Part of it is the beautiful music. Part of it is the emotional connection that has lasted 25 years and transcends the music. I love this album. Thank you Smashing Pumpkins.

Distant Ecstasy

Fletcher Oakes Catonsville Maryland, US

This album changed me forever with how it advanced my dreams. This album and all the pumpkins music gives me a sense of anemoia I can’t describe. Whenever I would listen I would be taken to a place I never knew but longed for. It was indescribable. I’m taken back to my days with my friends the good times where life was pure ecstasy. It is the closest I have ever felt to God.This album inspired me to pursue my lifelong dream of being a movie director and writer. The writing and sounds of this album and every other SP project shaped the entire zeitgeist and meaning of my film ideas. Thank you for making this masterpiece of an album and sparking my new film goals.You’re forever to me.

The 2 month wait

Ray Paice St Albans, Hertfordshire , GB

Reading 1995 – my first festival (I was 17) , and hearing those Mellon collie songs for the first time was beyond exciting. Had to wait 2 months for the album to come out, I’d never been as exited or anticipated an album more. 

THE BEST ALBUM EVER

PABLO J. Quito, UIO, EC

This is my favorite album ever, I was 18 and used to listen it whit my brother who was almost 14yo. MCIS has a perfect song for each moment, it’s timeless m/

The best Christmas present ever!

Rodney Henderson Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, GB

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!

If you’re giving in, then you’re giving up

Mattie Denver, co, US

I remember being about 9 and hearing 1979 for the first time. I grew up in a fairly conservative household and my mother didn’t like me listening to mainstream music. All of the Rock / alternative / grunge bands of the early and mid 90s I had to listen to on the radio at night and record songs on a cassette tape. I remember hearing Billy corgan’s voice and thinking “he sounds so weird but I absolutely love it”. I got Melancholy and the infinite sadness for my 10th birthday and listened to it relentlessly.  Smashing pumpkins became the soundtrack to my moody teen years, painting in my room, reading, driving around. I have seen them in Boulder in 2000, at Red Rocks in 2016 and in Denver in 2018. Every time was phenomenal and buried me beneath a spectral tidal wave of sound. I am a middle-aged mom who still listens to Smashing Pumpkins while cleaning my house. 

Melancolía & tristeza infinita

Daniel Mosquera Lima, Lima, PE

I’ve got two version of MCIS, in CD and cassette, they are part of my musical treasure. I discovered MCIS in 96 ,when someone lent me it , and I listened again and again, especially at night, in solitude and privacy of my room. Now, listen it still continius be a travel, a special travel through sinuous melodies.Thanks for all!

Cassette Daze

M. Cartozzo Houma, LA , US

I first heard the Pumpkins back in the cassette days. It was one morning at my cousin’s house. We were in his mom’s car. He popped in the cassette and put on “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” and I’ve been a fan ever since. I still have my the world is a vampire shirt from the 90s. 

I knew the distance to the sun…

Ryan Los Angeles, US

During the lowest point of my life, Muzzle assured me that I’m okay and everything will be okay. This album has saved me physically once, and spiritually countless times. There is nothing better for the soul or the ears than MCIS. I hope that many generations will discover this music because it may save them as well. 

I Peel no feign

Rohan Ford Perth, Western Australia, AU

The tour for Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness came to our most isolated city, Perth in 1996. That day my best friend and I were on the train, drawing ‘SP’ love hearts on each other, absolutely livid as we neared the entertainment centre. Up against the front bar, a girl was pulled vertically out as she passed out from the sheer pressure of the crowd in anticipation.. as the band emerged, a respectful gap ensued, allowing amongst crowd surfings and joint rollings; a couple seemingly ‘at one’ in the midst of the frenzy. The speakers were busted like my ears by the end, but the pumpkins transcended all. ‘I peel no feign’ Billy’s spontaneous adaption of ‘Silverfuck’, was just gold. I’d emerged from a rough upbringing into a wonderful group of friends with whom I shared this music. Truly incredible experiences & memories gifted at the peak of my youth.

Dash to Brixton

Simon London, GB

Jumping on a 5 a.m. coach to London on a whim to go to the Brixton show, I got the very last ticket at the box office! Glasses broke, had to leave early, but still…

Transition

Lyola Rowe San Anselmo, CA, US

Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness is the soundtrack to my teenage years, as it is for many. I moved to the US from Ukraine as a young adult in the ’90s and poetry of MCIS taught me to FEEL in English. I took time to translate, break down, and interpret MCIS lyrics for myself to the extent that I’ve never done with any other foreign text before. Thank you for this.

Cool kids like MCIS

Clem Besancon, Doubs, FR

I was 13, in high school, and bought the album after reading a good review in some magazine. I’ve been a SP fan ever since! But the most specific memory I have is about this girl who asked me to lend her the CD – I thought “wow, she must be pretty cool if she likes this kind of music!” I didn’t know yet that we’d get married and be the proud parents of three kids!

Long Distance Love

Danielle Spagnuolo Mount Holly, NJ, US

MCIS led myself and the love of my life to meet through AOL messenger as we both had profiles that listed SP as our fav band and MCIS as our fav album. We were 14, I lived in NJ and he lived in FL. We’re still in love, living happily in NJ and still follow SP as closely as ever. 🙂

“I have to get that guitar”

Felipe Constanzo santiago, CL

I clearly remember the first time I saw Billy Corgan on my TV and said "I have to get that guitar" ... at the end of the year 95 I started to find out what kind of guitar it was and how I could get a "57 Fender Reissue Stratocaster in a place like Santiago -Chile. As a beginner musician MCIS was a great impact both for the sound and for the "guitar wall" that Billy put in his songs and his beautiful lyrics just blow me away. Finally one day in 1999 I bought the guitar, I arrived home, I put "Muzzle" on my old radio system .. "I fear that im ordinary just like everyone" and started playing and crying at the same time, I had made it, I had Billy Corgan's guitar! I finally became musician and 21 years later the guitar is still with me along with the best memories of my youth! From the bottom of my heart thank you very much Billy for making my life better!

Infinite High School Memories

Andrea Rae St Petersburg, US

I despised high school. My mother fought with me every day about going. She finally promised me that if I went every day for a week, she would drive from our small town of Okeechobee to the closest Spec’s Music an hour away to get me MCIS the day it came out. It was the only week I had perfect attendance. That album consumed my life. “Tonight, tonight” was the last song my friend and I listened to before he drowned. I cry within the first seconds of hearing it every time. As a tradition, when I get a new car or a new apartment, I put this record on full blast. It still makes my heart beat different than any other record I have ever heard. (Adore is a close second but we can talk about that in a few years.)

Justin never knew the rules…

Justin Reeves Lehi, Utah, US

The summer between 8th & 9th grade was when X96.3 FM started heavy rotations of Zero & Tonight Tonight. I bought the album, my first SP, & the rest was history. I tried emulating Billy in this photo shoot.  Album shaped my life from then on. My son Corgan can attest to this. 

MCIS Was the Soundtrack of my First Girlfriend

Robert Clatskanie, Oregon, US

My story starts in Texas in 1995 where as a 15 year old I begged my sister to buy me the double album (she did). I spent the next month memorizing every lyric, every guitar riff and every drum beat. November 1995 we went camping as we always did and that’s where I met my first Girlfriend. We bonded over the new album as she too was a fan. I liked her so much.  I remember sitting around a campfire, on a chilly Texas night, singing “In the Arms of Sleep” under my breath. Wishing for her to be mine in the same way Billy wrote in the song. I would hear “Galapagos” and imagine carving her name in a old Texas Live Oak tree. We ended up dating for year. Most of that year was lived with MCIS as the soundtrack. She was my first gf, my first kiss, my first heartbreak. We were supposed to see the Pumpkins live together in the spring, but the concert was postponed until November. I attended the concert November 30, 1996 Frank Irwin Center in Austin, Texas with friends, but without her. Little did I know a few weeks later it would become known she had been cheating on me. Hearts were broken, teenage love was shattered. But I’ll always remember MCIS. I’ll remember as a 15 year old hearing Thirty Three, and thinking that age was so far off. Now as a 40 year old, I just look back and smile. Good and bad memories, with MCIS playing in the background. 

A Way to Bond

Sophie Meadowview, Virginia, US

I remember the first time I heard 1979; I was sitting in my room one night and my dad came in and told me he wanted to play a song for me. Instantly, I was mesmerized by this amazing band. Mellon Collie was the first album I ever owned. The music makes me feel included, it gives me something to talk to with my dad. I can never thank the Pumpkins enough for everything they’ve done for me and I will always remember them for shaping me into the person I am.

Beginnings for a dream

James seal Adelaide , AU

I remember hearing MCIS when I was 11 when my mum showed me it. Having been too young to have heard it when it came out I wished I was there. Immediately it made me want to learn guitar and get that sound. I think that I’m still searching for the perfect rig and sound but I know that my dreams of having good gear started with this album.

Inspired to rock.

BJ Russell Charleston,MS, US

I will never forget being 11 and watching SP on PBS On Tour playing Bullet and Porcelina. The first thing i thought was i want to do that one day. Fast forward 9 years and here i am in 2006 playing for 5,000 on stage opening for a famous band at a festival. Fast forward 10 years from that and i have a top 40 single on the Billboard Rock Indicator Chart with my band Allyria titled 50 Shades of Crazy. I can’t thank SP enough for that level of inspiration and teaching me a sense of melody at a young age. One day i pray i get to meet at least one of them.