Billy and me

Thomas Mafrouche FR

I was a fourteen years old boy in 1996, when my uncle brought me to the SP live show, in Lyon (France). It was my first concert ever. I still remember when Billy arrived on stage on “Zero”, or when Jimmy played guitar on “1979”. No ear plugs at the time, and I’ve never heard something as loud as “Bodies” and “X.Y.U.”. After that night, I decided to dedicate my life to rock’n’roll. 25 years later, I’m editor in chief of a French music magazine, I had the chance to talk with Billy, James and Jimmy a couple of times, and I can never thank those guys enough for their music. I’m sure my life won’t be the same without them. Now I’m ready for the next 25 years with SP !

The only way is through.

Dereck Boston, MA, US

MCIS was the most important record of my teen years. I was 15 when it came out, just learning how to really play guitar, pushing myself in my creative life, and going through an absolutely awful family dynamic. I related to every song on this record wether through anger, love, or hormones. I recorded the Riv show to cassette and listened constantly. Traded tapes with other fans on tape trees through AOL. Dissected and analyzed song after song to its absolute minutae which is probably why I make records for a living myself. It also helped me identify and maintain my SELF through a physically and mentally abusive family situation, for that I will be forever grateful. I bought this shirt at the October 1996 show at the Rosemont Horizon. I wore it until it couldn’t be worn anymore and its been in storage since 1999. MCIS is one of the few records I can listen to now as an adult without cringing. Many of its themes still feel the same 25 years later. And now that its not just about the art but we know more about the process of the band and the engineers and producers behind the record – that makes it even more special. I don’t have anything else to say except I appreciate this records place in my life and the artistic effort that it took to bring it to life. <sp3

And my life was forever changed

Kara Tsukerman Atlanta, GA, US

This is going to sound crazy, but I discovered Smashing Pumpkins because I had a huge crush on Simon Rex and watched him on MTV every day after school. At the time I mainly listened to Paula Abdul, Maria Carey, Janet Jackson, etc. Simon played BWBW every single day and I slowly just because obsessed with it. I was 12 and it was like nothing I had ever heard and it made me feel a way that I had never felt. I didn’t convince my parents to buy me the album until January of 1996 and in the meantime I scoured AOL for all information I could find about SP. I spent hours in SP chatrooms, downloading MP3 files, and learning as much old material as I could. I will never forget when my parents bought MCIS for me and I listened all the way through. We were on vacation and I got it at some random music store in a mall and stayed in the hotel room with my Discman listening as much as I could. 

I am no less of a fan 25 years later. There are so many things that happened because of MCIS. I fell in love with another SP fan and left my small hometown for him, I have made friendships that will last a lifetime because of SP, I have traveled all over the U.S. and even to Paris to see SP, and I feel like I am forever part of a special community of people who just get it. Thank you for making the soundtrack of my life and for making Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, my favorite art in the entire world. 

We only come out at night!

Babs Mexico city, MX

I’ve never heard such music, i was running by when i stopped and asked my brother “Who are you playing?”… “The Smashing Pumpkins”…… I was teenager.

From that moment MCIS was the CD’s that i play over and over, learn lyrics… see every illustration on the booklets.  I took Tonight, Tonight lyrics to fill in the blanks on my english class. I remember that the other classmates were wondering who i was playing since they hear pop music . lol

From that day, I knew i  was different and i love it!

1979 video on MTV

h US

Remember seeing 1979 video constantly on MTV, think it was ’95. Got totally hooked and decided to tape it. Spent hours with my VCR ready to go, but of course, could never catch it again. Finally got it when Greatest Hits DVD came out 6 years later.

Stars like fireworks

Danny Smith Birmingham , GB

I booked a camel trek across a desert in Rajasthan while travelling in India. But it was well into the hot summer so out of season and I ended up riding alone with two guides. At the end of the first day we stayed in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. The guides dragged the camp beds into the sand out and they sat up well into the night drinking, eating spiced peanuts, and talking. They tried to include me but none of us shared a language, but I was happy to share their warm laughter.

Then they got in a Land Rover that I never noticed was parked behind the cabin. And drove away leaving me with the peanuts and camels.

I reached for my phone and put on MCAIS

That night I lay on the camp bed, the cheap whisky taste still in my mouth and looked up to a sky I never thought possible. That far away from ambient light the sky was a firework display of stars. They don’t tell you how deep the night sky can be, so much so I started to get vertigo. And as the music swelled and dipped, it reached out into my chest laying everything I’d been hiding there out bare, breaking and fixing my heart a million times a song.

Alone in the desert, falling into the sky

Pinching Pennies

Will Gish Los Angeles, CA, US

I had the release date for Mellon Collie marked on my calendar, and set myself the mission of saving enough money by that date to buy the double cassette. I was 12 years old at the time. I raked a neighbor’s lawn for a few dollars, helped an old woman take out her trash for fifty cents, stole change from my parents’ change jar, and kept lunch money to save enough for the album. 

When the album was released, my parents bought it for me as a suprise. I spent some of the money I had saved on an issue of Guitar World with Corgan and Iha on the cover. The weekend after the album came out, my family went on a road trip, and I spent the whole eight hour drive (both ways, so sixteen hours total in a weekend) listening to MCIS over and over again while reading and rereading the Guitar World interview. It became my favorite album very quickly, and still is, 25 years later. 

Album of my life

Francesco Tamburrano IT

MCIF is the album of my life for many reasons. I listened it for the first time in 2001 when I was in high school. Immediately I felt that this was album of life. It guided me in countless moments, both those full of joy, both the sad ones. The beautiful and infinite melancholy that keep me and feel me alive has MCIS as soundtrack. Thank you guys for this music, it  will walk with me always. 

Drive to Heerlen with Hussi

Andreas Dahm Remscheid, DE

My friend Hussi (he died 2019) and I drove all two day to Heerlen/Netherland to buy Heroin when we heard the Maxi-CD of 1979.It was 1995 and after that we wait with fever for Mellon Collie. 

Then we heard it first time and I thought what is this for a music? It took me away, it was the best I heard for so much years and yes I thought this is The Wall of the 90th.

Every time Hussi and I drove in car (every day,) we heard SM and SO OFTEN Mellon Collie! 

Over years I buy the album ever and ever again… 

Teenage Dreams

Carlo Bertone Rome, IT

In 1998 i was 13 and i fall in love with Ava Adore, so I rush to the record store to get Adore. Unfortunately i couldn’t afford it because i missed a few bucks so I go for the previous album: MCIS. It was love at first sight, I listened to both CDs on loop for a whole afternoon and something inside of me clicked. Now I’m 35, and here’s a picture of me and my girlfriend in Bologna for the 2018 tour. I proudly have the MCIS cover tattooed on my arm because Smashing Pumpkins are the only thing that I still love as I did when I was a teenager, and I know it’s forever. 

In the Arms of Sleep

Joey Houston, US

In the wake of a broken relationship, ‘In the Arms of Sleep‘ became my tear laden soundtrack for the summer of ’96.  Laying on the floor at night with headphones on listening to the album front to back it was always a journey I will never forget.

MCIS made my parents SP fans

Kristen Philadelphia, PA, US

I was 14 in 1995. When the tracklist for MCIS was made public before the album release, I was so excited, I printed it out & asked my mom if she’d drive me to the mall on release day to get the CD (she said yes). My dad found the printout, saw the track title “Fuck You” and said there was no way I was getting the album because of the profanity. A huge fight ensued. Long story short: I got the album on release day. The following summer, my dad drove my friend & I an hour to Philadelphia to see our first Pumpkins show, on the MCIS tour. Even he couldn’t deny how good the album was, and how happy the music made me. Over the years, he has been to 3 SP shows with me! I also still catch him & my mom singing “despite all my rage…” when they think nobody can hear them!

Music of my youth: 90s kid

Jinky Balame Great Yarmouth, GB

In 1995, I was 15 and I kept myself to myself. Music was my confidante. 

Smashing Pumpkins was my favourite band to listen to when I wanted to transcend to a diff dimension. 

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was a double-album which was full of melodic, ethereal, trans music with a dash of electric guitars, drums and thick bass lines by D’arcy. Billy Corgan’s voice and his extraordinary songwriting skills helped me travel to cloud nine without drug consumption (I don’t do drugs. Never did. Never do. Never will.) 

Wedded Bliss

Kendra Neodesha, KS, US

Walked down the isle to marry my best friend while Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness played. I lost him 2 years ago to a fatal car accident. I always knew the day I got married I would walk down the isle to Smashing Pumpkins and that song ended up being the chosen one. 

My soundtrack

María Jesús Collado Rancagua, CL

This album is perfect in all ways. When I bought it, I was about 16 years old. Every song means something to me. It’s like the soundtrack of my life. The love song, the sad song, the happiness song. I am 40 years old now and I still get sentimental when I listen to Galapogos. I just love it. Thank you so much MCIS!! 

Muzzle air drumming

Sean Tamworth, NSW, AU

I used to love cranking up the song Muzzle in my bedroom as a teenager and playing air drums to Jimmy’s really cool drum fills in that song.

Young & Impressionable

Mike S. Colonia, NJ, US

The video for “Tonight, Tonight” captured my
imagination – hurtling in space and fighting space invaders while the jovial moon
watches overhead. I was only 11 and very impressionable. Though, even at that
age I knew it was special. To this day I cannot listen to that song without picturing
scenes from the video. I knew I had to own the album.

Since my brother worked at a local music store I asked him
to purchase me a copy. One morning I found it waiting for me at the foot of the
living room steps. I clutched the fatboy jewel case and inspected the contents and
waited to dive in after arriving home from school. That evening I was able to
unearth the music that would mark my soul forever. The first notes of the piano
perked up my ears. This is a rock album? I was too young to understand how
varied and nuanced an album could be. This was my coming of age. Its scope is broad
and yet every track is so focused. No detail is left to chance.

When I hear it now memories flood back to me of my youth.
Nostalgia drowns my thoughts more than any other musical recollection. It’s a
reminder of the awe-inspiring nature of music and why musicians dedicate their
lives to the cause. Reaching just one of us makes it all worth it. I am
evidence of that.

First purchase

Adrianne DeAlba Montclair, CA, US

MCIS was my first music purchase. I was 13 and I begged my mom to take me to Blockbuster. I brought the disks home and made my cousin listen to it with me all night. It’s music has been with me during the best of time and the darkest of times in my life. 25 years late the CD cover sits framed in my living room. 

Zero Regretz

Charlie Cullen Stittsville, Ontario, CA

Back in 1996 I had tickets to the September 13 show in Ottawa, Canada. My buddy dropped out at the last minute so I asked a girl that I worked with to go with me. I am now married to her and still  have the Zero shirt she bought me at the show! Such a great time. I’ll never forget it. Love you guys.

Picture Day

Shannon Stoner Norfolk, Virginia, US

Picture day 1995- 5th grade. We were told to bring our favorite thing to be photographed with. Most kids brought stuffed animals or baseballs. Mellon Collie was mine. The next year my dad would take me to my first concert- SP with Garbage in Hampton, VA. Still one of my favorite albums, 25 years later.

In love

Justice Pittsburgh Pennsylvania , US

I remember I was with this girl in sophomore year. Me and her were really really close. One night her mother was taking me home and the song 1979 came on. I was instantly mesmerized by it. It became my anthem. My favorite song. It was playing during a lot of my firsts. I owe a lot to MCIS

leaving, losing, finding myself

Kim Tupponce King William, VA, US

That photo i submitted for me in the Zero shirt is actually from now. She is the self I’ve found after twenty five long years of searching. MCIS came out during my senior year of college, as I was contemplating and ultimately making a cross-country move, away from my family and a painful period, into a (not-so) shiny, brand new life. I still vividly remember that first winter in my new life in late 1996, when Thirty-three was playing on the radio in the cold morning on my way to work and it was the most beautiful song I had ever heard. It represents for me the heartache and the joy and the fear and the suffering and ultimately the peace of growing older and wiser; of change, and also nostalgia. Namaste. 

MCIS

Em J Byron Center, MI, US

I didn’t know who I was. I had inklings. Ideas. Feelings. And then it happened. It wasn’t until I picked up Smashing Pumpkins/Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness double disc set from Meijer on Alpine in 1995, in sixth grade, that I ever felt ‘connected’ in a real, fucking raw way to any musician or song. My love, my anger, my passion, my wonder, my questions, my suffering, my passion… it felt like I was finally able to FEEL all of those things, and connect it to music. And every emotion was captured. Every. Single. One. Emotion I didn’t realize existed. Tears- I didn’t know I needed to cry. Thoughts- I didn’t know I needed to think. Love- I didn’t know I needed to feel. Anger- I didn’t know I needed to experience. Songs- that immediately crept their fiery way into a young heart and old soul. Classical instruments gracefully danced behind luscious rocknroll rhythms, faraway feelings- driven by insane solos… lyrical brilliance… like I’d never heard and a heartfelt heaviness I’d never known- FLOODED my entire existence. I don’t know what could compare, fucking ever. I think everyone has their first kick into reality, musically, if they care enough, and this was mine. Had to get to a tattoo about it even, thank u @john.kurse Happy 25th anniversary Mellon Collie. I fucking love you. @williampcorgan @smashingpumpkins #MyFavoriteBandEver #melloncollieandtheinfinitesadness #smashingpumpkins @john.kurse

We are going tonight.

J. Escobar Los Angeles, US

On the evening of MCIS. I ask my parents to take me to Tower Records on Sunset. My parents said “NO” because the album was going to come out at midnight. I was so bum out about it. My kid brother ask me if it meant a lot to me if I got the album that night. I was like heck yeah! So he said we are going to get In trouble but I will take you. I said you don’t have a license. Then he said but I know it will make you happy if you get the album tonight. So he stole my dads car and he took me. Best time ever. Everyone in the parking lot was dancing and having a good time. At midnight Tower Records was playing the album in the parking lot. We stayed around till 2 maybe 2:30. But it was so worth it. I stay up all night listening to the album on repeat. It got me through really hard times. Dealing with my dads death my best friend in the hospital and dealing with suicide issues. MCIS got me to value life, my friends, and just people around me. Thank You Guys A Million. I Owe You Guys More Then You Will Ever Think!!! Forever A Pumpkin 🎃 Head…♥️

An Ode to No one

Jayde Melbourne, AU

I pinched my mum’s copy of the CD as a teen and it soon became my companion through every dark or hard time throughout the years.

It made such an impression that I have a piece of it tattooed on my body to forever remind me that “Destroy the mind, destroy the body but you cannot destroy the heart”.

Life changed at 8 years old

Melanie Keezer Huntsville, Ontario, CA

I was at my babysitters at the age of 8 watching much music and then came on a song that would be with me for life. 1979, billy singing in a car with a cute boy running around with friends.

1979 became my favorite life long song. Every scary change in my life, 1979 was there to comfort me. Moving across country after almost dying, 1979 was there. And in the best of times 1979 was there to cheer me on.

The pumpkins was what my big brother and i bonded over.

I will always be greatful for what 1979 did for me