13
Steve Bellefontaine, OH, US
For the past 25 yrs, I’ve listened to MCIS on X-Mas Eve. Starting at 10 p.m. I press play. I’ve been a fan for 27 yrs. I fell in love 25 yrs ago. I grew up listening to Rawk n Rowl!
Words Cannot Define,
SPC
Car rockout
Jasmine Korcok Kelowna, British Columbia, CA
I was in grade 5 when Mellon Collie came out, and it was the first album I ever purchased, the double cassette. My mom would let me lock myself in her car and crank it up as loudly as I could. I would unfold the insert and sing at the top of my lungs and rock out…my favourites were Zero and Bullet with Butterfly Wings. Mellon Collie spawned my love of music!!
Escape from the Infinite Sadness
Liz Scottsdale, AZ, US
It’s impossible to cite a single memory, as I have one for every song. I was already a dedicated SP fan when MC&TIS was released. The day it came out I spent all night listening to each song, carefully reading along from the lyric booklet. It became my personal soundtrack. In the Arms of Sleep when I was heartbroken, Tales of a Scorched Earth when I was angry, Thru the Eyes of Ruby when I needed calm and centering. I had a copy for my car, my home, my discman, and my boyfriend’s apartment so I was never without a copy close by. 25 years later, I have it downloaded on my phone so it is still always close. I even sat at Stonehenge last year and listened to Thru the Eyes of Ruby, which was a magical experience for me. The album is beautiful, heartfelt, eclectic, powerful, and peaceful all at the same time and I love it more than my poor writing skills can accurately describe.
Pennies for Pumpkins
Jamie Fort Wayne, IN, US
I was 9 years old when MCIS came out. The following Friday, I took an entire cookie tin filled with change (“my life savings” at the time) and took it to the bank. At the time, they asked me to roll the change myself. I spent almost two hours in the backseat of the car putting pennies and nickels into rolls, gave them to the bank, got my cash exchange, and went to Target to buy the CD. Pretty sure I was several dollars short but my parents covered the rest because they were impressed with my dedication to getting MCIS.
1979
Luis Almendarez Ontario, CA
The year was 1999 and I was 8. I remember my parents were not home and I stayed with my grandma and my older brother. As usual, my grandma always let us do whatever we wanted so that night we stayed up late (10 pm was late for us back then) and MTV was playing a rock special and among those songs they played “1979” and “tonight, tonight”, I was amazed by 1979. After that night my brother and I got a copy of the record and I beg my parents to buy me a guitar. If it wasn’t by SP, WPC, and MCIS my life would be totally different, I would’ve never learned how to play an instrument and I would’ve never met the people and the friends that fill my life with joy until this day.
Medicine for the Heart
Patricia Madrid, ES
It’s not pretty. It’s not a good job. It is colossal. It is the best work of art in the world in any discipline. It should have a museum, we want a museum with silver pants, manuscripts, zeppelin and octopus decorations. We want an MCIS museum with starry ceilings.
Here, with the SP family, I feel understood. The others think I’m exaggerating. What a pity those who do not know it or do not feel the same as we do, they are missing wonderful vibrations. Relieve the bad times and praise the good ones. It is medicine for the heart.
I love u
Hope
Rob San Jose, CA, US
I would describe myself as a late bloomer when it comes to this album (and most SP albums for that matter). MCIS came out when I was in 8th grade, and I remember a lot of the hits on the radio. I took a liking to tonight, tonight at the time, but other than that, I didn’t really understand the album and kinda moved on. Fast forward to the summer of 2015, when for some reason, I just started listening to 1979. The song hit me to the core like almost nothing I have ever experience before then.
I am a firm believer that when you need it most, something will appear in your life and help guide you through tough times, and starting in 2015, MCIS was that. I dove deep into the album (an eventually Siamese Dream) and zeroed in on thirty-three. This year was probably the most difficult in my life (although, that has been eclipsed by COVID, but for very different reasons), one where I was struggling to find myself, and figure out what I wanted to do with my life and how I could become happy again.
The first time I heard thirty-three, I was in my kitchen making dinner, and froze. I froze because of the lyrics powers that described exactly how I felt at the time. I was the desolate and uncertain person described in the song, wandering through life not knowing how to progress. The song gave me hope, and something allowed me to figure out how to move forward. I decided that “I’ll make the effort” and that I “can make it last forever.” This album has bettered me, and I am so thankful that it found me when I needed it most. It still helps me stay grounded, and songs like thirty-three, 1979, and tonight, tonight, among others from the Smashing Pumpkins, continue to influence, shape, and inspire who I am today. I truly need to say THANK YOU!
Tonight, Tonight
NA Indiana , US
Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness was released 4 days before my 8th birthday, but I wasn’t aware of SP or the album for another 7ish months. Early summer, ’96, I was at my babysitter’s house, where she always had Q101 or MTV playing. This day, it was MTV, and Tonight, Tonight’s ethereal video happened to come on. I was hooked; the music, the aesthetic, everything was pleasing and new to me. I asked my sitter to play more SP for me, and we listened to MCIS on repeat for weeks, occasionally peppering in Gish and Siamese Dream. That year for my 9th birthday I received MCIS and Siamese Dream on cassette – I believe I still have these somewhere.
It Brings Me Back To A Different Era
Kenny Mills Muskegon, MI, US
I was 16, I had a really fun night with my then boyfriend. Went against mom’s rules. Prank calling a bunch of people and driving around. 1979 came on and for a moment it felt like time stood still. Now everytime I listen to that song and usually the whole album, I feel like moments like that, they really are captured.
Synchronicities
Gaz Williams Durban, ZA
I was 19 when it was released. I was bullied at school and found it difficult to socialize. At the local skatepark someone spray-painted “Shake Down 1979” on the ramp. By chance one night I met the girl who painted it and we spoke for hours about our love of the Pumpkins. It helped to bring me out of my shell. The graffiti has long since faded away but my memories and love of this album never have.
First Excursion
Michael Holly Chicago, IL, US
MCIS came out the day I turned 16. I passed my drivers test, got my license and drove solo straight to the record store to purchase it. Like most of my favorite albums it will always serve as a time stamp of my life and a feeling of independence.
By Starlight I Escaped With You
Vee Portland, OR, US
When I was a teenager I snuck out of my window to meet my boyfriend in the middle of the night. I was dancing and singing “By Starlight” to him when all of a sudden a police car parked nearby and turned their lights on! We ran away super scared! The last time I ever saw him I listened to “Farewell and Goodnight”. Goodnight my love.
Awakening
Jason D. Riggs Shoal Lake Manitoba , CA
This album was the beginning of my realization that reality is not what it seems
it would take me into a trance like state
I would listen to it all from beginning to end and I would have some kind of experience
some kind of revelation
lots of love keep on keeping on
JD Riggs
That night, so bright
Somebody ES
I was visiting my best friend, I can admit now I had a huge crush on him, we’d had a great time playing and fooling around. We wanted to listen to some music so he told me to pick a CD from his shelve and I thought of this one because I love it, but I let him choose, and he happened to choose it. The night was simple, perfect and so special to me, and MCIS was the best soundtrack it could have. Sadly, we don’t talk anymore but I still get emotional when I play it.
25 years Later and I’m still up till Midnight for New Album Releases
Elizabeth Breland Virginia Beach, VA, US
I have been a Pumpkins fan since I bought Siamese Dream at the Kmart across the street from my neighborhood when I was 15.
Also, I have a fond memory of preordering MCIS from the Planet Music that was next door to my first job when I was 16.
I drove to the Planet Music at 11:30 pm and anxiously waited until midnight when they released the double CD.
The album got me through my parents divorce when I was 17 and defined some of the happiest times of my life in my late teens.
I had every poster from the MCIS era (and previous eras!) plastered over all of my bedroom walls along with every magazine cover of SP. My first vehicles license plate was SP Billy in 1995.
25 years later and I am still waiting up all night for new releases just from the comfort of my bed with phone in hand 🎃
Smashing Pumpkins FOREVER
*spy my posters ( super rare Tonight Tonight single poster) to my right and framed photo of SP on my dresser!
Coming of age
Stephanie Beatty Columbus, OH, US
This is my senior picture. I graduated in 1998. I had been a SP fan for long before this, but MCIS is like a soundtrack to my coming of age. So many of my memories from then have Smashing Pumpkins soundtracks. Love, loss, growing pains, fun with friends… all of it. Thank you, Smashing Pumpkins, for always being there for me.
Tonight, Tonight
Kate Sydney, AU
May 20, 1996, Hordern Pavillion Sydney, Australia.
I was 15 years old, standing outside chatting with friends, excited, first “real” concert, caught up in everything didn’t realise it was about to start, hearing the extended intro for Tonight, Tonight i’ve never run so fast, pushed through a packed auditorium right to the front, no one could stop us. The best setlist, and one of the most memorable nights of my life. Never forgotten.
To never forget
Elizabeth Hillsdale, MI, US
Melon collie resignated with my soul since I was a young kid. Growing up as any only child in a toxic household, music was my escape. The pumpkins made me feel not so alone… And not so weird because of my interests. Never skipped a song on the radio. They’re a huge influence on the music I make today. I bought the MCIS vinyls yesterday (photo won’t upload). It’s my first vinyl purchase for my turntable. I didn’t care how much it was. Perfect selection IMO 🖤
Atlanta to Korea
Barry Bishop Busan, KR
Saw SP at Lollapalooza in Atlanta ‘94. SD got me hooked and then I revisited Gish. 2 short years later who knew I’d be in a life-changing journey by moving to Korea to start a new career path. My best bud gave me a parting gift of the newly released MCIS CD. You can imagine my culture shock arriving in a new country with a different writing system and language, food etc. I loved it but also needed something to hold onto from home. That something was the iconic MCIS by SP. I can’t tell you how many hours I listened to that in my super small apt. in a big, crowded city. It really was my sanity. And the music was so so great that it left a deep impression on me. Well here I am in Korea still and still listening to MCIS as well as all their catalog. We change with periods of our life and SP music changes as well. I hear a song from MCIS and it instantly brings me back to a certain time and place, but I’m also not overly nostalgic about it because the music hold up so well today. It’s still very high on my playlist. I just want to thank Billy and SP for what they do and we are so fortunate that they are still doing it. Hey, after Covid can you guys come to Korea or Japan? I’ll be there!
Concert and album
Ryan US
Saw the Mellon Collie Tour here in Buffalo. Completely floored! I have and still do listen to that sweet record. It’s my favorite/one and only! Thank you!! ❤️SP
Most Beautiful Music
Michelle Coventry RI, US
Age 15, the adolescent in Summer of 1996. The sheltered one, when words leave such an impression and can make you feel complete, understood. A booklet of art and emotions, I read with awe until the melody brings it all together into pure magic. It’s mesmerizing as each song flows into another, but then
Thirty-Three plays. To articulate the moments when time stood still is impossible. Music is cherished and I’m greatful to connect with the souls of these individuals
And our lives are forever changed
Godwin Toronto , CA
It was the beginning of 7th grade in a new school in a new area. I was never a fan of music, but most the kids at this school were big into music and were all raving about “the smashing pumpkins”. I rememeber seeing the video for 1979 and bullet and falling in love with everything about the sound. The first time in my life music made me feel something. After getting my own copy of Mellon collie, my mind was blown and the vastness of songs. Different tracks making me feel different things. I became obsessed…… I was told it’s just a phase…. Haha here we are in 2020 🙂
It marks a chapter
Angela INDIANAPOLIS, US
This album ushered me into my teens and was the perfect soundtrack for all of that drama and coming of age. I was a percussionist in school band and marveled at Jimmy Chamberlin’s drumming. I wrote a school essay on the history of the band. I drowned my sorrows when I went through traumatic harassment in middle school. And a concert in Oct 1996 was one of my favorites. I have nothing but gratitude for MCIS.
1979 – Valencia California
Garnet Hanover, IN, US
Before my high school, Valencia High School near LA, had a sprawling suburbia built behind it, It was vacant hillsides and it was our adventure space at night…nobody could touch us there. The video for 1979 was shot in several places in town, including my friends house for the house party scene, and on that epic hillside, capturing cross-canyon views of cars and lights…perfectly capturing the life of a teenager in Santa Clarita at the time. I will never forget that time of my life and how succinctly Smashing Pumpkins nailed 1979 and the aesthetics of angst, love, laughter, and friends.
How MC&tIS Changed My Life
Brandon D Christiansburg, VA, US
Life is all about high water marks. Birth of a child, wedding day, first kiss, first real paycheck, first performance and finding your first real best friend are often high water marks for a lot of people. Listening to this album for the first time was a high water mark for me. This album literally changed my life.
MC&IS was released in ’95. I was 13 years old and in 8th grade. I was unknowingly making a transition from awkward bookworm to social butterfly; I had a solid friend group, the core of which remains today. I had spent the majority of my 6th grade year avoiding people wherever possible. I kept my nose in fantasy and Star Wars novels. I attempted to make friends with my classmates with little success. The one high point is my mother forced me to take band as an elective. We had an old trumpet laying around and that is the instrument I learned on. I spent the weekends reading, playing video games and I remember every Sunday morning playing with Lego and listening to Casey Kasem count down the PoP hits of the day. 7th grade got a little better. I had discovered the opposite sex through band and I recieved my first CD player for XMas that year. The first albums I bought? Nirvana Unplugged in New York (so I could be cool) and Hootie and the Blowfish Cracked Rear View. I was wearing a lot of clothes that was popular with the counter culture at the time (the flannel grunge look) and doing what I could to fit in. It wasn’t really working.
I continued to be a poseur for the end of 7th grade, determined to be one of the cool kids when 8th grade started. I tried to expand my friend group and wiggle into the cool kids club. I failed at that too. However I remember that I did strike up a decent relationship with one of the cool skater kids. He had better taste in music than I did, knew how to ‘aggressive in-line skate’, was an artist and frankly, was cool. I remember him asking me if I was getting the new Pumpkins album. Of course i said yes. I didn’t know who the Smashing Pumpkins were. I hadn’t heard a single song of theirs. My musical tastes were rooted in my dad’s record collection and the music I heard from Casey. I had no connection to anything, really. I knew I liked the Beatles but I wasn’t exactly sure why. If you would’ve asked me I would have told you that Aerosmith was my favorite band (they’re still pretty nifty). Music was a complete afterthought for me.
I had to ask my mother to drive me to the mall to buy a CD. I also had to convince her that I needed $25 to buy it. I couldn’t really explain why I needed it, telling your parents you need a new record so people at school would think you were cool isn’t the most watertight or persuasive of arguments, ya know? I managed to pick it up and bring it home. Blue case with the weird writing and turn of the century-esq woman on the front. I didn’t even have a proper CD player, I was still using last Christmases walkman with an old headset from my parents old tube stereo system. This headset could’ve swallowed a set of beats whole. They were large, loud and clear. Which is exactly what I needed for what was about to happen to me.
I would go to sleep every night listening to that CD player through those headphones. I cracked the case and pulled out a stylized pink CD. As the CD started spooling up I wondered exactly what type of music “the Smashing Pumpkins” were and if they were so awesome why hadn’t I heard of them before. Imagine my surprise when the title track started playing. I distinctly remember wondering why my cool skater friend at school was so excited for soft piano music. The transition to Tonight, Tonight didn’t really do anything for me either. Violins, acoustic guitars, drums that reminded me of marches that we played in school band, I was starting to become really confused. This didn’t seem like some cool alterna-rock band. It sounded like b sides to that shitty hits from the 70s, 80s and today radionstation I hated so much growing up.
Then it happened. Jellybelly. The entrance of the Flood produced, Corgan and Iha led guitar army hit me square between the eyes. 3 1/2 minutes of fierce and distorted guitars that were driven by a maniacal drum beat and accented with a surreal voice drove me upright in bed. I had never heard anything quite like Jellybelly before in my life. It wasn’t my father’s rock and roll. Zepplin and AC/DC didn’t have the sheer intensity that this song offered. It wasn’t my mother’s rock and roll either, CSN and Fleetwood Mac didn’t have a sonic landscape that was quite as complex as what Corgan and company were able to pull off with their overly loud and driven guitars. Jellybelly is nothing more than a climax that never quite resolves. The song ends in feedback and I got a breath and a heartbeat before Zero hit. That unmistakable groove hit and built until the breakdown “…..God is empty, just like me”. I had never before heard such sentiment come out of music. I had no idea that artists used music as a form of self expression and therapy. The lyrics to Zero came through loud and clear to an angsty, insecure kid who just wanted to be popular. The rest of that disc was a complete roller coaster of discovery for me. The pink album is a beautiful mix of uptempo killers and very lush and complex ballads like Galapagos and Porcelina. An Ode to No One in particular was a brutal sonic assault..
The pink album comes to a close and I’m wide awake. I’m completely driven to the blue album, still unsure of what I’m about to listen to. Where Boys Fear to Tread is instantly colder in tone than anything on the pink album, I’m aware that this is going to be a different experience. As the song closes I hear an incredible hiss and static. I’m instantly pissed…now is not the time for my walkman to crap out. In the most perfect musical troll imagine my surprise as the static clears to the most perfect love song on the album. Bodies is the unsung hero of the album, quite possibly MC&IS best track. I listen, wrapped up in the synthesizers and loops of 1979, the brutal assault of XYU and the gentle end of it all with the soft voice of the other guitarist.
I had simply never heard music like this before. If you know me you know I’ve never suckled at the teat of Cobain and the idea that 90s music exists because of Nirvana. In MC&IS I found music that was modern and angry but was beautiful and complex. This was Zepplin, Floyd, Crue, the Beatles and Nirvana smashed together where nothing but the important parts were salvaged. Loud guitars didn’t have to equate to the overly machismo that metal exuded (I would not find my love of metal for several years yet) and music that garnered an emotional response didn’t have to be sappy love songs.
I changed instantly that night. I started going out of my way to find counter culture music that was similar to this. Siamese Dream was purchased not long after MC&IS. I sought to replicate the emotions and feelings I got when I listened to this album: I sought out the guitar. The rest is history. I started devouring music in large quantities from almost all genres. I started looking for emotional responses from the music I listened to instead of having it play in the background. The counterculture drove my social life. I became more social, first with the goths and freaks then the theatrical kids and free spirits and finally with everybody. My newfound love of music drove me, gave me confidence and allowed me to sort the troubled emotions that teenagers typically have.
It has shaped my own musical sensibilities. Anybody who has ever had the misfortune of letting me corner them with copies of music that any of my various projects has written can tell you, everything I’ve ever written could be a discarded guitar part or song idea from the Pumpkins.
I’m now 33. Married, 2 kids, corporate sales job. I’m white bread in every meaning of the phrase. But without MC&IS I wouldn’t be here now, aging music snob with a ridiculous knowledge of who plays what guitar, who sings on what track and the spiritual influences of m83s Midnight City. I wouldn’t have the confidence built from years of performance and wouldnt have the social skills borne from interacting with a completly varied group of kids growing up.