Memories | The Smashing Pumpkins

Mellon Collie changed my sadness

Ryan M Reading PA, US

It is amazing how much an album can change a person. This album made me feel during a lost time in my teen years. On the outside I looked fine but on the inside I felt empty, lost and rejected. Along came this Mellon Collie, I heard Bullet and it connected, I went with the little money I had and snag this album. Its artwork and double disc had me so excited on the way home. I placed in my CD player popped on my headphones and went on a journey that honestly changed and saved my life. It made me feel again, gave me hope and try. I truly brought me out of a dark place and I did not feel alone. My zero shirt was my shield and badge of honor. Thanks for this amazing album and it still make me feel every time I hear a song or listen to the album.

So Mellon Collie

Jeremy Holden Vilonia, AR, US

I can start the album form the first song and immediately go back in time. I remember falling in love with my wife then and now, it was like I was sharing a piece of my soul with her. It inspired to become a musician, which at the time I gave up because it’s hard to find good band members. Recently, I revisited my musical abilities and wrote a song called “90’s Anthem“ in which I quote this album about how it left me so Mellon Collie…Love your music. Thank you. Let’s make a song together Billy!

Day of Release

Cory Boehm Winnipeg, CA

My first listen to MCIS was in the office of my school paper on release day. People around the office were familiar with SD and the consensus opinion this was a very different sounding release, similar to fans reacting to Cyr today. Many were not a fan of the new sound.

Looking back now I am sure opinions would be very different but it shows how even MCIS was willing to take risks and break with what fans at the time perceived as the band’s sound.

XYU surprise

Lauren Foley Natick, MA, US

For an angsty teenage girl in the 90s MCIS was exactly what I needed. The sweet melodies with the hard rock made me feel seen and heard. My parents took me to see The Rolling Stones at the Orange Bowl on 12/5/97 but I was most excited about the Pumpkins opening. Just when I didn’t think it could get any better, Marilyn Manson came out and sang a few songs including XYU which was my jam. I was in heaven. It was my first concert moment like that and I’ve never forgotten it.

First CD

Jessica Keely Cincinnati, OH, US

I was only in 6th grade when Melancholy came out, but this was during my peak Mtv watching years. I fell in love with the Tonight Tonight music video and Billy’s voice. I saved allowances and skipped lunches a few times in order to finally purchase my first CD(‘s) from the local Best Buy. I still have the set and like to occasionally pull it out and flip through the books that came inside the case and the gorgeous art work. I definitely contribute this as an inspiration to later become a graphic designer. Thank you for having such a huge impact on my life.

Lost in Music

Katrin Berlin, Germany, DE

I was 14, happy that the Berlin Wall was gone, that I don’t have to grow up in a dictatorship. My brother watched a lot MTV, which was absolutely new to us kids from the GDR. It was a Saturday, I was sleeping in, waking up to the midday sun, stumbling into the room of my big brother who was as always watching TV. And there I heard the voice of Billy Corgan for the first time. 1979 hit me as hard as music never hit me before. It was just right, it felt kind of perfect. I begged my parents for money so I can buy the album. So I went to that strange smelling record store in my former GDR-Hometown packed with vinyls from the late 80ies like Karat and Puhdys and Peter Maffay. I hated that stuff. The owner didn’t know Smashing Pumpkins and told me, what he doesn’t know never existed… Long story short…. It took me two weeks, twenty hours of train and bus drive to get to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness…. It was the best trip of my life meeting so many crazy people in the mid 90ies of a country and it’s people meeting the world… Since that it always fells like home to listen to SP or Billy Corgan…. Thank you, you can’t image how much this album means to me…

Explosive introduction

James Hamilton, Ontario, CA

For me, MCIS began with a live radio show from the Riviera Theater on 23 Oct 1995. I tuned in with blank cassette loaded and ready to record. The first song started, a beautiful tune. The second, a hard-hitting rocker. The third….explosions. Yes, I heard explosions. The band stopped playing. There was confusion. Power outage. A truly unique introduction to an amazing album. I still have the cassette.

1996 VMAs

Patrick Bell Pittsburgh, PA, US

The Smashing Pumpkins were the biggest band in the world by the time 1996 Video Music Awards happened. (and the award show used to actually mean something) And they were not just the biggest rock band, the biggest artist period. I’ll never forget how powerful it felt to watch them open the show that year in a sort of crowning ceremony. Watching the clip back always takes me to those memories of how magical it all felt for something this good and this real to rule the musical world.

Toniiiiiiiiiiiiiighttttttttttt 🎶

Gabriel Ly Espoo, FI

Hey!!! This album is a master piece! The first time I listened to it was in the year 1999 when I was living in Perú 🇵🇪 (yes at that time it was hard to get records in our country and I was only 16 yo). I only listened the Dawn to dask disc because a friend of mine borrowed it to me inside a Soundgarden CD case 🤭. The disc immediately blew my mind, every melody, every song, every second of music has a purpose in the whole album and nothing happens there in vain. As I said, I was just 16 when I listened to the album and it brings me so beautiful memories from that time when me and my cousin Rafo were playing this videogame called Blood while the disc was reproducing in a loop! Later I discovered the sounds of the game Doom in Where boys fear to tread, amazing! The song I like the most in this album is Porcelina of the vast oceans, my biggest dream is to listen it live in a concert one day, but I can proudly say that I know by heart the lyrics of all the songs 💓 . Thank you guys (Billy, D’arcy, James and Jimmy) for such a great contribution to the music, no matter where I go or which circumstances of life I would be passing through, this album will always be in my heart and will remind me the most beautiful times I ever lived.

All my love to you!

¡Gracias Smashing Pumpkins!

Halloween Bike Ride

Tony Albuquerque NM, US

When Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness came out in October of 1995 I was 14 years old. I was in 8th grade and It was Halloween. I was going to go trick or treating with my girlfriends who enjoyed grunge music, flannels and smoking. I was going dressing up as girl that year so I put on one of my Moms dresses and hid it under my clothes so she couldn’t see. I rode my bike to my friend Carries house, I had the cassette tape to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness in my walkmen and listened to it on my bike ride to her house on a cold halloween evening. After we trick or treated I had to ride home in the dark listening to that album. This is one of the best memories of my life.

Changed my life

Lianna Northern New Jersey, US

My cousin wanted MCIS for Xmas, 1995. This day changed my life. My mom asked me if I wanted a copy of MCIS as well, being as the CD wasn’t very expensive! I took MCIS home, listened start to finish, looked through all of the lyrics, the books, tried to figure out the band members. This started my 25 year love affair with SP.

Even a decade later, The sadness was infinite

Adam Boivin Manchester, NH, US

Fell in love with the Sadness all over again in HS in 2000-2004. One of the reasons I started playing guitar and play in bands. The monster guitar work and the amazing song crafting still holds up. “1979” is still to this day, my favorite song ever written. I’ve recently become terminally ill and have requested, as I did when I was in high school, be played at my service. Thank you for everything. 🖤

Young Fan!

Nick Ziegenhorn Raymond, IA, US

It all started out in 2018 when I discovered The Smashing Pumpkins. I picked up Gish at a local pawn shop and fell in love. Keep in mind I was 15/16 years old. As soon as I started rocking out to the first two albums, I stumbled across MCIS. I was astonished, every song on this double album was amazing! It’s my favorite album to date. I’ve been enjoying every album since! Thank you William and the Pumpkins!

Growing up with my brother

Dylan East Haddam, CT , US

When I was a little kid I would remember listening to this album with my big brother all the time. I was the youngest by a huge gap so I never got many chances to be with my older siblings, but I’d always love singing along to this album with my brother even though I never “got it”. I know Bullet with Butterfly Wings by heart because as a kid that was my favorite song. The chorus was so badass and my brother loved that I knew that song and knowing that always made me super happy. I’m almost 30 now and I plan on getting a tattoo in the coming year in celebration of that song actually. It’s my earliest memory.

Tonight Tonight

Dustin RALEIGH, US

I’ll never forget that show! I was living in Columbus, Ohio. I took my friend who was from Chicago, she wasn’t a Pumpkins fan at the time! Riverfront Coliseum, Fountains of Wayne opened! The dong I remember the most was Tonight Tonight, with a full orchestra to compliment the song m! It was an epic concert that made my friend a pumpkins fan after that! Still have my ticket stub somewhere too! Can’t wait to get the new album I preordered in the limited color vinyl

Call inside the storm

Rick Indianaplis, Indiana, US

I am an Indiana farm boy almost as cliche as they come. I literally grew up in a small farm house surrounded by cornfields on all sides but one which was a small woods with you guessed it a cornfield behind it. From the age 13 or so to 18 I had two things on my person at all times. One was a basketball because well it’s Indiana and as I said I was as cliche as they come. The second was a Walkman to play music. That music sometimes included Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, and AC/DC among many others due to my parents influence but it always included the Smashing Pumpkins. Describing my family as poor is an understatement. I’m talking government cheese if lucky and mayonnaise sandwiches if not. So my basketball goal was nothing but couple of wood posts that ran side by side up to where a few two by fours were joined across and hammered in to make a backboard. It was finished off by a rim nailed in. The court that started as grass was nothing but dirt in the form of a large circle with edges worn on the sides where I shot from deeper out.

I would spend hours day and night spring, summer, fall and yes winter out there shooting by myself. If you ask me then why I would have told you I did it to get better. Now I know it was much deeper and mainly was to get away from the classic dysfunctional home life a lot of us knew all to well.

Smashing Pumpkins and the Mellon Collie albums where the soundtrack to those long hours outside by myself shooting the basketball and dreaming about all the things I could be and all the things I would never let myself be.

I would love to tell you how things came to be to make this a fairytale but you can probably guess things didn’t work out like that. My life like everyone else’s has had its highs and lows since those early days but there isn’t a note to that album that doesn’t bring back an exact memory from that time in my life and I sometimes put it on and just let them flood in for better or worse. It literally was the soundtrack of my life at one of the most pivotal times of my life. Thanks for creating it. Truly art.

Impossible to find

Jacopo Brigada Milano , IT

I remember clearly, in that days MTV was quite regularly passing “bullet with butterfly wings”, but at that time in Italy “The Smashing Pumpkins” were quite unknown. So trying to reading the name of the band or thhe title of the song, I’ve missed the name of the album. At the end I had gone to the biggest music shop in Milano, looking for “”The Smashing Pumpkins” and i found “Siamese Dream” MC, but nothing else. It was the wrong album, but a great buy. It takes month to have “Mellon Collie …” available in italian music shops. Never understood why

My daughter

Brandon Fletcher Madisonville, US

My daughter Lilyth (Lily from Starlight) Adora (Adore the follow up album). We have shared three Smashing Pumpkins shows together. First Smashing Pumpkins at the Ryman Nashville, TN. Shiny And Oh So Bright in Louisville, KY. And WPC Nashville, TN at the Country Music Hall of Fame. As this album celebrates 25 years today she celebrates 16

The Street Heats The Urgency of Now

Eoin McAuley Donegal, IE

I was 13. Every summer, my best friend and I would go sightseeing and to beaches. That summer he announced he was moving away. We went on one last magnificent trip and had the time of our lives, but as the day ended I felt a creeping wave of melancholy begin to overcome me. 1979 came on in the car home, it was the first time I had ever heard it. I didn’t know then – and I don’t know now – just how it did it, but it perfectly captures my spirit that day; that my childhood was drawing to a close, and there’s nothing I can do about it. That song captured an image of a moment in time when I was on top of the world. Soon after, I went and got the album and that, as they say, was that.

Mellon Collie acted as a teenage survival guide, with a song for every occasion and emotion. I don’t think any album will ever hit me in quite the same way again.

Smashing Pumpkins - Memories!