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

Infinite sadness

Taylor Sesser Illinois , US

I brought my new 2 disc album on my 8th grade field trip. I let a friend borrow 1 disc and I never got it back. From then on I always listened to the 1 disc with sadness knowing I was missing out on the other half

Thirty-Three

Robbie Rancho Cucamonga, CA , US

it was 2015 when my grandmother passed. I was a basket case for about two years. one day at my lowest, I was looking at my favorite photo of her and I and “Thirty-Three” was playing. the amount of peace I suddenly felt, I will never be able to describe. this song saved my life.

Lily (My One and Only)

Jenny Manchester, The North, GB

I was
teaching English in St. Nazaire, FR. “Lily” was adored by a very nice
French lady who otherwise was hard to interest as she’d recently lost a child.
So it was nice to be able to entertain her a bit. Btw ALL self-proclaimed “free-market
libertarian capitalist”s can fuck right off and STFU. Sad.

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.

“I used to be a little boy…”

Lee Crossley Melbourne Victoria, AU

13 years old. Country town in outback Australia, population 900. Older brother returns for uni break with double CD, one disc blue, the other pink. Insert blue. Piano intro. Hooked. Segue to ‘Tonight,Tonight’. Banger after banger. My first taste of SP leads to Siamese Dream, still my fave album to this day. I’ve been down many YouTube rabbit holes but always end up at the same place: Full Concert 4/27/94, Fillmore Auditorium. Play it loud, close my eyes and let the memories flood back: “I used to be a little boy…” 

Tonight, tonight

Javier ES

I bought MCIS album an autumn afternoon. That very night I kissed the girl I was in love with (kind of deep infatuation. So lyrics of tonight,tonight were always linked to that moment. The sound and atmosphere of mcis always bring me memories of that stage of my life.

The album of my life

Victoria ES

I was at high school struggling to fit, daydreaming like every other teenager in the 90s when your music found me. I discovered who I was, but more importantly, who I wanted to be. It also influenced my career choice (I’m an English Philologist) I learned so much English with your outstanding lyrics. I’m happy to say your music it’s part of who I am and SP will accompany me till the end of my days. MCIS for me is “ THE DOUBLE ALBUM” of the 90s. It’s just perfection. Such an accomplishment as musicians. Been present in many important and pivotal moments of my life. On a lighter note, I bought a very expensive acoustic guitar just to play your tunes and sing along at home. I tried to learn how to play Tonite Reprise during lockdown. It helped with anxiety. It still does. By the way, I recently got a tattoo of Méliès moon, which in part was also an homage to that sacred album. I will never thank you enough ♥️

Love

Luis Lisboa, PT

Well I had a crush on a beautiful girl from my Arts class. One day she asked me to hear something on her Discman and it started like this: “The world is a vampire”

Long story short, I didn’t get the girl but from that day on I found my favourite band, you guys.

With you I laughed and I cried, I loved and I hated, I resignated and I rebelled. With you and your songs I live and I inspire myself. 

And that’s why, without any doubt, for me MCIS is the best album of all times.

Thank you Billy, James, Jimmy and D’Arcy for your art!

25 years later the world is still a vampire…but Tonight, Tonight…we are not Zero’s…we live In the Arms of Sleep…and Thru the Eyes of Ruby…and By Starlight…hearing the gentle flight of the Cupid de Locke…we Love…until the moon says Farewell and Goodnight.

It’s Still The Greatest Album Ever

Brian Lexington, MA, US

In college, whilst travelling to Track & Field meets, would have “ritual” of listening to the entire album on the ride to get “pumped up”.

Infinite sadness

Carl Stockholm, SE

The first time I properly listened to MCIS was on the night of my grandfathers funeral. I had bought the record on vinyl just a few days earlier, but never really properly listened to SP before so i didn’t really know what to expect. I sat that entire night just listening to MCIS, over and over again, and it really helped in soothing me in that moment of grief. Your music managed to turn a horrible moment of my life into something that I will cherish and remember for the rest of my life, and I cannot thank you enough for that. 

Shakedown 2009

Marco Beirut, LB

I think it was 2009 or 2010. We used to have Guitar Hero & Singstar on our consoles and my brothers and I played them to death at the time. Strangely, two songs stuck with me over the years: Today and 1979.  These songs were different but they pulled me in anytime I play them. Several years later, Mellon Collie is now one of my favorites and influential albums in my life. The variety, structures, and emotions in these 28 songs amazed me, giving me a sense of nostalgia for innocent youth and a big catharsis. I’ll cherish these songs and this album as long as I can. I’m patiently for my Vinyl copy soon.

The Summer if Kott’s

Nathaniel Hornblower Jr. US

Summer of 96, between 8th grade and Freshman, year I went on a double date to Knott’s Berry Farm. For a short time there was a two story cafeteria called Air Headz? They had big screens always playing current music videos and this album’s videos were constantly played. Tonight, Tonight especially brings fond memories of that moment time. Best summer of my life. I’m such a nerd.

Cousin Bobby and the Life Changing Advice.

Kyle Turlock, US

My older cousin Bobby who was the coolest dude I knew told me that this should be my first cd. I was 8 in 97 and I went to my local record store and bought the last copy available. Listened to it over 100 times just so I could tell Bobby how much I loved it: I’ve since lost and bought it three more times.

I was 15 and it was my first Big Rock Show!

Craig Smith Cobblebank, AU

I was 15 and it was my first Big Rock Show!
March 8, 1996, 1 had general admin tickets, with a couple of highschool friends, i couldn’t tell you who the support acts were, what i can tell you about is the showmanship, the way Billy played with the crowd, the excitement hearing the Melon Collie track start, the explosiveness of Jimmy’s drums kicking into Tonight, Tonight.

The crowd was like one, together, in unison. The 3 encore’s played with Billy trying to sneak back onto stage and getting caught out, well he was wearing silver pants!

It was also the moment i fell in love with ‘Mayonaise’, a love that still stands today…

Thank you guys and girls, for bringing this show to Melbourne, Australia all those years ago, you definitely changed this guy forever

Captured Adolescence

Shawn US

MCIS was released mere weeks after my 13th birthday. It epitomized absolutely everything it was to be a sensitive teenager growing up in rural USA during the 90s. The sweet octave twinklings of the title track launched into the most uplifting, orchestral ballad I’d ever heard. “God, I have my whole life ahead of me” I remember thinking.

Lyrical Notes

Michael Brooklyn Park, AU

In 1996 my friends and I would pass notes during chapel in high school with semi-completed lyrics from MCIS so others could complete them. It was a great distraction! So much love for that album.. 

Porcelina of the Vast Ceiling

Walter Fowler Orem, UT, US

At my junior high, the ninth grade studio art students had the opportunity to paint a ceiling tile with whatever they wanted. After being introduced to SP the summer before, I decided to immortalize the MCIS cover, because in my eyes it felt genuine, unique, and reflected an interest of mine. It’s nowhere near perfect, but the passion I felt was the only thing that mattered in the moment. I’ve since moved away, but I know that a part of me and SP will always be there in the ceiling to be seen and hopefully listened to by other junior high students in need of a phenomenal album. 

MCIS alternative album cover

Abdul Wahid Lahore, PK

So im a young Pumpkins fan that got into them recently (this year so as to speak) and fell in love with them almost immediately. After listening to the mainstream SP music i decided to dig deeper and found Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness, and got hooked to it. Listen to it everyday since then. 

I decided to make this fanart one day while listening to 1979, after reading a Youtube comment that said the artstyle for MCIS looked familiar to Victorian style art. I hope you all love it 

Like smoke

Bryan Kannapolis NC, US

This album help me come to grips with the loss of my grandmother, whom I was very close to, the death of my own band, and the new journey I found myself in to find God

Escape from reality

Vanessa Oshawa, Ontario, CA

When I was around 8-9 my family was going through a lot of crazy shit and I used to hang out with my neighbour 24/7 to get away from it. We listened to this album front to back so many times and played Mario kart. Today I’m 33 (👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻) still listen to SP albums when I just need to chill out or scream/sing!

Beautiful, you’re beautiful forever!

Leila Salvador Curitiba-Parana, BR

I have a truly MCIS history. It was about 23 years ago when I was listening Beautiful over and over again, when I heard a car brake and unfortunately it was
my dog named Pretinha 🐶! she was run over… she died in my arms 😭 and since then I’ve never been able to listened this song again… I can sing the entire song in my head but I don’t have the courage to play it again!
I love ❤ this amazing album and I have lots of good memories too, thanks for everything! Love you Billy!