this album came into my life at a time I feel that it was meant to. I’d just moved with my family from my childhood home to an apartment, and it was an incredibly tense time. Not just the move, but there was tension so great between my parents that it was affecting me in darker ways that I knew. It was like a heavy, toxic black cloud of confusion and stress. So I had no one I felt I could talk to, but I had music. And at the time I was just discovering the Smashing Pumpkins. Didn’t take me long to get heavily into the amazing music of this band. I ordered a copy of MCIS and when I tell you I locked myself in my room and listened to this album for hours every day, repeatedly, I mean it. I to this day have never heard anything like it. The music and lyrics across the landscape of MCIS hit the mark of every new, strange, scary, fucked up emotion that was flowing through me. I’d close my eyes, and listen, and cry. And scream. And sing. And as I found out more about what was going on with my parents, as frightening as that situation was, I had this album to cover me up like a blanket of security. It made me stronger. Because I have found solace through my grief, and even compassion for my parents and what they were going through. This album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, is all of those things — love, anxiety, loneliness, hate, guilt, regret, grief, bliss, joy — and really it’s about transformation. I know I went through a transformation and still am. I would not have done it as well, at that particular time in my life, if I didn’t have this album to help guide me. It gave me a release that the band who created it may never know, but I will always, always be grateful for it all my life. Thank you The Smashing Pumpkins and Happy Anniversary to this profoundly moving masterpiece ✨