Merry Christmas to all.

Sometimes Christmas surprises you.  For years I’ve grown complacent with Christmas presents.  Not for others.  For others I go all out spending most of the year trying to figure out exactly what they want.  What I’m referring to is what is given to me.  I’m not bitching about peoples’ generosity, everyone around me is very generous but sometimes their presents miss the mark and I spend most of the day smiling and thanking people for something I’m figuring out how I’m going to return.  This year something different happened.  I’m a huge Smashing Pumpkins fan…if you haven’t noticed in my Billy Corgan manlove.  I’ve purchased all the reissues thus far.The Pumpkins reissues have been one of the best remaster/editions to come out in years.  Though it comes close to the “wall of sound” disaster that ruined Nevermind…it toes close enough to the line to respectfully keep the original sound intact.  Naturally, I admired the Mellon Collie box set from afar.  I thought the Pisces price tag of $40 was steep…but the Mellon Collie set weighs in at over $100.  Granted you get 5 discs worth of material…plus a DVD.  It was still far above what I could handle paying.  I joked with my brother about getting it for me…knowing fair well that he would never cough up the dough for it.  My brother would rather spend $100 on polishing the tires on his Maserati than ever think about doing something like this.  Granted, his tires do get dirty very easily.  I had begun plotting how I might be able to download the bonus tracks though the availability of them was very slim.  I had resigned the fact that this one would be the box set that would just get away.  Then, Christmas morning I unwrapped it.  The last present under the tree happened to be the one thing I wanted that I never thought I’d have.  Though it wasn’t from my brother…it was a bit of a Christmas miracle.

A post about this SP set will be coming shortly…

Here are the Best Albums of 2012 (12-22):

12.  Jeff The Brotherhood – Hypnotic Nights

13.  Chiddy Bang – Breakfast

14.  Of Monsters and Men – My Head Is An Animal

15.  Frank Ocean – Channel Orange

16.  The Raveonettes – Observator

17.  Crystal Castles – III

18.  Craig Finn – Clear Heart Full Eyes

19.  Japandroids – Celebration Rock

20.  Van Halen – A Different Kind of Truth

21.  The Lumineers – The Lumineers

22.  Kendrick Lamar – good kid, maad city (Bonus Track)

Buy these albums and more now!!!