The Smashing Pumpkins Bring Back The Aeroplane Flies High for Its 30th Anniversary
Thirty years after The Smashing Pumpkins turned the songs surrounding Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness into something much bigger, The Aeroplane Flies High is heading back to vinyl.
The band have announced a 30th anniversary reissue of the 1996 collection, due 18 December via UMe. It will be released as a five-LP set, with a limited-edition coloured vinyl version also available. It marks the first vinyl release of the collection since 2013.
The Aeroplane Flies High was originally released as a five-CD box set in July 1996, expanding five of the singles from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness: ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’, ‘1979’, ‘Zero’, ‘Tonight, Tonight’ and ‘Thirty-Three’.
Each single was accompanied by its own selection of B-sides, rarities and covers, including The Cars’ ‘You’re All I’ve Got Tonight’, Blondie’s ‘Dreaming’ and The Cure’s ‘A Night Like This’.
That makes the collection an interesting document of where The Smashing Pumpkins were at the time. Mellon Collie had become a huge record, but the material surrounding it showed just how much the band were producing during the same period.
Songs such as ‘Set The Ray To Jerry’, ‘Cherry’, ‘The Boy’ and ‘Ugly’ have gone on to become favourites in their own right, while the collection also showed the band moving between different sounds rather than simply repeating what had worked on the main album.
The five-LP reissue keeps the original structure intact, with the expanded versions of the five singles spread across the set.
The announcement arrives as the Pumpkins are already looking back at the Mellon Collie era on their current Rats In A Cage tour. The tour began on 30 September and features two sets, with one centred on Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and another drawing from across the band’s catalogue.
There is something particularly interesting about revisiting The Aeroplane Flies High now. It wasn’t simply a collection of leftovers from Mellon Collie. Some of its songs have remained important parts of the band’s wider catalogue, while the sheer scale of the original release reflected just how much creative ground the Pumpkins were covering at the time.
Thirty years on, the collection is getting another turn on vinyl. For a band with such a deep and heavily revisited catalogue, The Aeroplane Flies High remains one of the more revealing records from their most prolific period.
The Smashing Pumpkins’ The Aeroplane Flies High 30th anniversary reissue is released 18 December 2026 via UMe.
