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| Smashing Pumpkins |
Rockers Smashing Pumpkins are about to unleash their latest
CD, Oceania, to the world on 19 June. It's their first stand-alone album since
2007's Zeitgeist, and one which originated as part of the massive concept
project Teargarden By Kaleidyscope. Beginning in 2009, the Pumpkins - frontman
Billy Corgan, bassist Nicole Fiorentino, guitarist Jeff Schroeder and drummer
Mike Byrne - started slowly revealing the 44-song Teargarden set, releasing a
song at a time with a plan to issue 11 four-song EPs. In early 2011, however, Billy
decided to focus on a batch of songs that became the "album within an
album" Oceania. I'm looking forward to making one cohesive
statement," he told MusicRadar last April, "the idea that you can say
something bigger with a group of songs. And if it pushes me harder to write
better music, and people only end up listening to the three best songs, I can
live with that. In the past that would have really pissed me off." MusicRadar
spoke with Billy again last October, after he and the band had finished
recording Oceania, and he was positively ebullient: "The good news is that
the response to the new music is overwhelmingly positive," he said.
"It's kind of weird, though, because I got used to people saying, 'Yeah,
it's good, but…' There was always a 'but' there. [laughs] This is the first
record I've had in 15 years where there's no 'but.' Now it's just 'Wow!
Amazing…epic…wow!' There's a lot of 'wow!'". The Smashing Pumpkins have
created one of the most acclaimed bodies of work in musical history having sold
more than 30 million albums, and won multiple Grammy awards in the process.
Formed in Chicago in 1988, they released Gish, their influential and platinum
debut in 1991, which was followed by albums including the nine-time platinum
Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness and the four-time platinum Siamese
Dream, as well as the platinum certified 1998 album Adore. The pivotal group’s many hits defined the
alternative music era and continue to resonate on modern rock radio,
influencing a whole new generation. The
band returned in 2007 with their acclaimed sixth album Zeitgeist. They have
since remained on the cutting edge of music and technology with various online
releases.
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