Smashing Pumpkins Catalog Gets Revisited, Re-Released By EMI

Posted on Apr 27th 2011 12:41AM by Benjy Eisen
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Tim Mosenfelder, Getty Images

The Smashing Pumpkins have sold more than 30 million albums in their time and it looks like it's almost time for at least some of those buyers to purchase them all over again. Yes, it's the Smashing Pumpkins' turn to get the full-on remastered, reissue treatment. On Tuesday, EMI Music announced extensive plans to re-release the band's entire catalog over the next few years. As with all things Smashing Pumpkins, ringleader Billy Corgan will be the man behind the steering wheel -- the band has the rights to all their unreleased material and will be overseeing all aspects of the catalog releases.

In a previous interview with Spinner, Corgan admitted that, in hindsight, he thought breaking up the Smashing Pumpkins in 2000 was a mistake. "The band was very alternative and yet at the same time we were very popular," he said. "We sold lots of records but we did things that were completely the opposite of what you were supposed to do to sell lots of records. Always a contradiction. Always playing with the energies. And, you know, in rock 'n' roll, people like real simple stories. 'Genius rolls out of bed, shoots heroin, writes a great song' -- perfect. You know what I mean? Being sober, articulate, shadowy, confusing, religious; I get why that's not an easy sell. But I think the work is there. Yeah, drama a plenty; it's a bad TV movie -- but the music is there. The music is there."

And on that note, the band's albums from 1991 to 2000 will be rolled out anew, beginning with 'Gish' (1991), 'Siamese Dream' (1993) and 'Pisces Iscariot' (1994) this fall. The album that many have their eye on already, the career-defining 'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,' (1995) will be re-released next year, along with 'The Aeroplane Flies High' (1996) and 'Adore' (1998). And, for the first time ever, the band's companion albums from 2000 -- 'Machina/The Machines of Gods' and 'Machina II: The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music' -- will be combined into one package.

But with all this new music in the form of remastered and previously unreleased material comes the promise of actual new music from the Pumpkins. Sporting a different lineup than the one from their classic era (Corgan is the sole original member), the reunited band has been steadily releasing a trickled rollout of new material since late 2009. It was then that Corgan announced their plans for a 44-song masterwork, 'Teargarden By Kaliedyscope,' which would surface in small increments over a four year span. While the eventual result will be a physical package (available in multiple different configurations, of course), two sections have already been released as bundled four-song EPs. The individual songs have been and will be available for free, on the Internet, as they're finished.

And now, Corgan says, the 'Teargarden' experiment will be interrupted this May, when the band enters the studio to record 10 new tracks for 'Oceania' -- a more traditional album, in a way, but one that will eventually become "an album within an album," as 'Oceania' is actually just another part of the 'Teargarden' series.

Whew. In short, Pumpkins fans have a lot to look forward to in the next few years.

Watch Billy Corgan's Revealing 2009 Spinner Interview