The Smashing Pumpkins may well have become irrelevant around the time Billy Corgan began to look like Charlie Brown, but I still think they’re cool. Possibly because they embodied the Generation X slacker ethos better than anyone. If you were pissed off in the late 90s and couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it but watch movies ironically and wear plaid, there was almost certainly a Zero T shirt in your cupboard.
Luckily for me the Pumpkins – well, Billy Corgan and some other people are regaining their credibility by releasing a 44 track album for free from their site. A new track every week or so, by the looks of things. They’ll eventually be collected up into four 11 track EPS. Eshewing the music industry conventions has become the defacto statement by 90s alt rockers – NIN being the other big name – sticking it to the man by releasing apps rather than albums.
We’ve always said on this blog that the ‘get signed, release a CD’ is not the only way a band can get their music out there. Nice to see Mr Corgan et al going their own way.
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Do you like Smashing Pumpkins?
Yeah, I love doing that!