Smashing Pumpkins Plan to Release New Double Album in 2020

The Smashing Pumpkins performs on stage during the KROQ Absolut Almost Acoustic Christmas
Photo credit Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for KROQ/Entercom

Smashing Pumpkins plan to drop a new 21-song double album in 2020, according to lead singer Billy Corgan. Founded 32 years ago in Chicago and one of the biggest rock acts of the Nineties, the band has been hard at work in the studio, albeit no longer in Chicago.

Now based in Nashville, where he also owns the National Wrestling Alliance, Corgan and the rest of the band have been working on the new as-yet-untitled record for over a year. “In many ways,” Corgan told the Tennessean, “this is the first real album (since the reunion) where we've hunkered down and made a classic, ‘Let's throw it all at the wall and see what happens’ type of Pumpkins record.”

The band reunited—including founding members James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin—and released their most recent record in 2018, Shiny and Oh So Bright, Vol. 1 / LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun. “It was put out as a formal album, but I said at the time — and I did mean it — in my eyes, it wasn't an album,” said Corgan. “We didn't approach it like we've approached every other album we'd ever done, which is more like making a movie.”
This time, things are different; Corgan reported that the new record will be first since 2000’s Machina that the band has spent a very long time working on. “It’s got a greater conceptual base, and it’s probably a wider swath of music,” he said. “I’m excited about this, because we’re kind of back in the lane of taking a risk, and trying to bring something new to the table, as opposed to just aping what we’re known for.”

The new record does not yet have a release date, but Smashing Pumpkins are set to headline Shaky Knees Music Festival this year in Atlanta, Georgia, which will take place from May 1st to May 3rd.

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