Any news on Oceania?
Any news on Oceania?
Actually, yes, though not regarding a release date: http://mashable.com/2012/02/28/bill-corgan-sxsw-album/
It's now supposed to be an ~album experience~. Hate to say it, but however strong the material may be, I have very little faith that the release will work out well. Just look at how they've handled the official site in the past couple of years.
Oceania will be released on 06/19 via EMI.
Here is an article with a past Corgan quote briefly discussing the recording; http://stereogum.com/987552/the-smas...-details/news/
Tracklist;
01 “Quasar/Stella P And The People Mover”
02 “Panopticon”
03 “The Celestials”
04 “Violet Rays”
05 “My Love Is Winter”
06 “One Diamond, One Heart”
07 “Pinwheels”
08 “Oceania”
09 “Pale Horse”
10 “The Chimera”
11 “Glissandra”
12 “Inkless”
13 “Wildflower”
Billy also recently did an interview with Alex Jones. Not going to get into my thoughts on him (hint: they're not particularly good) but it's relatively interesting and touches on a lot of social/political subjects.
Billy interviews starts approx at the 1h 04m mark.
Last edited by AgentofChaos; 04-01-2012 at 12:23 PM.
Is he still with that cult? I'm not trolling; the massive Rolling Stone piece published on Billy a few years ago had him talking about his role in an extremely dodgy L.A. spirituality scheme.
Billy's a pitiful son of a bitch. I wish him the best but can only anticipate the worst. One of my favourite critics, Matthew Perpetua, wrote an excellent short piece on Smashing Pumpkins' "Luna", which you can read here: http://www.fluxblog.org/2011/12/the-...ee-you-through. As speculation on why he is the way he is goes, it's top-shelf.
Wasn't aware of any cult. I remember reading an article that, while they were recording the Zwan album, that he would frequent some evangelical. Think he even called himself Billy Burke in the album credits. Might have been the Guy's name. Personally, Billy needs to keep his religion and faith out of his music. That's when it all started struggling.
pretty sure billy's always flirted with spiritual overtones in some of the old material- both angst and reverence. perhaps not as blatant as it is now though.
He made a few references on the older albums. But he didn't go basing almost entire albums based off his spirituality. He managed perfectly fine before he went all superchrist on us with Machina onwards. Machina was very god-like, but it wasn't as bad as being too blatant about it and writing entire songs about Jesus (Owata) . Happy Billy is fine. But a lot of this religious stuff just comes off forced most of the time.
In an interview with ABC News Radio, frontman Billy Corgan says that he gave himself total creative freedom as he developed the songs for the album.
”We've shifted back into a mindset of, like, we must make great music at a very high level and if the song is 11 minutes long, well then that's, the song's 11 minutes long,” says the singer. “Oceania has two songs, like, one's seven minutes long, one's 10 minutes long. So, we're back in the mode of just, like, let's just make the best music possible.”
Corgan added that he had a wealth of material to choose from as he put the album together. “The 13 songs in Oceania are probably culled down from about 30 or 40 songs,” notes Corgan. “I kind of went into it how I'd made the albums in the '90s. The way I used to work would be like, 'OK, I'm going to take the best rock song, the best pop song, the best moody song and just go from there' and so I went back to the way that I used to work, and so it has that kind of sense of diversity in the album."
Oceania is now up for preorder on Amazon for Digipak and Vinyl BTW.
As far as the cult stuff goes, it's pretty baseless. He really just spent a lot of time in LA hanging out with some hippies a few years ago when he didn't know what to do with himself, sleeping on Kerry Brown's couch. Harmless stuff seeing as how the drug use was pretty limited; non existant on BC's part, and Kerry's kids were around quite often. Sadly however, Sky Saxson has passed (Freak), Mark Tulin (played bass at a few shows) has also passed, and he is also no longer working with/on good terms with producer Kerry Brown so he's definitely moved on from that phase of his life. A song like Quasar has spiritual undertones but is very broad, comparable to some earlier Pumpkins that merely brushed the subject. He spent a ton of time in Austrailia recently, and the rumor is Oceania is mostly about his time there and his relationship with his gf, one of the Veronicas. In the last year he has worked with Carina Round and Cherri Bomb on their new records in some capacity too (although it doesn't look like much from either sessions made the final cut). These days, it seems he has a new band manager, and is working on getting tighter with the band. That being said Jeff is always MIA or back at school, Nicole is doing her side project band, and Mike is still basically just a kid. I actually don't think he has much socializing time available now to be honest, since he his long distance relationship, a new wrestling promotion, the chicago tea house, his book, and the reissues to keep focused on outside of finishing up this record and working on the best way to promote/release it.
Also In case anyone was wondering, Oceania was produced/mixed by legendary Canadian Dave Bottril (King Crimson, Tool, Dream Theater, Peter Gabriel, Muse) which is a pretty good sign if you are worried about the Loudness wars... he discusses his thoughts here: http://shawnbradley.canadianmusician.com/?p=301
Apparently the other night there was an Oceania listening party according to at least one person on twitter; https://twitter.com/#!/StellaMowen/s...20045743546368 although no details have been scrounged up yet.
Lastly, just because I'm feeling this vibe on a rainy Sunday afternoon, and I don't want to post any live spoilers Oceania tracks if you've been avoiding them, here's a clip that shows what Billy is still capable of. This was a couple years ago, during the Spirits in the Sky tour, probably the best thing they've ever done since the reunion in my opinion. It is a "loose" cover of Quicksilver Messenger Service's 'Long Haired Lady' featuring Dave Navarro. The quality of this clip is excellent, and the end is well, just hair stand straight up on your arm epic. If you have yet to experience this, enjoy!
Last edited by AgentofChaos; 04-01-2012 at 01:06 PM.
My problem is with the teargarden stuff. Most of it just sounds lazy and rushed. So if he actually chilled out and took his time, the end product shouldn't be so bad. I know he's still got plenty of tricks left up his.sleeve.
Aw, man, he should definitely keep Navarro on board. *sigh* Those two together, wow.
Billy's apparently a total workaholic: He's worked on this album, other people's albums, reissuing his own albums, he's opening a tea house this month, he's writing a book, he runs that Resistance Pro wrestling thing ... I don't think the guy ever sleeps.
Interesting interview, thanks.
Last edited by allegro; 04-01-2012 at 03:37 PM.
Thanks for coming around with some straight talk, AgentofChaos. I'm actually excited for this now, and not just wincing about it. At least with Bottril on board, even if the songs are greasy ass, they'll sound pretty.
Just heard Iha's new album. Pretty cool. Billy should get on his knees and beg for forgiveness.
The blog he wrote where he chucked someone out of his wedding reception was so funny. Love SP but billy is a bizarre character. Has anyone read that terrible bio of the pumpkins? Tales of a scorched earth or something. Its SO melodramatic and wannabe poetic, its hilarious. I am not exaggerating, it reads like "i am one burst from the earth in a shower of cobalt sparks, waking so many sleeping minds like a brilliant candle from the eye of orion"... I really felt like the author was sighing contently as she wrote it
Judging by some 2011 soundboard live shows that I heard (which have 6 or 7 Oceania songs) the album's gonna be good. At least better then previous Teargarden material (which itself is not so bad to me, though I know most of you don't agree)
I heard two of the songs and thought they were decent. YouTube videos though. I think he got the memo that the one song at a time thing wasn't so favorable.
I haven't cared for anything this band (or should I just say Billy) has released since Zeitgeist in 2007.
I actually really, really enjoyed that album and it was an amazing comeback album from the Pumpkins.
All those mp3 recorded songs he shot out every other month were so bland and boring to me, they didn't pack a punch what-so-ever.
So I'm hoping they can redeem themselves with this one, I haven't listened to any of the bootlegged songs that were played on tour of the songs that will show up on this album, so i'm excited to sit down and listen to it all for the first time as a studio album.
I really enjoy the artwork though!
Neither did I. I'm hopeful towards the new stuff though. Possibly Billy's return to form (hopefully). Artwork is pretty nifty.
http://www.discogs.com/Smashing-Pump...elease/3580547
released as a consolation gift for late shipping on gish & siamese dream. anyone know if 'blissed' is an exclusive song, or the infamous (and great) 'blissed and gone' from the adore sessions?
From SP forums:
The song is an acoustic song. If I had to take a stab at it, I would put it around Mellon Collie. Kind of has that feel of songs on the Tonight, Tonight single.
The vocals are rather quiet but here are the first lines
In bliss what is missed
What is got forgotten
I’m asleep i can’t see
Everyone is laughing
Runs at about 3:00.
links can be found there: http://www.smashingpumpkins.com/boar...c=18358&st=528
didn't check the quality tho
thanks! just found it on youtube via the link you posted. pretty good!
will have to wait until tonight to download otherwise.
Was just listening to some of the new songs (the live versions on youtube of course) and wow. I sincerely think this album will be pretty great.
So Teargarden was scrapped, or? (That piece of shit.)
I love The Smashing Pumpkins, although most of their catalog is just "average". Mellon Collie is one of my favorite albums of all time though. So Skinny Puppy has a couple of side projects projects....one being the Tear Garden (founded in 1986) and Ohgr's Welcome to Collidoskope (2010). Hmmmm.....
pretty sure that's a coincidence.
Oceania is part of Teargarden, but it's own standalone album as well. An "album within an album", if that makes any sense.
I also read on Crestfallen that the Mellon Collie deluxe editions will have an alternate studio version of X.Y.U. on it, and that the SPRC will also be getting another version of X.Y.U in the near future. I wonder if it's a version like the live one off of The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music demo. I always thought that "Never Say Never" worked damn well in that version.
Well, supposedly Oceania is part of the Teargarden stuff. But that was probably an excuse to release albums again. I wouldn't be surprised if he were scrap the idea after the album comes out. He has come out and said that the one song at a time idea didn't work. So my bet is that he'll either change the way he records for Teargarden (traditional EP and LP) , but just scrap it altogether.