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Album of the week

Oceania is the eighth studio album from The Smashing Pumpkins, released in June 2012. Produced by Billy Corgan and Bjorn Thorsrud, the album forms part of the band's 34-track project album, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope. Corgan said the album is partly about "people struggling to find a social identity in today's fast-paced, technology-rich culture", adding "I think alienation seems to be the key theme – alienation in love and alienation in culture". The album peaked at #4 on the Billboard 200 and #1 on the Independent Albums chart. A live performance of the album, Oceania: Live in NYC, was released in September, 2013.

Song of the day

"Where Boys Fear to Tread" is the opening track to the Dawn to Dusk half of Smashing Pumpkins' diamond-selling Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The song samples an explosion sound from the computer video game Doom. It began with a 1993 Usenet joke where it was proposed that the next Doom computer game be called Smashing Pumpkins Into Small Piles Of Putrid Debris (SPISPOPD). The software company responded with adding the cheat code "idspispopd", and the Pumpkins nodded to it by sampling the explosion sound. "Where Boys Fear to Tread" was performed extensively during the Infinite Sadness tour and sporadically ever since, where it is sometimes titled "The Bomb" on the setlists.

Did you know...

  • ...that "The Crying Tree of Mercury" had an online interactive music video directed by Billy Corgan that was released by MTV?
  • ...that the original concept for the "Tonight, Tonight" video was for a Busby Berkeley theme, with "people diving into champagne glasses", but Red Hot Chili Peppers did a similar video for "Aeroplane", almost identical to what the band wanted to do?
  • ...that the In Ashes animated series was named after Sumerian Records CEO, Ash Avildsen? The joke was that by signing with Sumerian Records, The Smashing Pumpkins and Sumerian are "going to go up in flames … and end up in ashes."
  • ...that the Pumpkins' July 17, 1998 performance was a free show that drew upwards of 125,000 fans, and that the mayor declared July 17 "Smashing Pumpkins Day"?
  • ...that Billy Corgan briefly worked with basketball superstar and rapper Shaquille O'Neal? Corgan began work on a track loosely inspired by Dr. Dre, but the collaboration fell through. The drumbeats that survived were used in "Eye", which appeared on the Lost Highway soundtrack.

Today in history July 13

Releases

Charts

  • 1996: "Tonight, Tonight" peaked at #5 on the US Alternative Airplay (Billboard) chart

Live shows

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