A Sneak Peek...
And this time on "Album within an album" ...
Yes, there is such a thing. An album that is part of a larger album. This is "Oceania" - the eighth studio album by "The Smashing Pumpkins" that celebrates its birthday today.
So today, June 19, 2012, "the Smashing Pumpkins" released their eighth studio album "Oceania".
This album is part of the "Teargarden by Kaleidyscope" mega-album - a huge project that includes 34 songs that the band announced in 2009.
Work on the mega-album began in 2009, following the departure of drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, when the original idea was to release a concept album that would include 44 songs and revolve around the general idea of "tarot cards".
Similar to the album released 9 years earlier, "Machina II / The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music", this time too the intention was to release all the songs from the album for free download only via the internet. In anticipation of the release of the first song in the megalomaniacal project, Billy Corgan believed that albums are "ancient dinosaurs", so he intends to release all of the project's songs through the media and for free.
The first song released from the project in December 2009, was "A Song for a Son", after which the band began releasing another new song every few months. With each collection of songs, the band released an EP that combines the songs that have already been released.
This way, during the years 2009 to 2011, the band released three such EPs, which included 10 songs in total. But then Billy Corgan made a "U-turn" and contradicted himself, claiming that for him, the idea of releasing one song at a time via the internet, had already been exhausted, This was the beginning of the work on "Oceania".
This is the first full-length album with guitarist Jeff Schroeder joining the band after recording the previous album - "Zeitgeist" which was released in 2007, and in which Korgan and Chamberlin played on all instruments.
It is also the only album with drummer Mike Byrne, who will be replaced by Tommy Lee of "Motley Crue" on the recording of the next album - "Monuments to an Elegy" from 2014, until Jimmy Chamberlin's long-awaited return to the band.
Guitarist Jeff Schroeder noted that this album is moving in a softer direction than the band's previous albums.
Corgan noted in a 2012 interview that this is the best album he has created since "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness".
You can figure it out for yourself, just before that we will mention that for us, this album is a kind of combination of "Gish's" roughness with "Adore's" melancholy and electronics.
The album received mostly positive reviews as most critics were unanimous that it was a return to the band's roots album.
And now we will send you on a musical journey with the knowledge that we think there are quite a few good moments on this album: the opening song "Quasar" with the nervous riffs, the heavy production "Wall Of Sound" style and the Hebrew letters that make up the explicit name (Yod He Vav He), the ballad "The Celestials" With vintage and acoustic keyboards, "Panopticon" that Corgan compared his chords to those of Paul McCartney and Wings, the exciting and creepy "Violet Rays", the theme song and 9-minute work "Oceania", and of course "My Love Is Winter" which is in our opinion one of the most beautiful pearls on this album.
Before concluding, it should be noted that the band's next album, "Monuments to an Elegy", which was released in 2014, was the final chord of that "mega-album" project. A total of 34 songs were released as part of the project, when in August 2018 Corgan announced that he was finally abandoning the ambitious project.
In February 2018, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin returned to the band, and the three original members began work on the band's tenth album to be released in November of that year.
And now let's listen to the album: Spotify, Apple Music