Details for the next title in the ongoing Smashing Pumpkins reissue series, a new edition of the box set The Aeroplane Flies High, have been announced. Originally released in 1996 after the success of the diamond-certified double-album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (itself the latest notch in the Pumpkins’ reissue campaign, with a six-disc box set edition released last year), Aeroplane collated and expanded all of the CD singles released to promote that album, featuring “Bullet with Butterfly Wings,” “1979,” “Zero,” “Tonight, Tonight” and “Thirty-Three” with their many respective B-sides. Initially intended as a…

Iconoclastic Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan, never one for subtlety or restraint, is continuing the ongoing Smashing Pumpkins reissue campaign this holiday season with a humongous six-disc edition of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The Pumpkins’ most ambitious project at the time, the double-album Mellon Collie was described by Corgan as “The Wall for Generation X.” Produced Corgan with Flood and Alan Moulder, Mellon Collie attempted to showcase the band closer to how they were heard live. Songs were more thoroughly rehearsed before recording, and guitarist James Iha and D’Arcy Wretzky had a greater role in…

For Generation X, fewer names inspire emotions quite like Smashing Pumpkins. The Chicago-based alt-rock outfit, anchored primarily by singer, songwriter and sole remaining original member Billy Corgan, made rock music that was dark, atmospheric and ambitious – and yet somehow maintained commercial as well as critical success – before splintering in 2000 and reforming some six years later. While Corgan continues to lead Smashing Pumpkins through some interesting projects – he’s been working on a 44-song cycle, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, since 2009, mostly releasing one song at a time (save for a…