The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan recently spoke about the band’s new album ‘ATUM’ and the composition process. The frontman expressed his concerns about how difficult it is to create fresh music. He stated: “When you’re making 33 songs like that, you know you have good days and bad days, and the bad days are like, ‘Oh my God, not only am I making something that’s totally insane and way too much work, but who’s gonna listen to this thing when it’s done?'” Corgan recalls submitting the record and receiving numerous negative responses. He went on to say:
“Even when I gave the record to the people we were working with at the time, they said, ‘This is a terrible idea, don’t release it, it’s career suicide.'” They said what they said to me about ‘Mellon Collie’ [And The Infinite Sadness]. We ended up splitting our commercial relationships with those people, and it all worked out in the end.” Despite receiving negative comments from their collaborators, the band maintained faith in their audience. He elaborated: “So I just- I give it to the power of music, which is that if you put your faith in music and trust your audience to know when you’ve done something good, you’ll know when you’ve done something good.
” On paper, it appears to be a lot to take on, but at the end of the day, people simply want excellent music, and if that means listening to it once and finding the five songs they enjoy, I’m completely fine with that.” Despite his reservations, Corgan wanted everything to proceed as planned while working on the record. This was until a fan contacted Corgan and said that nine of the album’s songs had been leaked, prompting a hacker to demand payment for the data. Fortunately, the FBI intervened and was able to stop the leak.
The album ‘ATUM’ was released on May 5th and comprises 33 tracks. You may listen to it here or watch the interview below.
