Trivia / The Smashing Pumpkins

• Breakaway Pop Hit: Averted thrice. Two of them by the same song:
  • Smashing Pumpkins included the song "The End is the Beginning is the End" for the soundtrack to the infamous 1997 release Batman & Robin. It never went on the official Billboard Hot 100, and hit #50 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart. (though it charted higher in other countries and would win a Grammy for Best Rock performance)
  • Also on that soundtrack was a Dark Reprise to that song, "The Beginning is the End is the Beginning". And it would pop up a second time for a completely different DC Comics property: 2009's Watchmen. It was never made a single either time, largely being the trailer theme for the latter.
• Chart Displacement: The band's four Top 40 hits are three expected ones ("1979", "Tonight, Tonight", "Bullet with Butterfly Wings") ... and then there's "Thirty-Three", when "Zero" would be more expected, but its single had so many B-sides that Billboard considered it an EP and thus put it on the album chart, peaking at number 46.
• Creator Backlash: Billy seems to regret the first Machina album in hindsight. D'Arcy had quit during recording, the band had a hard time fitting in with the new crop of heavy music, and the concept behind the album was incomprehensible even to the other band members. Sales would drop 60% the second week it was on the charts, and Billy would decide to end the band after releasing Machina II for free online.
  Billy Corgan: The combination of all those elements was a career-killer. Adore didn't alienate our audience, they were just sort of like, "Oh, it's not the record I want." Machina alienated people.
  Jimmy Chamberlain: It was like watching your kid flunking out of school after getting straight A's for ten years.
• Creator Breakdown: Corgan has had several. One particularly horrible one occurred during the making of Siamese Dream and inspired the writing of "Today" while he was contemplating suicide. Another occurred during the making of Adore, triggered by the death of his mother and the firing of Jimmy Chamberlin. Billy has confirmed he underwent one during the recording for Gish too.
  • Billy wasn't the only one who had a rough time of it during Siamese Dream. D'arcy revealed in 2018 she'd had a stress induced miscarriage during recording and never told the rest of the band.
• Development Hell: The Machina albums were to be accompanied by an animated web series called Glass and the Machines of God, which would've hopefully explained the plot more. Aside from a teaser trailer and production stills, nothing came of it.
  • Oceania. Originally scheduled to be released in September 2011. Production wrapped in September. Then pushed back to November, then Early 2012. Billy announced March 2012 as the new released date, but then it was pushed back to 19 June.
  • Album re-issues. They were originally announced back in late 2000 during the break-up.
  • The Last Show (see Grand Finale entry below). Announced along with the Greatest hits CD/DVD.
  • The Machina reissue has gotten this a second time due to legal issues with Corgan's record company.
• Executive Meddling: They've suffered a lot of it. For instance, it's the reason Machina was only released as a single CD and the reason the Machina reissue still hasn't come out. Additionally, for awhile people who bought Siamese Dream would find an eight-page insert with facsimiles of the lyrics reduced to such a small size as to be illegible, rather than the much larger booklet that was originally included with the album, though fortunately, this was switched back later (people who bought it during the time with the eight-page insert are SOL, though).
  • The label initially insisted on making "Let Me Give the World to You" the first single for Adore, though the band objected because the poppy, upbeat, electric-guitar-based song was pretty much the opposite of the rest of the album. They had to cut the song from the final tracklist entirely for the issue to be dropped, and it wouldn't see release until a 2014 deluxe reissue of the album.
• He Also Did: Billy moonlights as a wrestling promoter/booker. He himself said on World of Wrestling that when he found out how far up Schitt's Creek TNA was financially, he immediately regretted offering to buy. (He went by bad financials provided to him by Dixie Carter and co.) He is currently in charge of NWA. The wrestling show, not the hip-hop group.
  • Billy also played on another band, Deep Blue Dream, with Wayne Static.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: Zeitgeist came in six different versions, only one of which actually contained the title track.
  • The entire catalogue from Gish to Machina is receiving this treatment, with releases intended to take place from 2011 to 2015 (all of the releases through Adore have already occurred, but Machina, which is intended to be a full-blown Re-Cut of the album, is evidently stuck in Development Hell due to issues with litigious record companies). Each album, including the b-side collections, is being repackaged with alternate takes, demos, outtakes and a live DVD showcasing the band's set from each album's period. While the first few releases were slim affairs, Mellon Collie emerged with a whopping 5 discs and 1 DVD, and each following release is just getting bigger. Adore featured the vinyl's mono version in digital for the first time, while Machina will be the equivalent of a Director's Cut, sequenced like the original double album that Corgan envisioned, if it ever gets Saved from Development Hell.
• Revival by Commercialization: Once the trailer for Watchmen used "The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning" (coincidentally also made for a DC Comics adaptation), it skyrocketed in iTunes and made the band include it in setlists.
• Romance on the Set: Billy's relationship with Jessica of The Veronicas, started due to him helping her with their third album.
  • James and D'arcy dated during the Gish era, but broke up during the writing of Siamese Dream. This didn't help the Troubled Production.
• Troubled Production: Siamese Dream. Actually, just about all of the albums, to hear Billy tell it.
  • D'arcy herself added that she had no clue how the band survived the Gish recording sessions (which lasted 30 working days), and Billy mentioned he suffered a nervous breakdown from the resulting strain.
• What Could Have Been: "Eye" was originally written as a backing track for a Shaquille O'Neal rap song, with its drum machine and synthesizer-based groove being loosely inspired by Dr. Dre's production style. It was only fleshed out and turned into a Smashing Pumpkins song because their song "Tear" was rejected for inclusion on the Lost Highway soundtrack and the band needed to quickly submit something else.
  • "Today" was originally written as a more straight forward Alt. Rock / Metal song.
  • Adore suffered mostly due to the distant, icy electronics, the strangely bland production (which, as Allmusic noted, makes the songs blend together) and the absence of Jimmy Chamberlain. The studio recordings lacked the energy of Chamberlain's drumming, even with percussion by Matt Walker, Joey Waronker and Matt Cameron. Performed live, however, they sounded much better (or at least, for people who enjoy the original versions of the songs as they are, much more like people expect the Smashing Pumpkins to sound). It's likely Adore would have fared better commercially had the band used the arrangements in the link and better-employed session drummers - and so would have the Pumpkins' post-Mellon Collie career. It didn't help that Corgan was going through major depression during recording, on account of his mother passing.
  • Monuments to an Elegy was going to be followed up with Day for Night, which was going to conclude the Teargarden by Kaleidyscope series, but the poor commercial performance of the album despite a fairly good critical reception, prompted Corgan to postpone the album indefinitely along with Chamberlain and Iha rejoining the band, thus prematurely ending the series and resulting in the band to work on a new concept album series titled Shiny and Oh So Bright instead.
  • Had D'arcy Wretzky rejoined the band in 2018 along with Chamberlain and Iha, it would've been the first time in which the band was a quintet on a permanent basis than on a live-only basis.

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