The new album by the Smashing Pumpkins, Oceania, is now available to stream in its entirety on iTunes.
Deciding to abandon the traditional album launch structure, the Smashing Pumpkins have deliberately elected not to have any singles or videos prior to the release. Like Radiohead's King of Limbs last year, Oceania has been simultaneously revealed to everyone indiscriminately at the same time. Billy Corgan has been quite vocal about this idea, saying the band were "dead set on making an album where every song was just as valuable as any other, ignoring the typical claptrap you hear about needing a single. The only way to make the case that every song on Oceania is worth hearing is to put your heart into the sequence as a cohesive whole."
The link to the stream can be found here.
Pre-orders for the album can be made this week, with it's in-store release occurring on June 19th.
Oceania is part of a larger project by the Smashing Pumpkins in the form of a 44-sng cycle called Teargarden By Kaleidyscope, an "album-within-an album". An interesting idea indeed, considering the track listing for Oceania alone references a mythical beast, the brighest known object in the universe and a still-hypothetical idea for a prison first proposed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham.
"I've been adamant in stressing that as a group, first and foremost, we are here to make new music together," says Corgan. "I'm proud to say that on Oceania I feel we've cut our own path forward. Jeff, Mike, and Nicole have all made significant contributions to the tone and texture of Oceania, which is an album that is unlike any I've ever made. Yet at the same time I believe it upholds the same musical values I've always pushed for with The Pumpkins, be they progressive, emotional, epic, or restless."
Here's the track listing:
Quasar
Panopticon
The Celestials
Violet Rays
My Love is Winter
One Diamond, One Heart
Pinwheels
Oceania
Pale Horse
The Chimera
Glissandra
Inkless
Wildflower