Smashing Pumpkins Have Five Countdowns Underway

Smashing Pumpkins typically haven’t been about doing things small in their career and their latest “tease” is no exception. We’ve seen acts do countdowns on their websites and social media before, but Smashing Pumpkins currently have five countdowns running on their website.

Each of the countdowns are posted in different colors, 21 days apart. The first of the countdowns is set to run out 11 days from now at midnight (Aug. 16), with the second coming in 32 days, a third in 53 days, a fourth in 74 days and a fifth in 95 days. So what does it all mean?

The first thought is often new music, and with the separation of the countdowns that would put the final offering coming on Nov. 19. Given that most songs appear on streaming services at midnight ET, when each of the countdowns tick down for the day, it feels as though this could be the arrival of new songs. It’s also easy to see how a rollout of new songs every three weeks could build to a potential new album.

Earlier this year, the Smashing Pumpkins spent time in Nashville recording a “conceptual double album,” according to Billy Corgan.

“When we got back together with James, we went in with Rick Rubin and did eight songs,” Corgan told The Tennessean at the time. “It was put out as a formal album, but I said at the time — and I did mean it — in my eyes, it wasn’t an album. We didn’t approach it like we’ve approached every other album we’d ever done, which is more like making a movie.”

He continued, “In many ways, this is the first real album [since the reunion] where we’ve hunkered down and made a classic, ‘Let’s throw it all at the wall and see what happens’ type of Pumpkins record. I’ve been working on it for over a year. It currently is at 21 songs, and we’re going to release it as a double this year.” With Corgan mentioning that there were 21 songs, is it a mere coincidence that the countdown clocks are all separated by 21 days?

Another possible scenario includes a series of reissues and there just so happens to be five (or six depending how you count the two Machina albums in 2000) releases from the first era of the band. There have also been four studio albums plus the massive Teargarden by Kaleidyscope undertaking since Billy Corgan resumed the band with 2007’s Zeitgeist should a latter revisitation of Pumpkins work take place that could account for the five countdown clocks.

With the pandemic, it’s hard to imagine the countdowns tying to touring, though with many bands putting on full production livestreams in socially distanced concert settings, it’s not out of the question to consider some full length album performance streams.

You’ve got some time to let the mind wander through the possibilities, but we’ll have a better idea when the clock counts down 11 days from now.