As part of the continuing series of reissues of THE SMASHING PUMPKINS’ acclaimed catalog via Virgin/UMe, the iconic alternative band is set to release four separate versions, all fully remastered, of their platinum-selling 1996 box set THE AEROPLANE FLIES HIGH: 6-CD +1 DVD; 5-LPs and Deluxe Digital and Standard Digital editions. The CD/DVD, 5-LP version and digital configurations will be released July 23.
The original THE AEROPLANE FLIES HIGH was a five-disc box set that featured expanded versions of singles from their acclaimed 1995 double album MELLON COLLIE & THE INFINITE SADNESS, including “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” “1979,” “Zero” “Tonight” and “Thirty-Three.” MELLON COLLIE achieved Diamond certification by the RIAA for sales of 10,000,000 discs and digital equivalent per disc (5 million copies of the double album).
These new limited edition box sets of THE AEROPLANE FLIES HIGH feature the original 33 track version—remastered by Bob Ludwig—and expanded to 104 tracks (90 audio and 14 audio-visual) encompassing unreleased demos, alternative versions and live recordings. In addition to expanded versions of Aeroplane’s original 5 discs, a 6th disc contains live recordings from the 1996 Mellon Collie tour, while the DVD content is taken from a July, 4 1997, performance in Belfort, France. Included is a 46-page book with liner notes written by David Wild, plus extensive track-by-track notes by The Smashing Pumpkins founder-singer-songwriter-guitarist Billy Corgan—for the original release’s 33 tracks. The box set has unique packaging with embossed foil wrap & twinkle stock for jackets. To view the full tracklisting of each box set and DVD, go here: http://www.smashingpumpkins.com/albums/the-aeroplane-flies-high-reissue/
As David Wild writes, “The Aeroplane Flies High is a trip, and perhaps fittingly for Billy Corgan, it was an exciting, exhausting and scary one that reveals a lot about the Smashing Pumpkins at this point in their musical journey.”
Notes Corgan in the 46-page book: “What I like about The Aeroplane Flies High is that it’s almost the existential backwater of the Mellon Collie album,” Corgan says today. “Listening to the music gathered here is a little bit like seeing what goes on behind the walls of Disneyland. I’ve always been fascinated with places that are very well constructed, and finding out what’s really going on just over the fence. You look over that gate and notice that things on the other side are not well painted—or maybe you spot that guy dressed as some character sneaking a smoke on his break. At least for me, the behind the scenes feel heard on The Aeroplane Flies High represents something revealing not found on the main album. In retrospect, it’s a nice document of how we arrived at the apex of Mellon Collie—and also what standing on that apex did to us personally.”
The Aeroplane Flies High follows 2011’s acclaimed reissues of the band’s groundbreaking first two albums, Gish (1991) and Siamese Dream (1993), as well as 2012’s PISCES ISCARIOT (1994), the band’s third album, as well as their fourth album, MELLON COLLIE & THE INFINITE SADNESS (1995). ***See press quotes below about the reissue campaign which has the full support and guidance from THE SMASHING PUMPKINS who’ve created one of the most acclaimed bodies of work in musical history, selling over 30 million albums. The global catalog reissue campaign will last through 2013; it will encompass all the band’s albums and B-sides from 1991-2000, with other release dates to be announced. The pivotal group’s many hits defined the alternative music era and continue to resonate on modern rock radio, influencing a whole new generation.
As THE SMASHING PUMPKINS get the fully remastered treatment via these reissues, the band is excited to be moving forward by creating new music. They will soon start recording the follow-up to 2012’s acclaimed album OCEANIA (Martha’s Music/EMI Label Services/Caroline Distribution). It was created by the band—singer/guitarist BILLY CORGAN, guitarist JEFF SCHROEDER, drummer MIKE BYRNE and bassist NICOLE FIORENTINO—at Corgan’s private studio in Chicago as a true album experience for listeners to fully immerse themselves in. It entered the Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart at No. 4 and earned the No. 1 spot on the Independent Albums Chart. Marking THE SMASHING PUMPKINS’ 7th studio record, it is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE. The band launched their 2013 world tour in Mexico this past March and is heading to Europe and Japan for summer dates through August 11.
SELECT CRITICAL QUOTES ABOUT THE SMASHING PUMPKINS REISSUES:
“Its audacious scope and emotional wallop allowed seemingly disparate tracks like the delicate miniature ‘Thirty-Three’ and the thrashing ‘X.Y.U.’ to seem like natural parts of a whole. The extras on the deluxe box set, particularly the deep-dive instrumentals that flaunt Billy Corgan’s guitar prowess (‘Fun Time’) and cutting-room-floor denizens that reveal pop punch (the sweet, wistful ‘Pennies’), show how Corgan’s mid-nineties creative peak couldn’t even be contained by two CDs.”
–Maura Johnston, ROLLING STONE, January 11, 2013 ****four-star review (re Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness)
“If Corgan felt any constraints to make an accessible product with his orphaned tracks fifteen years ago, those shackles are clearly gone now. We’re deep in it now. A dyed-in-wool fan of any band will always tell you that the quality of their band’s unreleased material rivals that of their released material. This is something Smashing Pumpkins fans have been boasting all along. Pisces Iscariot (Deluxe Edition) does not change this argument for them, it just reaffirms it. With two CDs. And a DVD. And a cassette. Don’t worry old-school Pumpkins fans, you will have a lifetime of listening material. And your favorite band still has an impressive display of unreleased ****. Now go have fun. Get lost in it.”
— John Garratt, POPMATTERS.COM, August 1, 2012 (re Pisces Iscariot)
“The remastered albums still sound potent – a testament to the rigorous attention to detail that Corgan and producer Butch Vig brought to the original sessions…Gish remains among the more sensual hard-rock albums of the decade…His voice rides the curve of the guitars, the arrangements swerving rather than stomping in typical hard-rock fashion, yielding surprises with each turn. For all its sensitivity to flow, the group could crush your skull when you least expected it, going from near-silence to a thunderclap. The ebb-and-surge dynamics in a track such as “Siva” still impress, as if Corgan were trying to compress a side-long suite by his beloved Rush into four minutes.”
— Greg Kot, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, November 27, 2011 (re Gish and Siamese Dream)
“Billy Corgan brought an auteur’s sensibility to nineties alternative rock: he didn’t smash guitars, he stroked them into ecstatic swells of heaviosity as he cooed composition-book poetry. With 1993’s Siamese Dream—which, like the band’s debut, Gish, had been beautifully remastered and loaded with extras, including a hometown show on DVD—Corgan built a monument to art rock and OCD. His dizzy, acid-softened side lent songs like ‘Hummer’ their poignancy—and animates the best bonus material.”
–Nick Catucci , ROLLING STONE, December 8, 2011, (re Gish and Siamese Dream)
About THE SMASHING PUMPKINS:
THE SMASHING PUMPKINS have created one of the most acclaimed bodies of work in musical history having sold more than 30 million albums, and won multiple Grammy® Awards in the process. Formed in Chicago in 1988, they released Gish, their influential and platinum debut in 1991, which was followed by albums including the nine-times platinum Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness and the four-times platinum Siamese Dream, as well as the platinum-certified 1998 album Adore. The pivotal group’s many hits defined the alternative music era and continue to resonate on modern rock radio, influencing a whole new generation. The PUMPKINS returned in 2007 with their acclaimed sixth album Zeitgeist. They have since remained on the cutting edge of music and technology with various online releases. In June 2012, the band released the album OCEANIA, via Martha’s Music/EMI Label Services/Caroline Distribution. Marking THE SMASHING PUMPKINS’ 7th studio record, it is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
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