The classic Smashing Pumpkins line-up were so dysfunctional that they couldn’t even split up properly. It was in the wake of the response to 1998’s Adore, a muted album that got a muted response, that the band’s imperious Commander-in-Chief Billy Corgan decided it was time to go out with a bang. What actually happened is that the frontman ended up with sparks flying all over the place, the odd firework landing on a house and setting it on fire. That pretty much sums up the tale of their 2000 album Machina/The Machines Of God, which turned 25 this week. Things were never straightforward with the 90s iteration of The Smashing Pumpkins.
“I finished Adore and went, ‘Right, I want off this sinking ship’,” Corgan told Uncut a few years ago. “I was determined to sink it my way.” To stage this little voyage to the bottom of the ocean, though, Corgan wanted everyone on board and that would mean the return of totemic drummer Jimmy Chamberlin.
