Billy Corgan Tweets Full Tracklist of New Smashing Pumpkins Album Oceania

Billy Corgan, the sole remaining member of the original Smashing Pumpkins lineup, recently announced that the band is putting out a new release – just don’t call it an album – and unveiled the tracklist via Twitter. Titled Oceania, the new Smashing Pumpkins work is slated for later in 2011 and is part of the group’s Teargarden by Kaleidyscope project, an ongoing series of original tracks released for download through the band’s website.

In a guest blog post on June 3 for Ain’t No Sleep When You’re Living the Dream, Corgan elaborated on the concept behind Teargarden: “Teargarden was conceived in my head and heart as a documented journey of faith. Where it differentiates from the classic album model is that it is an attempt to capture an arc of expression as opposed to the just result of a foregone conclusion. Teargarden is about the confusion that comes from asking a very real question;, 'how do you make something work that appears to all to be broken?'”

More to the point, Corgan mentioned on Facebook why he doesn’t consider Oceania an album: “I still stand by my view that I don’t think albums are particularly relevant at this time. That may change. But as far as making music, from a writing point of view, it’s really going to focus me to put a group of songs together that are supposed to go together.”

On June 1, Corgan released the supposed full tracklist on his Twitter account:

@Billy: O//Pale Horse/Panopticon/The Chimera/Four Winds Chime/Glissandra/Inkless/My Love is Winter/Special K/Pinwheels/Oceania/Violet Rays/Quasar

Contradicting himself in the June 3 post, however, he stated that only 12 out of these 13 tracks will actually appear on the release.

The rest of the motions behind releasing Oceania are nearly similar to those for putting out an ordinary album. Corgan mentioned on Facebook that Smashing Pumpkins are expected to tour later in 2011 (no dates are scheduled yet), and, at the end of May, the group was spotted shooting a video for non-album song “Owata” in Berwyn, Ill.