Smashing: Spotify invite available from Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan

by Bill Palmer

Spotify has arrived in the United States – for a few invitees. And while Google+ invites can be handed out like unlimited candy, golden tickets into the Spotify music streaming service are limited and hard to come by. It turns out Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan is handing them out publicly, however. On his @Billy account on Twitter, Corgan stated “very excited by Spotify in America. I have a very good feeling about this” and later went on to explain that “i support Spotify for the same reason i supported Napster back in the day! Visionary music models that encourage sharing and artist loyalty.” His Spotify invite page, which is still functional as of this posting, is right here. It’s not immediately clear whether the invites Billy is offering are infinitely available or will run out.

Corgan appears to be putting his musical catalog where his mouth is, as a Spotify search reveals a hundred or more Smashing Pumpkins songs are already available within the music service. Meanwhile, Smashing Pumpkins are in the midst of making new album Oceania, a traditional-length album which fits within the larger ongoing Teargarden by Kaleidyscope project. Billy spoke with Beatweek last year about the Teargarden project in a cover story interview.

Billy Corgan teases new Smashing Pumpkins “Oceania” album tracklist

Billy Corgan has announced that the Smashing Pumpkins are set to release something of an album-within-an-album in the form of Oceania. In the midst of his multi-year, one song at a time Teargarden by Kaleidyscope forty-four song opus, Corgan says Oceania will be released as a traditionally formatted album; the songs will in turn be part of the ongoing Teargarden collection. Today he came one step closer to making Oceania a public reality by teasing the possibility of tweeting the tentative tracklisting. From his @Billy account on Twitter, earlier today: “I’m assuming those that are SP fans in the crowd wouldn’t mind me putting up a tentative tracklisting of the ‘Oceania’ album?”

Corgan hasn’t yet posted the song titles, but we recommend Pumpkins fans keep an eye on his Twitter account as the evening goes on. Yesterday he revealed that there were only two songs remaining which still needed percussion parts, to be provided by Pumpkins drummer Mike Byrne. Then it’ll be “bass, bass, bass” in reference to the parts to be added by Pumpkins bassist Nicole Fiorentino, before “the [guitar] army shows up.”

The “proper” album in the form of Oceania comes in the midst of new Pumpkins songs being released incrementally for free through the band’s official website. Teargarden has been underway since last year; Corgan spoke with Beatweek about it early on in the process in our cover story interview. Meanwhile, plans are now in motion for the Smashing Pumpkins back catalog from the band’s major label days to see rerelease along with a chunk of previously unreleased older material. For those Pumpkins fans who can’t wait to find out the (tentative) tracklisting for Oceania, here is Billy Corgan’s official Twitter account.