THE SMASHING PUMPKINS' Defining 1995 Double Album 'MELLON COLLIE & THE INFINITE SADNESS' Earns Diamond Certification From The RIAA For Sales Of 10 Million Discs

HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Oct. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- THE SMASHING PUMPKINS' career-defining 1995 double album MELLON COLLIE & THE INFINITE SADNESS has earned Diamond certification by the RIAA for sales of 10,000,000 discs and digital equivalent per disc (5 million copies of the double album). This news comes in the midst of EMI Music's extensive reissue campaign honoring the legacy of the iconic alternative band. It continues December 3 in North America and December 4 internationally with the PUMPKINS' fourth album MELLON COLLIE & THE INFINITE SADNESS receiving the fully remastered treatment for the first time. This follows last year's acclaimed reissues (*see quotes below) of the band's groundbreaking first two albums, Gish (1991) and Siamese Dream (1993), as well as this past summer's Pisces Iscariot (1994), the band's third album.

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Originally released October 24, 1995, MELLON COLLIE AND THE INFINITE SADNESS would debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified 9x platinum by the RIAA. It yielded major hits like "Bullet With Butterfly Wings"–the band's unlikely first Top 40 hit–the exquisite "1979" and epic "Tonight, Tonight" as well as a thoroughly inspired series of videos. Produced by BILLY CORGAN, Flood and Alan Moulder, the album would also earn a Grammy Award (1996 Best Hard Rock Performance for "Bullet With Butterfly Wings") as well as seven nominations.  Beyond the more obvious hits, though, MELLON COLLIE is a song cycle of unusual depth and considerable range. It is a collection of stunningly beautiful moments when everything lined up--a moment in time that's still here to be treasured.

MELLON COLLIE AND THE INFINITE SADNESS is being released in multiple physical and digital configurations, including an expanded 5CD+DVD Deluxe Box Set (also available digitally) and the remastered original album in 4LP Vinyl, 2CD, and digital formats. The Deluxe Box Set's 5 CDs include 64 bonus tracks of previously unreleased material or alternate versions of MELLON COLLIE era songs, and its DVD features a live show filmed at the Brixton Academy, London (1996) and bonus performances from the German music television show Rockpalast (1996). It all comes housed in a 12 x 12 lift-top box with magnetic closure, reimagined cover art and velvet-lined disc holder. The package includes 2 books containing personal notes, lyrics, new collage artwork, plus a Decoupage kit for creating your own scenes from the MELLON COLLIE universe. The bonus content and special features were curated from the band's archives by CORGAN, and have been painstakingly remastered for the first time from the original master tapes by Bob Ludwig. *See all track listings below. 

"What strikes me now about Mellon Collie is that we were coming off of making Siamese Dream with Butch Vig--which was a very idealized statement," CORGAN tells writer David Wild  in the liner notes. "Siamese Dream was very successful and very much at the forefront of how records are made now with a strong perfectionist streak. Yet coming off of that success, we went completely in the opposite direction working with Flood and Alan Moulder. We headed into a much darker, funkier and more visceral terrain. Revisiting Mellon Collie for this edition, that's what struck me--that we made this kind of dramatic 'about face"'at a time when most people would have made an even more expensive idealized statement. We went deep, and we went for something expansive sounding--not just expensive sounding."

The decision to work with the respected British producer and audio engineer Flood--AKA Mark Ellis--and his longtime collaborator Alan Moulder--was a significant one for THE PUMPKINS. The group had admired Flood's work with artists from U2 to Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode. "I loved Butch Vig very much then, and I still do," CORGAN explains. "The decision to switch things up was based on the sense that there was some whole other thing that could be gotten to by us, but that a more radical approach was going to be necessary to get to it. We knew we wanted to continue our evolving consciousness, but we were not quite sure how to do it."

With 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--EMI's 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. Released June 19, 2012, the acclaimed album OCEANIA (Martha's Music/EMI Label Services/Caroline Distribution) 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. The powerful 13-song collection was produced by Corgan and Bjorn Thorsrud and mixed by David Bottrill. It entered the Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart at #4 and earned the #1 spot on the Independent Albums Chart. Marking THE SMASHING PUMPKINS' 7^th studio record, it is "an album within an album," part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.  The band is touring worldwide in 2012, with a North American arena tour this fall.

SELECT CRITICAL QUOTES ABOUT THE SMASHING PUMPKINS REISSUES:

"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 (12/8/11)." 

-- Nick Catucci, ROLLING STONE, December 8, 2011 (re Gish and Siamese Dream)

"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)

"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 shit. Now go have fun. Get lost in it."

-- John Garratt, POPMATTERS.COM, August 1, 2012 (re Pisces Iscariot)

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-time platinum Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness and the four-time 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' 7^th studio record, it is "an album within an album," part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.

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SOURCE EMI Music