Niki N. Phaser

                  Smashing Pumpkins have premiered a new single, Widow Wake My Mind, through MySpace. The song is the second installment in Billy Corgan & co.’s 44 tracks project, entitled Teargarden by Kaleidyscope. It’s quite a different kind of tune than first single, A Song For a Son, which was made available as a free download last month. Maybe it’s just the infectious hopeful sound of this new track, but this diversity promises an interesting project. It is not set yet, but if this will be a one-by-month kind of venture, Smashing Pumpkins might become a favorited show, though waiting 30 days for a new episode is a bit frustrating. Anyway, it’s nice to always have a little pleasure to look forward to. Like the rest of the tracks which Teargarden by Kaleidyscope is comprised of, Widow Wake My Mind is a free download.

LISTEN TO THE WIDOW

          A Song for a Son marks the beginning of Smashing Pumpkins’ new album, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope. If that sounds slightly weird, we can ‘blame’ Billy Corgan for it. After remaining the last original Pumpkin in the band, the singer decided to give up on the idea of a standard album and instead release a series of 44 singles. When they’re all done, they’ll be put together in the mega-album Teargarden by Kaleidyscope. Till that happens, the band are offering the songs as free downloads, as well as four EPs, for those of you who still need to read liner notes, while listening to a freshly bought record. This new song is not quite a revelation, sounds more like a recent recorded try at a shelved project. No worries, there are still 43 to come, though it’s still unclear when.

Listen or Download (or both) Here

Irish alternative trio Ash announced a while ago that they are done with making albums. They’ve also made public plans to release 26 singles, starting from september this year and going all the way to 2010, with a new song released every two weeks. They even gave us a preview taste with Return of White Rabitt. Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins actually talked about this method some time ago, but nothing was settled. Beyond this being important news for Ash fans, we have to wonder: is this the beginning of the singles revolution ? As we all know, the iTunes culture really made its mark on the industry, as increasingly more people prefer to download just certain tracks from an artist’s album. This is certainly one of the reasons why bands are no longer releasing simple cd’s, but also limited edition boxsets and DVD’s and bonus tracks and whatnot. The method adopted by Ash will surely offer equal spotlight to all new material and it might be very effective for a band that doesn’t make a lot from album sales. This could be the spark that ignites the singles takeover. On the other hand, it will take a long time for people to part ways with the traditional way of buying music – that unique moment when you open a cd for the first time and fear to even touch, as it is so pristine + the original artwork…

RETURN OF THE WHITE RABITT