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Jessica Simpson Teams Up With Billy Corgan

andPOP Staff — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:49:27 +0000

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Jessica Simpson is coming back in a big way! The multitalented starlet is taking a big leap back into TV and a big leap back into music, and is also teaming up with legendary rocker Billy Corgan.

Simpson is staring in a new docuseries called “The Price of Beauty” which will follow the new life of the pop star. Jessica told MTV News about the experience.

“I view the world very differently,” she said. “Everything’s not as big of a deal as people make it out to be, and that’s a really great place to be in. I know there’s nothing that anybody can say about me that will take me to a very low place, because I am stronger.”

The theme song for the show is titled “Who We Are.” In writing the song Jessica partnered with Billy Corgan, Evan Bogart, Shari Short and Kerry Brown.

“I ended up writing the song with some friends and it was about all these places that I’d gone to and the experience that I had,” she told MTV News about the track written specifically for the show.

In the song, Simpson seems to answer critics with lines like “We’re beautiful/ Our flaws and all/ They’re beautiful to me/ It’s who we are, who we are/ It’s who we’re meant to be.”

Smashing Pumpkins Announce New, Free Music Come October

Emma Renda — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:15:53 +0000

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Free music is sweet. Forty-four free brand new Smashing Pumpkins songs is even better. Frontman Billy Corgan revealed news on his website last week that the band will be releasing their new, enormous album via free downloads in a series of releases starting this October.

Though the songs are part of an album called Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, they will not be released in a bundle. Instead, the song will begin popping up on the website around Halloween and 11 four-song “mini-boxset” EPs will be released to the public. Once all 44 songs are up, a full box-set will be assembled. These boxsets will be available for sale, in some cases with exclusive demos attached.

Corgan has always been something of a maverick in the way of online music, beating Radiohead to the punch when he released Machina II/The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music for free back in 2000, Pitchfork reports.

The issue of freedom is just one of Corgan’s many new-age beliefs, along with a spiritual website he released a few weeks ago called Everything from Here to There.

“Free will mean free, which means you won’t have to sign up for anything, give an email address, or jump through a hoop. You will be able to go and take the song or songs as you wish, as many times as you wish.”

As for the music, Corgan says the plan is to return to “the original psychedelic roots of The Smashing Pumpkins: atmospheric, melodic, heavy, and pretty.”

Recording started earlier this month, with their new 19-year-old drummer Mike Byrne joining them in the studio for the first time.

After the Pumpkins’ last effort, the much-anticipated flop Zeitgeist, this album could be the make or break for the band, who have strung on their fans in a series of bizarre career moves.

If Kaleidyscope doesn’t pan out, Smashing Pumpkins diehards can always turn to the latest side project from ex-Pumpkin James Iha. It’s called Tinted Windows and it features Iha, Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos, Hanson brother Taylor, and Fountains of Wayne bassist Adam Schlesinger. They even have a self-titled album in stores and did a brief summer tour.

Now I’ll leave you to mull over all this unbelievable information and fact check for yourself, because I swear I’m not lying about any of it.

Smashing Pumpkins Loses Founding Member

Eva Lam — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 19:06:44 +0000

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Drummer Jimmy Chamberlin has left Smashing Pumpkins, making Billy Corgan the only original Pumpkin left in the lineup.

“The SMASHING PUMPKINS’ guitarist, singer, songwriter and founding member Billy Corgan has announced that drummer Jimmy Chamberlin has left the group,” read a statement on the band’s website Friday. “Chamberlin joined the band Corgan founded in Chicago in 1988 and played on all their albums except Adore (1998).”

The statement added that Corgan will continue to write and record as Smashing Pumpkins and plans to head into the studio later this spring.

Following the band’s breakup in 2000, Corgan and Chamberlain played together in the short-lived Zwan before regrouping as Smashing Pumpkins in 2006, albeit without original members James Iha and D’arcy Wretzky.

The group released the album “Zeitgeist” in 2007 and recently went on a 20th anniversary reunion tour.