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Smashing Pumpkins complete Machina II reissue, features roughly 80 tracks

The album was “written to be kind of like a musical,” said frontman Billy Corgan.

Billy Corgan onstage

Image: Barry Brecheisen / Getty

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The Smashing Pumpkins have completed their reissue of Machina II/The Friends & Enemies Of Modern Music, which will include roughly 80 tracks, according to frontman Billy Corgan.

Machina II was released in 2000 as a free download to accompany the band’s fifth studio album Machina/The Machines Of God. Virgin Records had allegedly refused to allow the band to release both records simultaneously due to poor sales of 1998’s Adore.

Only 25 physical copies of the album were printed for its release and owners were encouraged to share the songs online.

The upcoming reissue of Machina II reworks the album to closely follow the band’s original artistic vision. Corgan, speaking to Radio.com’s New Arrivals, said: “[Machina II] was written to be kind of like a musical, but because it was never finished, it was like shooting a movie that wasn’t fully edited.”

Machina I was like one edit of the footage, and Machina II was some of the leftover footage – but there was even more stuff leftover,” he continued. “So, this was my attempt, 20 years later, to kind of finish the movie and in the process of trying to finish the movie, realising the movie can never be finished.”

He added that Machina II’s remaster will be “in the 80 track range”.

Meanwhile, the Smashing Pumpkins are due to release a sequel album to Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness and Machina in the near future. Corgan took to YouTube to share that the 33-song album will be dropping in late 2021.

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