Smashing Pumpkins Sign With EMI for Distribution of New Album, 'Oceania'

The Smashing Pumpkins have found a distribution partner for their upcoming album Oceania, signing a worldwide deal with EMI Label Services/Caroline Distribution that only excludes Canada, Brazil and Australia.

our editor recommends

Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan Starts Wrestling Company

PHOTOS: 10 Grammy Greats

Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan, who has not been shy about his disdain for the state of the music industry lately, going off in two separate interviews at SXSW, produced the album, set to drop June 19. Oceania is intended to be part of Corgan's multiple-album, 44-track opus Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, making it an "album within an album."

This is not the band's first dalliance with EMI; their relationship dates back to the release of the Pumpkins' debut Gish in 1991 which went platinum.

Oceania will be the band's first album since 2007's Zeitgeist, and their reasoning for signing the exclusive deal with EMI was linked to the band's desire to release the album to their fans without pre-releasing it to press or radio, ensuring everyone hears it first at the same time. "We were excited to find partners in EMI Label Services that were equally passionate about the plan for the album release," manager Peter Katsis said in a statement.

STORY: Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan Starts Wrestling Company

Corgan's rants at SXSW were aimed at Twitter and YouTube among others, claiming that the former platform does not equate to the level of activism that he and the Pumpkins represented in the 1990s, and that he would have to light himself on fire on the latter platform just to get noticed these days - and that even that would not be enough anymore. He then condemned the state of rock completely.

"Don't call it rock and roll," he said. "I was part of a generation that changed the world - and it was taken over by poseurs."