Smashing Pumpkins Go Glam/Synth-Rock for New Songs ‘Cyr’ and ‘The Colour of Love’ (Watch/Listen)

Leave it to Billy Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins — they’re always moving to the beat of their own drum, as the saying goes.

(Click here to shop the Smashing Pumpkins in our Rock Cellar Store).

Late Thursday night, the alt/rock band re-emerged with a pair of new songs, the first since Corgan, guitarist James Iha, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin and guitarist Jeff Schroeder released Shiny and Oh So Bright, Vol. 1 / LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun. in 2018. 

But if you were expecting more guitar-driven rock in the vein of Iha and Corgan’s classic mid-1990s output, well … that’s not what they’re up to just yet. Instead, the two songs the band debuted are straight-up disco/glam-rock anthems, led by propulsive synth and groove. Here’s “Cyr,” which also received a stylish black-and-white music video:

And here’s “The Colour of Love”:

These are previews of a forthcoming Smashing Pumpkins record, which — if the Pumpkins’ recent social media scavenger hunt and simultaneous countdown clocks are to be believed, should be announced pretty soon.

Corgan referred to “Cyr” in a statement as “dystopic folly,” “one soul against the world sort of stuff, set against a backdrop of shifting loyalties and sped up time. To me it stands as both hopeful and dismissive of what is and isn’t possible with faith.”

As for this mysterious new album: Corgan reunited with “classic era” guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin for a reunion tour in 2018 and an album, 2018’s Shiny and Oh So Bright Vol. 1 / LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun. — with Corgan then saying in January 2020 that the band was working on 21 songs for a “pretty different” sort of album.

In a chat with the Tennessean, Corgan divulged more about what makes this new material “different” in scope: