The Smashing Pumpkins reissue their platinum selling box set, 'The Aeroplane Flies High'
Box set release: The Aeroplane Flies High by The Smashing Pumpkins
Release date: 23 July 2013
Label: Virgin / UMe
As part of the continuing series of reissues of The Smashing Pumpkins' acclaimed catalog via Virgin/UMe, the iconic alternative band is set to release four separate versions, all fully remastered, of their platinum-selling 1996 box set The Aeroplane Flies High: 6-CD +1 DVD; 5-LPs; and Deluxe Digital and Standard Digital editions. The CD/DVD, 5-LP version and digital configurations will be released on July 23.
The original The Aeroplane Flies high was a five-disc box set that featured expanded versions of singles from their acclaimed 1995 double album Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness, including Bullet With Butterfly Wings, 1979, Zero, Tonight and Thirty-Three. Mellon Collie achieved Diamond certification by the RIAA for sales of 10,000,000 discs and digital equivalent per disc (5 million copies of the double album).
These new limited edition box sets of The Aeroplane Flies High feature the original 33 track version—remastered by Bob Ludwig—and expanded to 104 tracks (90 audio and 14 audio-visual) encompassing unreleased demos, alternative versions and live recordings. In addition to expanded versions of Aeroplane’s original 5 discs, a 6th disc contains live recordings from the 1996 Mellon Collie tour, while the DVD content is taken from a July 4 1997 performance in Belfort, France. Included is a 46-page book with liner notes written by David Wild, plus extensive track-by-track notes by The Smashing Pumpkins' founder-singer-songwriter-guitarist Billy Corgan for the original release’s 33 tracks. The box set has unique packaging with embossed foil wrap and twinkle stock for jackets. You can view the full tracklisting of each box set and DVD here.
As David Wild writes, “The Aeroplane Flies High is a trip, and perhaps fittingly for Billy Corgan, it was an exciting, exhausting and scary one that reveals a lot about the Smashing Pumpkins at this point in their musical journey.”
Notes Corgan in the 46-page book: “What I like about The Aeroplane Flies High is that it’s almost the existential backwater of the Mellon Collie album. Listening to the music gathered here is a little bit like seeing what goes on behind the walls of Disneyland. I’ve always been fascinated with places that are very well constructed, and finding out what’s really going on just over the fence. You look over that gate and notice that things on the other side are not well painted — or maybe you spot that guy dressed as some character sneaking a smoke on his break. At least for me, the behind the scenes feel heard on The Aeroplane Flies High represents something revealing not found on the main album. In retrospect, it’s a nice document of how we arrived at the apex of Mellon Collie — and also what standing on that apex did to us personally.”
The Aeroplane Flies High follows 2011’s acclaimed reissues of the band’s groundbreaking first two albums, Gish (1991) and Siamese Dream (1993), as well as 2012’s Pisces Iscariot (1994), the band’s third album, as well as their fourth album, Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness (1995).
As The Smashing Pumpkins get the fully remastered treatment via these reissues, the band is excited to be moving forward by creating new music. They will soon start recording the follow-up to 2012’s acclaimed album Oceania (Martha’s Music / EMI Label Services / Caroline Distribution). It was created by the band — singer/guitarist Billy Corgan, guitarist Jeff Schroeder, drummer Mike Byrne and bassist Nicole Fiorentino — at Corgan’s private studio in Chicago as a true album experience for listeners to fully immerse themselves in. It entered the Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart at No. 4 and earned the No. 1 spot on the Independent Albums Chart. Marking the band's 7th studio record, it is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress Teargarden by Kaleidyscope. The band launched their 2013 world tour in Mexico this past March and is heading to Europe and Japan for summer dates through August 11.