Billy Corgan has canceled a plan to release Smashing Pumpkins’ new Christmas album, explaining to journalist Jennifer Wigel that he didn’t like the results of the recording sessions.
“I actually started a Christmas album a couple of years ago. We kind of did it quick, and I wasn’t satisfied with the results, so I junked it all. But I had written some songs, and I had found some cool obscure songs, and picked a couple of classics that I liked. I hope we get around to it some time, but at the moment, it’s completely stalled.”
Corgan apparently doesn’t have the Christmas sprit of the late Scott Weiland, who released his classic Christmas album The Most Wonderful Time of the Year in October 2011.
The Pumpkins first worked on the Christmas album in 2018 when James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin rejoined the band, with Corgan frequently discussing it in Instagram fan Q&A’s around this time. He also told USA Today back then, “It would be a mixture. I have released two Christmas songs, and I was thinking it would be nice to re-record those in the context of the record we would make. It would be probably lean more acoustic.
I would think it’s a bit weird [to make] wild Christmas records. Although, I also like ‘Jingle Bell Rock’, which is basically 1950s rockabilly. But I don’t know. When I think Christmas music, I tend to think something you want to put on and sit around the tree with the kids and not rock out to. I don’t see us doing a rocking-out Christmas album.”
The Pumpkins released “Christmastime” in 1997, but they haven’t ventured into Christmas song territory since then.
