And who can blame them after their 2007 album, Zeitgeist, bombed? (I didn’t even buy it) It is not news that the record industry is struggling and CD sales are plummeting worse than ever. However, bands never fail to amaze me with their strategies to get people to purchase their music. Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead offering up free tracks. Beck even included a sheet of stickers so you can create your own cover for his album The Information (not gonna lie - that’s pretty cool). It’s things like this that keep music interesting to the so-easily distracted youth who can’t afford to buy anything, much less would want to buy anything if they can easily steal it.

Anyway, I think it’s kind of cool that they are making their song available in the game so that fans can play along to their songs - sorta like karaoke for guitarists, if you will. Billy Corgan will also appear as a character in the game, so you can further immerse yourself in the fantasy that you are as cool as him. Check out some cool footage of Corgan doing motion-capture and talking about his involvement with Guitar Hero:

“I think it’s cool that beyond the musical sense, it’s just the communal sense of people just getting together and having fun. And again, connecting to music, I just think it’s the best thing.”

According to the Smashing Pumpkins official site, “This marks the first time a band has recorded a new song exclusively for the franchise.” Neversoft, the company that developed the new Guitar Hero game, has mentioned the availability of an in-game music store which will make songs, including G.L.O.W, available for download shortly after release of the game on 10/27/08. While this is probably really exciting news for those of us who plan to purchase the game, it is excluding a large demographic - Smashing Pumpkins fans who don’t play Guitar Hero. But then again, the kind of people who will spend hundreds on a video game just might be willing to spend 99 cents to download the song, therefore achieving their goal of actually selling their music this time around. As for the rest of us, we can just stick to the torrents.

You can find a list of songs included with Guitar Hero: World Tour here.

And in case you haven’t heard it yet, listen to the Smashing Pumpkins’ bass-tastic new single, G.L.O.W. on youtube.

Smashing Pumpkins front man Billy Corgan is once again suing someone. This time it’s a photographer who was commissioned to take photo’s and video of Billy Corgan, he claims that his work is unsatisfactory.

“According to Corgan, Cohn has only shown Billy a little bit of his footage, but what he saw “was completely unsatisfactory and not completed in a professional, workmanlike manner in accordance with the standards of a music filmmaker.”

It goes on. The Tribune reports that Corgan twists the knife a bit by claiming that Cohn “misrepresented his filmmaking expertise and does not deserve the money he was paid.” Billy’s looking for a cool $100,000 in damages, plus the return of all footage. Corgan’s lawyer says that Billy sought to use the footage to “create works in different media.”

Smashing Pumpkins original members D’arcy and James Iha are now suing Virgin Records over un-paid digital royalties. To me the Smashing Pumpkins still have not reunited, cause it would take all 4 members being together to constitute a reunion for me. After seeing stories like this about the ego-maniac Billy Corgan its no wonder why they didn’t participate in the reunion.

Source.