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Battery Park | Entertainment | Rock
About The Smashing Pumpkins
The Smashing Pumpkins are one of the most iconic, iconoclastic, and influential bands of all time, shaping alternative music and culture. Since forming in Chicago during 1988, the group have sold over 30 million albums worldwide and garnered two GRAMMY® Awards, two MTV VMAs, and an American Music Award. Their catalog includes seminal offerings such as the platinum Gish [1991], the quadruple-platinum Siamese Dream [1993], the diamond-certified Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness [1995], the platinum Adore [1998], and the gold Machina/The Machines of God [2000]. Rolling Stone cited both Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness among its “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” It would also be impossible to envision alternative music and culture without their signature iconography such as the idyllic album artwork for Siamese Dream, the black Zero shirt, the laissez faire bliss of the “1979” music video, the gothic metamorphosis of “Ava Adore,” or the multi-dimensional live shows that sell out worldwide to this day. 2018 saw The Smashing Pumpkins unveil the SHINY AND OH SO BRIGHT, VOL. 1 / LP: NO PAST. NO FUTURE. NO SUN. and launch the immensely successful Shiny and Oh So Bright Tour, which packed arenas. Maintaining this momentum, the band released their eleventh full-length double album CYR [2020], representing yet another evolution, and more recently, ATUM [2023], the sequel to 1995’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and 2000’s Machina/Machine of God. As prolific as ever, The Smashing Pumpkins are currently working on new music. More details to come.
ICONIC. HYPNOTIC. GODDESS. PVRIS.
Hailing from Boston, MA, PVRIS – the creative project of vocalist/instrumentalist/songwriter, Lyndsey Gunnulfsen (aka Lynn Gunn) – focuses on artistry, emotional resonance, and story-telling in her music. Rather than be tied down to a specific genre, PVRIS has always explored a diverse, eclectic mix of sounds, resulting in a genre all their own. It is this controversial, innovative, and risk-taking approach that has led to Lynn being lauded as a modern pop/rock icon – performing on Jimmy Kimmel Live, featuring on magazine covers like Rock Sound, Alternative Press, Gay Times, and Kerrang!, and winning the Rock Sound Icon award, Artist of the Year, and Alt Press Breakthrough Band of the Year award. “It’s not my job as an artist to cater to certain trends or people’s nostalgia,” Gunnulfsen shares, “I have to follow what I feel compelled to follow and do my best to uncover what truths and messages I can find within that. I have to always embrace the risks of change and trust that each stage of my music’s life will resonate with whoever it’s meant to.”
It is with this mindset that PVRIS took the unconventional approach of disengaging completely from the public eye to write/record their new album, EVERGREEN. Weary of seeing how modern culture has become so dependent on the internet, social media, instant gratification, and the ever-present “algorithm,” Gunnulfsen embarked on a journey of reflection, meditation, and self-discovery. The result is a body of work that feels timeless and refreshing. “If you search the definition of ‘evergreen,’ you will find words like: enduring, timeless, fresh, unlimited, and renewal,” Gunnulfsen explains, “In our modern culture where everything is online, algorithm-based, and instantaneous, it feels like timelessness, longevity and connection could someday become dying concepts. More than ever, PVRIS has, and always will be anti-formula, anti-virality, and anti-instant gratification.”
With a strong sense of purpose and direction in mind, Gunnulfsen focused on co-producing the album alongside a diverse selection of expertly enlisted production collaborators, from Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, who co-produced the arena-primed aggressive rock track “TAKE MY NIRVANA”, to American producers Y2K, JT Daly, Matias Mora, and Carrie Karpinen. Highly-inventive and extremely cohesive, the album opens with the explosive and personal track “I DON’T WANNA DO THIS ANYMORE” and leads into the ferocious, defiant “ANIMAL” – a song about breaking free of control, whether it’s from other people or from ourselves. “It’s about challenging the identity the outside world chooses to give you,” Gunnulfsen adds, “It’s also a comment on fame and spectacle. We do each other a disservice by restricting one another to these metaphorical cages, the ones we’re constantly putting others in and being put in by others. Animal is about challenging that.”
While many of the songs evoke politically-charged themes, the invigorating album is met with a narrative that is also deeply introspective. Songs like “ANYWHERE BUT HERE” and “LOVE IS A…” dissolve into a luscious, trance-like experience that breathes levity into an intimate atmosphere. “At its core, “ANYWHERE BUT HERE” is about wanting to escape your surroundings. I think a lot of us experience that to some degree, a longing to be somewhere or with someone you can’t necessarily identify.”
