CHICAGO — Longtime fans of The Smashing Pumpkins are reportedly shocked and infuriated that the band’s latest release, “Aghori Mhori Mei,” is actually pretty darn good, enraged sources confirm.
“I had resigned myself to making fun of Billy Corgan for the rest of my life. I mean, as a lifelong fan of the band it’s been my solemn duty to mock him for decades now. I never expected to hear something decent from them again, let alone something that takes me back to the glory days,” Tom Wilkins, 42, lamented, after angrily buying the album on vinyl. “I was ready to tear into this shit on the Smashing Pumpkins subreddit. But then I played ‘Pentagrams’ and ‘Sighommi,’ and I… I like it, like really like it. And my god, that pisses me off.”
The confusion among fans hasn’t gone unnoticed by frontman Billy Corgan, who, in a rare moment of self-awareness, issued a formal apology to his supporters.
“I’m truly sorry for this album. I really don’t know what came over me. I know you’ve come to expect a certain level of mediocrity from our work, and I’ve let you down,” Corgan stated during a press conference. “From here on out, I’ll stick to what I do best: wrestling, and maybe releasing a double album of ambient noise. Rest assured, our next project will be so banal and inscrutable, even I won’t understand it. I’ve learned my lesson and it won’t happen again.”
University of Chicago Music Historian Dr. Alice DeLuca weighed in on this type of emotional reaction from fans.
“Historically, bands that achieve massive success in their early years tend to decline steeply, and their newer music is, at best, ignored by their fanbase and, at worst, lambasted by them,” Dr. DeLuca explained. “The fact that Smashing Pumpkins managed to pull off a solid album in 2024 is unsettling for many. It disrupts the natural order, where we expect nothing but mediocrity and nostalgia-fueled disappointment from aging rock stars.”
To restore balance to the universe, Corgan quickly announced his latest project: a spoken-word album of improvised poetry set to the sound of trains passing in the distance.